Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State has urged the federal Government to get out from the oil and gas sector.
El-Rufai stated this in his speech at the seventh edition of KadInvest, an annual event organised by the Kaduna State Investment Promotion Agency.
According to Channels Television, he noted that whatever the government manages turns out bad and sectors doing well in the country like entertainment, telecoms, fintech and others have no government involvement.
The Governor further averred that the commercialization of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company in July 2022 has changed nothing, and that the NNPC is Nigeria’s biggest problem and should be privatized.
He pointed out that Nigerian Telecommunications Limited achieved nothing until the private sector came in and revolutionalized the telecoms business.
El-Rufai reportedly also called for the privatization of the power sector so the country can overcome the hydra-headed and decades-long challenges of the sector.
He said; “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.
“So, the government should sell everything in oil and gas sector…The government should get out of everything that is left of electricity, leave it to the private sector, create the environment, the money will come. We did it in the telecoms sector.
“Nothing has changed, it’s just a change in name with limited at the end.
“Nothing has changed, they are still taking our money, declaring profit that we don’t see the dividends.”
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