By Adaobi Rhema Oguejiofor
The Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, Mallam Mele Kyari, has said that the Company’s current 30 percent share of petrol stations nationwide is in order to provide Nigerians with a competitive price of petroleum products and avoid being held to ransom by private owners.
Kyari said this during a courtesy visit to the corporate headquarters of Media Trust Group (MTG) in Abuja on Tuesday. He said that the acquisition of Oando was done in order to give Nigerians better options for sourcing their energy products, especially when fuel subsidy is removed.
In his own words, “petroleum is still the major source of driving vehicles in our country as we are still a long way away from adopting electric vehicles.”
According to the GCEO, Nigeria is really far away from the reality of electric vehicles, which is why NNPC took a bold step towards procuring the Oando chain of fuel stations so as to scale the Company’s market shares.
“With this, nobody will hold us to ransom, that means if we are able to complete what we are doing now and all NNPC stations work all the time, no one will hold Nigerians to ransom and people can get competitive prices for products they will buy,” he added.
Kyari stated that Nigeria is devoid of foreign investment as a result of the uncertainties that exist within the fiscal environment, and also the lack of power. He expressed that there is need for the country to scale up gas infrastructure in order to meet energy demands since fossil fuel is losing attention.