The Coalition of Concerned Northern Forum, a conglomeration of 25 Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) has withdrawn its call for the sack of the management of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) over the influx of adulterated fuel into the country.
The youth organisation had in a statement on Sunday demanded the immediate resignation of the NNPC GMD, Mele Kolo Kyari and the Chief Executive Officer of the Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, Farouk Ahmed for negatively breaking the record of the current administration over persistent fuel scarcity.
They threatened that they would occupy all NNPC zonal offices and its subsidiaries across the region and the FCT if they failed to resign within three days.
But the group in another statement issued on Monday signed by the Chairman and spokesperson, Ibrahim Bature and Abdulsalam Moh’d Kazeem respectively said since their call for the removal of the management of the NNPC, and the prosecution of importers involved in the contaminated fuel, there have been misgivings and misreading of their demands, especially by those who profited from crisis situations.
According to them, “It has become inevitable to put the records straight that our position has no political affiliation or influence nor been sponsored by any individual or groups.
“Our call was borne out of patriotism over the hardship occasioned by the scarcity of premium motor spirit and the huge economic impact of the bad fuel at a time the government is battling with dwindling revenue.
“In view of new information at our disposal and the attempts by certain special interests to hijack our demand and use our position to blackmail the present NNPC management over the current artificial PMS scarcity occasioned by marketers dispensing fewer pumps at a time, we hereby state that following the operational error of methanol in PMS above our national specification, which remains an unforeseen problem, we back the call for a thorough investigation as ordered by President Muhammadu Buhari and urged security agencies to conclude the probe in good time and sanction all those responsible.
“We commend the management of the NNPC Ltd for taking prompt action by alerting the nation on the bad fuel and for taking measured steps to recall the bad product and injecting over 700 million litres and the promise of additional 2.1billion litres to address the shortfall.
“We demand that regulatory and security agencies ensure that fuel stations sell at the maximum installed capacity and in the event any station is found to be sabotaging the government’s effort, the product be dispensed free to motorists and such station sealed.
“We withdraw our notice for the sack of the NNPC management and nationwide protest but remain committed to the sanctioning of the importing companies and their officials.
“We sincerely appreciate the intervention of the Department of State Security Service, the Police and our respected Grand Patron, together for a better Nigeria.”
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