Atiku Accuses Tinubu Of Unduly Favouring Oando In Oil and Gas Sector

The Presidential Candidate of the Peoples Democratic President (PDP) at the last election, Atiku Abubakar, has accused President Bola Tinubu of practising favouritism as relates to Oando PLC.

Atiku made these accusations on Sunday in a statement released by his media aide, Paul Ibe.

His reaction comes hot on the heels of Oando’s rapid approval to buy the onshore assets of AGIP and ENI.

Atiku held that there were disparities in issuing approvals, noting that transactions such as the Shell/Renaissance deal and the Mobil/Seplat were suffering setbacks.

According to him, the government of Tinubu was operating a “sham subsidy regime as revealed in the financial statement recently released by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL).”

“Tinubu visited the FMDQ in New York, visited Qatar, visited France where he told lies about removing petrol subsidies.

“Obviously, this is not a man who is serious about attracting FDI. More worrisome is that he is not even brave enough to admit that subsidy is being paid. The NNPCL admits that N7.8tn is owed to the national oil company by the Nigerian government.

“IMF estimates that subsidy payments this year will constitute 3% of GDP, which is about $7.5bn. This will be about N11.8tn. Yet, the petrol scarcity continues to linger while the Tinubu administration continues to frustrate the Dangote Refinery and even its own NNPCL facilities.

“Obviously, the subsidy regime has become an even wider conduit pipe through which monies for funding the 2027 election will come from,” the statement read.

Atiku emphasized that the preferencial treatment given to Oando is coming at the detriment of otehr investors in the sector.

“Within just eight months, the Nigerian Upstream Production Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) approved a deal which saw the divestment of ENI/AGIP onshore assets to Oando.

“Within that same period, Nigeria controversially withdrew all litigation against Shell/ENI in the OPL 245 scandal in what has been described as a quid pro quo.

“However, the attempt by SEPLAT to buy Mobil’s onshore assets has continued to stall for the last three years even as the consent letter remains on Tinubu’s table. The deal between Renaissance and Shell continues to stall. In fact, the only deal that has fully scaled through so far is the one involving Oando. We now know why it got accelerated approval.

“Ideally, democracy ought to be government of the people, for the people, and by the people. But democracy in Nigeria has become the government of Tinubu, by Tinubu, and for Tinubu and his family members,” Atiku stated.