Labour Party (LP) chieftain, Doyin Okupe has written an open letter to President Bola Tinubu.
In his letter, he commended President Tinubu for abolishing fuel subsidy and equalizing foreign exchange; describing the policies as bold steps.
Okupe urged the President to take other bolder steps to keep the nation on the right track as Nigeria can no longer depend absolutely on crude oil for sustenance.
The letter reads: “President Bola Tinubu actually hit the ground sprinting; showing much determination, zeal commitment and courage. He has taken 2 extraordinarily bold steps by abolishing fuel subsidy and equalizing foreign exchange.
“This without doubt is causing very severe pain and hardship on the populace. However, in order to ground these policies properly, and reduce the pain on the populace, the President will still need to take more bolder steps.
“In about two decades from now, oil reserves may become meaningless. The present allocation of less than 2 million barrels per day for Nigeria with a population of over 200 million people and its prevailing strangulating economic conditions, given volumes of export to our main foreign exchange earner (90%) is inimical to our growth as a nation and to the wellbeing of the citizens.
“Outside OPEC, Nigeria can reduce its selling price of crude but also increase its exports to 3 million barells and above per day.”
The statement further reads, “This will increase accruable revenue from forex by up to 200% or more, which will allow the CBN have more supply of forex to the banks. In the face of surplus liquidity in forex supply, Naira will gain tremendous value over the Dollar.“
Speaking further, Okupe urged the President to consider the position of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar on the operations and functions of the NNPC so the entity can become a commercial enterprise driven by the private sector and not the government.
He added that the government must also fight oil theft.
“The present situation whereby the oil majors earn 60% of our acruable revenue from sales of oil leaving Nigeria with only 40% is no longer economically and financially prudent or reasonable.
“Saudi Arabia, using its own Aramco drills its own oil and earns 100% of the revenue from sales. We may not be able to achieve this instantly, but we should renegotiate with the oil majors for the ratio to shift in the favour of Nigeria to 60:40 minimum even if we must add considerable investment in the processing for oil.
“The NNPC can no longer serve fully, neither can it meet the full expectations of its obligations to the Nigerian people. I am inclined to recommend that the President & his team should take a look & study the Atiku Abubakar model as it concerns the NNPC as a commercial entity.
“Most of the local refineries can still be made to be functional for the next 50 years. Part of the massive revenue inflow from the equalization of the forex regime should be used to refurbish once and for all our refineries, employing the best acceptable international bidding procedures to choose reputable international contractors to be engaged in the refurbishment programme.
“This should be done outside the purview of the NNPC and by a special presidential team that will abide by the best principles of honesty and transparency. Government must instantly liberalize licensing for investors who are interested in building petroleum refineries in Nigeria; especially modular refineries.
“The present crop of Nigerians engaged in crude petroleum refining who are scattered all over the place should no longer be hounded by task forces but rather harnessed officially into the downstream sector and licensed under supervision to produce and sell petroleum products.
“Government must deploy all powers and resources available to it to put a final end to crude oil theft and limit to the barest minimum, pipeline vandalization throughout the country.”
On the political crisis in Niger Republic, Okupe urged Nigeria to encourgae diplomatic resolution rather than go to war.
He said, “In spite of our leadership of ECOWAS in this period, the Nigerian government should encourage the deployment of diplomatic crises management approach and seek ways by using its influence with the organization to end the crises in Niger as quickly as possible as a precursor to urgent steps that need to be taken towards the activation of the plan to build the trans-sahara gas pipeline from Nigeria to Algeria and Europe, through Niger and Algeria.“