Paul Ibe, the spokesperson for former Nigerian Vice President Atiku Abubakar, has said a remark linked to his principal about selling the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation was not meant to be taken literally.
Ibe made the clarification during an interview on Trust TV on Sunday while discussing opposition politics and preparations by the African Democratic Congress (ADC), a Nigerian opposition political party, ahead of Nigeria’s 2027 general election.
Okay News reports that Ibe was responding to a question that compared Atiku’s long-standing views on Nigeria’s petroleum sector with the approach of the administration of Nigeria’s President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who leads Africa’s most populous country.
During the interview, Ibe rejected the idea that Atiku planned to sell the national oil company to personal associates.
“Let me correct you please. That interview was a banter between His Excellency Atiku Abubakar and the reporter, and he made that joke, and that was mischief taken too far about selling it to his friends,” Ibe said.
He added, “It was a joke taken too far, and that should not be the takeaway from that interview. The takeaway should be that all those moribund assets should be disposed of.”
Ibe argued that successive Nigerian governments have continued to spend public resources maintaining assets in the oil sector that are not delivering results, and he said privatisation is a more sustainable option.
“This administration has initiated a process to sell some of these assets. None of the refineries in Kaduna, Port Harcourt, Warri, all over the place, are working, yet people are being paid salaries for doing nothing,” he said.
“Why must we hold on to those assets? Government has no business doing business. Government should create an enabling environment for business.”
Atiku, a former vice president and a long-time presidential contender in Nigeria, has repeatedly spoken in favour of privatising the national oil company.
During the period leading up to Nigeria’s 2019 presidential election, Atiku told members of the business community in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial hub, that he was committed to privatising the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation even if it put his life at risk.
“I am committed to privatising NNPC, I said it. I swear. Even if they are going to kill me, I will do it,” Atiku said at the time.
At the same forum in Lagos, he also made a separate comment that he would rather enrich friends than members of his family if elected president, provided there was no corruption involved.
“I am not going to enrich members of my family, but my friends. Are my friends not entitled to be enriched? As long as there is no element of corruption there,” he said.
Those remarks drew criticism and later triggered a clarification from Atiku.
About a month after the Lagos event, he dismissed claims that he intended to sell the national oil company to his friends.
Speaking during a meeting with grassroots leaders in Kaduna State, a state in northern Nigeria, Atiku said the reports were false and insisted that any sale of the national oil company would be aimed at benefiting Nigerians.
He maintained that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation would be sold “to Nigerians for the development of the country” and not to his friends, as alleged.
