Former President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo has called on the present administration to place the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) on the stock market and privatise it.
Obasanjo who was speaking at a maritime conference held in Lagos and attended by cross section of maritime practitioners regretted that he did not take the action before he left office in 2007.
He lamented that the NNPC in recent past has been mismanaged by corrupt staff and politicians.
The ex-president recalled that the NLNG did not go the way of NNPC because of the way it was organised. He said 51 per cent of NLNG is owned by Nigerians and non-Nigerians and 49 per cent owned by government.
"The way the NNPC has been managed in the recent past, if I, Olusegun Obasanjo who was actually instrumental to the reform and establishment of NNPC from NNOC had known that the NNPC will be mismanaged badly as it has been done in the last six years, I would have done better than I did".
He added that he "would have privatised it; I would have put it on the stock exchange so that it would not be flagrantly mismanaged the way it was done"
"Maybe the present administration would now have to look at that" he said.
"NLNG did not go the way of NNPC because of the way it was organised, 51 per cent owned by Nigerians and non-Nigerians and 49 per cent owned by government and it is making money.
So maybe we have to look at this as a model" Obasanjo suggested.
Discussion about this post