The House of Representatives has requested for the Chief Executive of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Authority (NMDPRA) to be suspended while thorough investigations are conducted into the allegations against the Authority.
After Honorable Esosa Iyawe raised a motion of urgent public importance in the House regarding the immediate necessity to resolve the outage caused by what he referred to as reckless remarks from him, this action was taken.
Hon. Iyawe said, “In their defence, Dangote called for a test of their products, which was supervised by Members of the House of Representatives, wherein it was revealed that Dangote’s diesel had a Sulphur content of 87.6 ppm (parts per million), whereas the other two samples diesel imported showed Sulphur levels exceeding 1800 ppm and 2000 ppm respectively, thus disproving the allegations made by the NMDPRA boss.
“Allegations have been made that the NMDPRA was giving licences to some traders who regularly import high-Sulphur content diesel into Nigeria, and the use of such products poses grave health risks and huge financial losses for Nigerians.
“The unguarded statements by the Chief Executive of the NMDPRA, which has since been disproved, sparked an outrage from Nigerians who tagged his undermining of local refineries and insistence on the continued importation of fuel an act of economic sabotage, as the imported products have been shown to contain high levels of dangerous compounds.”