Human rights body operating as Human Rights Writers Association (HURIWA) has appealed to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to sack the chief executive of the Nigeria Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), Mr Farouk Ahmed without further delay.
The body said with on-going revelations regarding the politics surrounding fuel importation into the country, the NMDPRA appears to have clearly lost the ethical and neutral authority to exercise its mandate.
The chief executive officer of the NMDPRA, Mr Faruk Ahmed had, last week, claimed that Aliko Dangote’s diesel is inferior to the imported products because it has more sulphur.
He had also claimed that Dangote refinery which has been selling diesel and aviation fuel in Nigeria for months, had yet to be licensed, stating that it was still at the pre-commissioning stage.
Besides, Farouk had similarly claimed that Dangote refinery had requested the regulator to stop giving import licences to other marketers so as to be the only fuel supplier in Nigeria.
However, the same Farouk had on Sunday this week turned around to say that the NMDPRA was expecting fresh report on Monday to confirm the real sulphur content of the diesel produced by the Dangote refinery.
Preliminary independent tests of the Dangote product and those imported have shown that Dangote’s products are actually of superior quality.
HURIWA, in a statement on Monday, signed by Comrade Emma Onwubiko said flowing from on-going revelations in the matter, the head of NMDPRA appears incapable of exercising his authority in such a competent manner that such a high office requires.
The Rights group recalled that during a tour by members of the House of Representatives led by the speaker, Hon Tajudeen Abbas, over the weekend, Dangote asserted that products refined at the world’s largest single train refinery are of superior quality compared to the imported fuel.
HURIWA quoted media report as indicating that the speaker of the Federal House of Representatives and other members have observed the testing of Automotive Gas oil from two petrol stations alongside the same taken from the Dangote refinery.
The diesel sample was reportedly procured from two well-known filling stations near Eleko junction along Lekki – Epe Expressway, Lagos, said the lawmallege
HURIWA said the antagonistic attitudes of the chief Downstream and Midstream petroleum regulator in the Country towards the Dangote refinery has rendered his continuous stay in office ethically disturbing going by the public display of his preferences for the continuous importation of fuel products so the Nigerian population will continue to suffer adversely due to the unrelenting hike in the pump price of petrol and other crude oil products such as diesel and aviation fuel which has aggravated the costs of living crisis affecting millions of Nigerian households.
The Rights group stated that the only way the President would demonstrate that he is not in support of the deep rooted corruption that has prevented the publicly owned refineries from coming back on stream is to immediately relieve the chief executive officer of the NMDPRA Mr Faruk Ahmed of his duty because his ongoing action of publicly running down the activities of the first ever privately built crude oil refinery in Nigeria is the most unpatriotic act that any public office holder shouldn’t be seen exhibiting.
“We are therefore urging the Nigerian president to do the needful by dismissing the chief executive officer of the NMDPRA now and by appointing someone who is a patriot, a professional and someone who is totally neutral and wouldn’t be seen taking sides with the International Oil Companies based in Nigeria as against the indigenous crude oil companies owned privately such as the Dangote refinery amongst others whose products were generally demarketed by the head of the NMDPRA in preference for continuous importation of petroleum products into the Nigeria and to perpetuate the agonising and pathetic suffering of Nigerians.
