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The Federal Government has denied insinuations that the Ministry of Petroleum Resources directed the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL, to sell fuel above the approved pump price.
The report claimed that Heineken Lokpobiri, the Minister for Petroleum Resources (Oil), gave the NNPCL the directive to sell at N1,000.
Dismissing the report as concocted and ill-conceived, the Special Adviser, Media and Communication, to Lokpobiri, Nnemaka Okafor, in a statement on Tuesday and made available to our correspondent, the FG declared that the report was was calculated to sow discord and confusion in the oil industry.
The statement stressed that the FG neither interfered with petroleum pricing with NNPCL, nor directed price increment.
“The Federal Government is compelled to address the outright falsehoods currently being circulated on social media, which claim that the Minister of Petroleum Resources (Oil), Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, has directed the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited to inflate petroleum prices above the approved pump price,” the statement read.
“We categorically condemn these claims as baseless, malicious, and a deliberate attempt to incite public discontent. We challenge anyone in possession of any evidence-be it written documents, audio, or video recordings-that supports these fabrications to make it public.
“Such a claim is entirely devoid of truth and should be recognised as an intentional effort to mislead the public. It must be stressed that NNPCL operates as an independent entity under the Companies and Allied Matters Act, with a fully empowered Board of Directors.
The Ministry of Petroleum Resources does not, and will not, interfere in the internal decisions of NNPCL, including pricing matters. Any suggestion otherwise is not only incorrect but also reveals a profound misunderstanding of the deregulated nature of Nigeria’s petroleum sector.”
