Professor Izielen Agbon, a renowned petroleum engineering expert, has alleged the existence of a powerful oil cabal comprising international companies, local partners, and insiders within the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC).
Speaking during an interview on News Central TV, Professor Agbon claimed the group has deliberately undermined Nigeria’s government-owned refineries over the past two decades, creating artificial fuel scarcity to justify fuel importation at inflated international prices.
He further accused NNPC of concealing profits from fuel imports, citing a $2 billion gain reportedly disguised as a $2.9 billion subsidy loss.
The words of Agbon at some point during the interview read, “does an oil cabal really exist? Yes, it does. It is made up of international interests or companies that have been involved in the past in the importation of petrol into our country. They have local partners, and they have partners within NNPC. Over the last 20 years, they have contributed to the decay and the neglect of our own government-owned refineries in order to create scarcity of petroleum products.”
He further stated that “so that they can import it at an international price and make very good profit. NNPC has 16 group of companies that form a castoreum. They imported petrol into Nigeria, and in the process, NNPC made a profit of about $2 billion, but they came back and told the government that they didn’t make a profit and we actually made a loss due to the subsidy and charged the government $2.9 billion for the subsidy, which they refused to give to the government.”
SOURCE: sportwriter1