Gov Fubara denies shutting down NNPC

The Rivers State Government has denied reports that Governor Siminalayi Fubara has shut down the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited operations in the state.

The rebuttal is contained in a statement signed by the state Commissioner for Information, Joe Johnson.

Reports circulated on the Internet had claimed that Governor Fubara shut down the company after a court stopped the Central Bank of Nigeria from releasing federal allocation to the state.

A YouTube blog reported that Mr Fubara had declared “no allocation to Rivers State no oil for Nigeria,” in response to the Abuja Federal High Court order.

Rebuttal

In its reaction, the Rivers State Government said the trending news was not only “false but a concocted propaganda from the imagination of the author and enemies of the State.

“The story was also circulated by an inconsequential and unverified medium,” Mr Johnson, the information commissioner said.

The commissioner said Mr Fubara is committed to the rule of law and does not rely on unconventional and crude approaches to respond to governance matters.

“We therefore enjoin Rivers people and well-meaning Nigerians to discountenance the spurious and fake report as Governor Fubara at no time contemplated and/or directed such needless order of shutting down the economy for any reason.”

The governor had said, while reacting to the court judgment in his remarks at a Thanksgiving Service on Wednesday, marking the first anniversary of a failed impeachment attempt on him, the court verdict was the least of his problems.

He further added that he would pay contractors and civil servants the next day (Thursday).

The suit which led to the cutting off of funding for Rivers was instituted by the pro-Wike lawmakers in protest of the 2024 budget, which Mr Fubara had signed into law after presenting it to a four-member assembly.