Oredola Adeola

Mele Kyari, Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd), has identified lack of investment in the energy sector due to uncertainty in the business environment and multiple taxation as impediments to the achievement of energy security in Nigeria, emphasising that no public wealth creation endeavour can achieve any meaningful success without energy security.

Kyari made this known during his presentation at the Ministry of Finance Incorporated (MOFI) Public Wealth Management Conference held in Abuja on Tuesday.

Kyari highlighted that Nigeria has a huge energy deficit, with about 70% of the population lacking access to clean cooking fuel and over 50 percent lacking access to electricity.

He listed some of the impediments to the achievement of energy security in Nigeria, including lack of investment in the energy sector due to uncertainty in the business environment and multiple taxation.

He added that in the last 10 years, less than 3% of the total investment flow into Africa came into Nigeria.

However, Kyari assured that NNPC Ltd. was working hard to lay the foundation for sustainable wealth creation by filling the energy deficit gap.

He stressed that the company’s growth trajectory from a loss position of N803bn in 2018 to N2.5tr in 2022 was a testimony to the abundant potential of NNPC Ltd. to lead the process of wealth creation in the country.

Kyari emphasized that despite the challenges, NNPC Ltd. is still the highest tax-paying corporate entity in Nigeria. He further noted that all other wealth-creating activities, such as agriculture, rely heavily on one form of energy or the other to thrive.

He stated that “If you don’t have energy, you don’t have agriculture. You can do all the agriculture, but you can’t take it to the market, you may not be able to preserve it, you can’t even export it. So, all those indices are clearly connected to the ability to create energy,” the NNPCL’s GCEO said.