Media practitioners set agenda for NNPCL
Ani Bassey
Some media practitioners based in Cross River State have charged the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) to extend its infrastructural development programmes to the Niger Delta region.
The media practitioners insist that amenities which have been provided to other regions of the country like schools, medical laboratories and scholarship programmes should also come to people in the region particularly in Cross River State.
The media practitioners elucidated that 80 percent of Nigeria’s oil is tapped from the Niger Delta area stressing that it is so pathetic that the NNPCL had failed to extend facilities enjoyed by people from other regions that are not oil-producing states to Cross River and other Niger Delta states.
This was disclosed in Calabar during a brainstorming session on the impact of the energy crisis in the country and the benefits of oil to the people.
One of the conveners of the session and a social activist Solomon Oseagah stated he was in the state to draw a line between fact and fiction regarding the perception by people about the NNPC and what the company stands for.
Oseagha, said that it was wrong for anyone to conclude that the NNPCL is responsible for the hike in petroleum product per pump price.
He charged the Nigerian Mainstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) to rise to their responsibility of ensuring that marketers dispensing low-quality petroleum with faulty metres are sanctioned.
Also speaking, Comrade Archibong Bassey, the Chair person of the Cross River State chapter of the Nigeria Union of Journalists urged the NNPCL to adopt a proactive approach on information sharing.
She lamented the lackadaisical attitude in dispensing information, which she claimed had led to speculations, suspicion and criticisms of President Bola Tinubu’s led -administration.
Several media representatives from both Akwa Ibom and Cross River State participated in the session
