Gov. Chibuike Amaechi of Rivers says the country’s oil and gas industry is characterised by high profile fraud.
Amaechi spoke on Monday in Port Harcourt at the commissioning of Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) secretariat in Port Harcourt.
Amaechi, who was represented by his deputy, Mr Tele? Ikuru, said the ministers of God in the country should embark on fervent prayers on behalf of the nation for God’s intervention
He said the call for the prayers was necessary on account of the high profile corruption confronting the country.
Amaechi, who is the chairman, Governors’ Forum of Nigeria, said some unpatriotic persons in Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) had sat down in Abuja and inflated the quantity of fuel imported into the country.
He argued there was no how the country could have consumed the quantity of fuel the recorders claimed to have received on behalf of the federal government.
He said the recorders were members of PENGASSAN, pointing out that the future of Nigeria was hinged on the union.
The governor, however, said the time had come when things “must be done rightly by putting the round pegs in the round holes in the country’’.
He said that though oil business was being transacted in the Niger Delta region, but PENGASSAN Headquarters was in Abuja.
Amaechi stressed that over 90 per cent of the nation’s wealth was from the region.
Reacting to the governor’s allegation in an interview with reporters, Mr Peter Esele, National President of Trade Union Congress (TUC) of Nigeria, denied that his members in NNPC were involved in the fraud.
He said the fraud was committed at top management level of the Corporation, adding that when his members reached that mangement level, they ceased to be members of PENGASSAN.
Esele, however, blamed the country’s problems on the weakness of its institutions rather than the individuals operating them.
Earlier, Mr Babatunde Ogun, National President of PENGASSAN, appealed to Rivers government to allocate land to the union in Greater Port Harcourt City.
He said the land would enable it execute some of its people-oriented projects, listing them to include training, research and development centres aimed at human capital capacity building.
Others were cooperative and credit thrift society centre and petroleum product stations. ?