We had no minister of petroleum in six or seven years, but the oil and gas sector is the important revenue earner for this country for decades now. I don’t know what happened in other governments before us, but in our government the oil and gas sector was never transparent.
Every contract was brought to council of ministers for deliberation and approval, but not anything from the oil and gas sector. The president was the minister of oil, so it was between him and the group managing director of NNPC.
No minister will ever tell you he knows anything about oil and gas. And the same thing is happening today. Yes, there is a minister of petroleum but they don’t bring anything to the council of ministers on oil and gas. There is absolutely no transparency. And this is something I have vowed to correct.
There is no way you can have the most important aspect of your economy and it is shrouded in secrecy. Complete and total secrecy. Nobody knows what contract is given to whom. Nobody knows who is getting those contracts, at what price, nobody knows how much is money comes in. Honestly it is unbelievable.
So, if the minister of petroleum comes out to say this is all what I get, nobody challenges her, because nobody has any other evidence to challenge her. Maybe Nigerians don’t know this is a sector that there is no transparency.
We attempted to do it once before. We called for tenders. After that first exercise, subsequent exercises nobody knew who was lifting crude and at what price and what came and what did not. The only thing during budget time they will tell you this is what is earned. How it is earned, you did not know.
So there is still complete secrecy in that sector. There is no transparency at all. Nothing will stop me from not bringing it out in the open.
You know what happened after eight years, we were given memos that the president approved between himself and the group managing director of NNPC for ratification in the council. I was the only guy who raised his hand and said I want it to be recorded that I was not going to ratify it.
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