‘Are We Drinking The Petrol?’: Sanusi Queries 66m Litres Daily Fuel Consumption, Wants NNPC Disbanded

Former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, has faulted the claim by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), that Nigeria consumes 66 million litres of fuel daily.

Sanusi spoke on Saturday when he delivered a keynote speech at the seventh edition of KadInvest, an annual event organised by the Kaduna State Investment Promotion Agency.

The exact volume of Nigeria’s daily consumption of petrol and rising subsidy payment have been subjects of controversy of late with the Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Hammed Ali, faulting NNPC’s official figure of recent.

Similarly, El-Rufai last Thursday, said the NNPC has no business being in the oil sector and should be privatised with immediate effect.

However, Buhari last Friday, while presenting a N20.51 trillion 2023 budget proposal to the National Assembly, pushed for the removal of fuel subsidies in 2023, saying that the policy is not sustainable considering current economic realities.

Sanusi, who lamented the bogus amount spent on subsidy payments annually, on Saturday demanded that the NNPC be unbundled and disbanded, noting that the company should not continue as a cash cow for a few Nigerians.

He blamed the lack of revenue in the country on what he called the subsidy free-for-all

Are we drinking the petrol? NNPC tells us officially that we are consuming 66 million litres per day…We are consuming more than Indonesia, Pakistan, Egypt, Cote d’Ivoire, more than Kenya.

“In 2019 officially, we were importing 40 million litres per day. In 2022, officially, we are importing 66 million per day. In three years, we have increased our petrol consumption by 50%. Please tell me, is it the population? Is it the number of cars? Just ask yourself if it makes sense that in three years you increase your consumption of petrol by 50%.

“Nigeria has continued to be a rentier state. It does not exist for development but as a sight of rent, and extraction to make those who control the state rich to turn them into billionaires overnight.