Mohammed Shosanya
Wunmi Iledare,a Professor Emeritus in Petroleum Economics and Policy Research at the Centre For Energy Studies, Louisiana,has advised President Bola Tinubu to appoint a substantive Petroleum Minister to enable him relinquish his hold on the Ministry.
He spoke ahead of a special Independence Edition, the once-in-a-month interview discourse.
Iledare,a former President of the United States Association for Energy Economics,also lamented that there is too much lack of transparency within the oil sector in Nigeria,adding that successive Nigerian governments over the years have mismanaged the country’s natural endowment.
He said:” The first thing to do is to ask President Tinubu to surrender his ministerial portfolio as the Minister overseeing the Petroleum Ministry.
“Tinubu by virtue of his office should be too busy to correctly superintend over that vital sector. What we have now are surrogates doing trial and error in the petroleum sector. It is absurd and ridiculous. It is just like saying Tinubu is the Finance Minister. He should relinquish that role so as to allow transparency in the industry and in particular for effectiveness.”
According to him, there was need for the Federal Government take its hands off the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited(NNPCL).
He said:”They should stop expending money outside the budgetary system. Let them govern by the principles of the Petroleum Industry Act.
“Government should stop looking at the NNPCL as their cashcrow. You cannot be disobeying the principles of economy and think it will not come after you. Things certainly can be done better if we must come out of this quagmire”.
