The Presidential Economic Team of 2003 to 2007 which I was privileged to be a member had a running joke - that the NNPC was an independent federal republic on its own totally separate from and way superior to the Nigeria we all worked for! This joke was our way of criticising the way and manner the NNPC not only sells crude oil as an agent on behalf of the government of the federation as in its enabling law, but even then felt entitled to spend as much of the proceeds of sale as it deemed fit.

The NNPC had begun then to be a law unto itself, outside our national laws and above the constitution, hence our joke. Recent revelations of oil revenue leakages have confirmed that this is a joke that has turned into a macabre reality. Our nation's finances are in grave danger of becoming zero due to the conduct of a rogue institution that has become more powerful than its principal under Jonathan's watch.

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