Make Nigerian govt refineries work, battle oil mafia, THISDAY chairman, Obaigbena, tasks NNPCL
The Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of THISDAY Media Group and ARISE News Channel, Nduka Obaigbena, has called on the Federal Government (FG) to make the four government-owned refineries in the country work, to emasculate the influence of oil mafias in the country and undue monopoly of petroleum products which account for the outrageous prices.
Obaigbena made the call while speaking as the chairman of the All Nigeria Editors Conference in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, on Thursday.
“If we are going to use whatever means to deal with the oil mafias, we should keep our refineries alive. If you say you want to stop monopoly, then our four refineries must work. Let those four refineries compete with Dangote Refinery.
“We challenge the Minister of Information and Bayo Onanuga to get the refineries working. Everybody is feeling the pain in the country. The time is hard but Nigerian journalists are harder, so you have to be tough to cope with the time.
“I can see that the future can be better if we give Tinubu’s reform a face, we should support the reform but we must make sure that the vulnerable are supported.
“We are ready for the change but the first step is to put our house in order. Let us fix Nigeria. That is the first thing to do and let’s also work hard to ensure that we also protect our industries.”
The keynote speaker, Dele Kelvin Oye, who is President of the National Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture, said one of the greatest challenges confronting the nation was mismanagement of oil and gas resources.
Oye who lauded the Federal Government’s impactful decisions but berated stakeholders’ poor involvement and management of the exchange rate which, he said, was a part of the factors bedevilling the economy, called on editors to get involved and set agenda in the interest of the economy.
“You are editors. You should be asking questions, especially if what is happening is detrimental to national development,” he said.
While also speaking on the challenges facing the Nigerian media, the President of the Nigeria Guild of Editors, Mr Eze Anaba, said inadequate resource materials was the biggest threat to its survival.
Anaba called on editors to make decisions that have the potentialities to stimulate national development, including the media.
He said: “Media organisations face mounting pressure to adapt to modern trends while staying financially viable and maintaining journalistic integrity.”
“Now, we thought the only challenge facing the media would be adapting to modern trends, but the biggest threat to media survivors today is the non-availability of resource materials to produce our papers or to broadcast on our TV stations.”
Kindly share this story
