Governors on Wednesday night expressed displeasure over the handling of affairs at the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), alleging fraudulent practices.
The governors also directed the NNPC to stop payment of any form of royalty to the Federation Account and ordered that every payment should be paid to the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), as stipulated by law.
The governors, who met behind closed-doors with the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, who is also Chairman of the National Economic Committee (NEC), at the State House further directed that filling stations located 10 kilometers close to borders should be closed down, while also there should be tracking devices to monitor the movement of tankers to reduce smuggling the petroleum products out of the country.
Briefing state House correspondents after the meeting, Chairman of Nigeria’s Governors Forum and governor of Zamfara State, Abdulaziz Yari, noted with dismay the reintroduction of subsidy which the NNPC calls recovery.
Yari said: “This is the second time we are meeting with NNPC in respect of remittances into the federation account. And, governors and the federal government are not satisfied with the way remittances are being made because there are so many questions raised on Nigeria, more especially on the 425,000 barrel domestic and 180,000 barrel component of Nigeria from the Joint Venture Partners.
“We met last week, the NNPC and the NGF came and briefed our chairman of the National Economic Council. We raised three issues, one, the issue of royalties. Each and every barrel taken out of the country there is either 17 or 24 percent of it as royalty and there is 17 or 20 percent as tax.
