Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai said on Thursday that the federal government has failed in the oil and gas business and should exit the industry.
The governor spoke on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on the occasion of the seventh edition of KadInvest, an annual event organised by the Kaduna State Investment Promotion Agency.
El-Rufai, speaking on the theme of this year’s KadInvest, ‘Building a Resilient Economy,’ said that whatever the government manages ends up being bad, and that the sectors that are doing well in the country, such as entertainment, telecoms, fintech, and others, have no government involvement.
He said nothing has changed with the commercialisation of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company in July 2022, adding that NNPC is Nigeria’s biggest problem and should be privatised.
The All Progressives Congress governor said though the Group Chief Executive Officer of NNPC Limited, Mele Kyari is trying his best, the company has failed and has no business being in the sector.
He cited an example of the Nigerian Telecommunications Limited which achieved nothing until the private sector came in and revolutionalised the telecoms business.
“I am giving this example so that when I say government should get out of oil and gas, people should not think it is crazy; it is not. There is no reason why the Nigerian Government should still be in the oil and gas sector. It should just get out, it has failed. By every measure it has failed.
“This year, NNPC has not brought N20,000 to the federation account. We are living on taxes. It is PPTs, royalties, income tax and VAT that is keeping this country going because NNPC claims that subsidy has taken all the oil revenues. I don’t believe it,” El-Rufai noted.