Former Vice President and presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in the 2023 election, Atiku Abubakar has described the $3bn loan injected into the economy by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited to stabilise the naira as fraudulent.

Speaking through his Special Assistant on Public Communications, Phrank Shaibu in a statement on Wednesday, Atiku described the purpose given for the loan as a ruse to force the naira to appreciate in the parallel market.

He added that the move was cosmetic and unimaginative and had once again “Exposed President Bola Tinubu as a Lilliputian economist that lacked ideas on how to rescue the economy he had pushed to the edge with unviable policies.”

According to him, monetary policy is not the job of the NNPCL but the Central Bank of Nigeria and wondered why the former, “Which claimed to be a profit-making organisation, would go ahead to take a loan for the primary purpose of stabilising the naira.

Atiku also drew parallels between the actions of the NNPCL and the CBN under the authority of Godwin Emefiele.

He also claimed that oil production has dropped on Tinubu’s watch due to continuous oil theft, stressing that instead of boosting forex liquidity by increasing production and exports, “The President decided to take the jejune path of obtaining foreign loans, an inglorious road that his predecessor had travelled.

He said, “For many years, Tinubu claimed that he built the economy of Lagos from scratch. Now, he has been exposed as a charlatan. His administration detained Emefiele and vilified him for taking FX loans from JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs running into $7.5bn, which was used in defending the naira.

“Now, Tinubu’s administration is doing the same thing by forcing the NNPCL to take a loan of $3bn to defend the naira. We, however, have it on good authority that this is all a ruse to force the naira to appreciate at the parallel market, an action that will further affect the government’s credibility.

“The NNPCL has failed to shed the toga of an ordinary government agency. No wonder it has refused to become a public limited liability company, as stated in the Petroleum Industry Act. The NNPCL boss, Mele Kyari, who is also desperate to retain his job, has allowed himself to become a willing political tool just like Emefiele. If the NNPCL was a publicly listed oil firm like Aramco and Mobil, would it obtain a loan in order to ‘defend the naira’?”

He chided Tinubu for lacking a clear economic blueprint, arguing  that his policy flip-flops had already begun affecting Nigerian bonds.

Punch