The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) has described the recent signing of the executive order that stripped the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited of its oil revenue deduction powers, by President Bola Tinubu, as a direct attack on the provisions of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA).
National president of PENGASSAN, Festus Osifo, while addressing the press on the development, said “The provisions are sections 8, 9, and 64 of the PIA. It’s a direct attack.”
He also accused the president of using an executive order “to set aside a law of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”
The PENGASSAN president urged the president to recall the executive order and have a second look at it, “because we know that the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria has done everything possible to attract investment to the oil and gas industry.”
Osifo further stated that the president has the right to enact executive orders and the duty to safeguard the industry.
“But we strongly believe that, in this particular case, the president has been misled. We strongly believe that the people advising the president did not actually tell him the entire truth,” Osifo said, adding that if the president had been fully briefed on the implications of the recent executive order, he likely would have acted differently.
