“I’ll privatize NNPC, even if it would cost my life”- Atiku

The Peoples Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has said that would privatize the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation if elected. Atiku, who made the assertion while speaking at an interactive session with the business community on Wednesday in Lagos, described the state-owned oil firm as a “mafia organization.”

He said he would effect the privatization even if it would cost him his life.

He said, “Let me go back to my experience. When we got into office, I walked up to my boss and said, “Sir, there are two mafia organizations in government: one is the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation while the other one is the National Electricity Power Authority.

“I said unless we dismantle these mafia organizations, we cannot make progress. Let’s privatize them… the long and short of this is that I am committed to privatization as I have said. I swear even if they are going to kill me, I will do it (privatize NNPC).”

The former Vice President explained that his opinion was influenced by the model in the United States. He said, “I asked a Nigerian professor based in America; I said, ‘Prof, do you have a ministry of petroleum in America?’ He said no. I said, ‘Do you have an organization like the NNPC over there?’ He said no. And America produces oil more than any country? He said yes.

“So I asked him, ‘How do they do it in America?’ and he said taxation, and I decided that I will go by taxation too.”

Abubakar went on to speak on job creation; “we must create jobs, if not we will get mobbed one day by the unemployed youths. They are like a time bomb. When businesses are folding up, shops are closing, industries are falling, foreign direct investments are not attracted; poverty is embarrassingly becoming our trademark, the rating of our hardworking businessmen by international rating agencies is becoming dismal.

“When we have a government that has remained insensitive to all these, I feel it is the time not only to offer myself for service to salvage the situation but also to reiterate my aim to create a strong, resilient and prosperous economy that creates jobs and opportunities for all of us.”