The Managing Director of Capital Oil Ifeanyi Ubah has called on the President of Nigeria to remove the fuel subsidy and probe those behind the recent nationwide fuel crises.
Speaking to journalist in a recent interview, Ifeanyi Ubah called on Nigerian to support the deregulation of the petroleum sector sector in other to reduce corruption in the sector and get petroleum products at its lowest price.
“I urge President Buhari to take a bold step and deregulate the oil sector. He is not a stranger to the sector having being a former minister of petroleum. He will be respected for taking the step. There’s no point paying subsidy when Nigerians are not benefiting it. The president will be doing the right thing if he deregulates the sector so that the product will be sold at cheaper rate in the future.
“Indeed the marketers are being owed large sums of money and I am one of those being owed but I believe that dialogue should have been the choice of the marketers, especially considering the state of the nation. It was unprecedented in the country for oil marketers to go on strike for up to four days. What I expected was that there would have been a warning strike before a total shut down.
“It was unpatriotic for them to shutdown the country. If this is not properly investigated, there could be a repeat of such. Marketers should know that they are not labour unions; there was an agreement with government to pay them gradually, but they disregarded the agreement and unpatriotically threw the country into crisis.
“My facilities store products for the Pipelines and Petroleum Marketing Company (PPMC) an arm of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) which means such products belong to the Federal Government.
“For a facility like ours, we should be considered before taking this position, what if people storing product in our facilities sue us? They have the rights to take their products, what if PPMC sue us or cancel our contract? We need to ask these questions.”
He further revealed that he resumed supplying fuel as he could not bear to see Nigerians dying in hospitals, shutting down of bank and the other numerous sufferings experienced by Nigerians, adding that he had to rescue South African telecommunications giant, MTN by supplying them diesel.Ubah went on to lament the difficulties experienced by oil marketers and other investors in the country.He said: “Go to Capital Oil you will see over 19 vessels floating, for three years none has worked for one day and these are investment made in line with government policy. Who will give you facility when you don’t even have turnover?”
“I would like to see the incoming government take a good look at the sector and I will be willing to advise because I have suffered so much in line with government policies in the downstream sector of the Nigerian economy.”
