The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has expressed concern over the endless stream of negative publicity to which it has been subjected lately, warning of the dire consequences for the country’s economy if the trend continues.

According to NNPC Group Managing Director, Mr. Andrew Yakubu: “We cannot do this business without Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), without foreign participation. Our credibility level is going down very fast. And unfortunately, it is based on perception.

“If we continue at this rate, I am going to tell you something that is very bad. I will ask all of you that if you continue to destroy our economy this way, then pray never to give birth to children because those children are coming to suffer the outcome of our terrible destructive attitudes.

“Because it will be difficult for anybody to invest in this country if we continue to destroy our country’s perception. If you are talking of corruption, mention anywhere you don’t have any iota of corruption. But what they do, is that you do it but the law will catch up you one.”

Yakubu, who spoke Friday night at a dinner with newsmen in Abuja, described corruption in the country as being endemic. He said it was so bad that his kinsmen said it was a ploy to refuse to assist them when he decided not to influence his daughter’s employment in the corporation.

“If that is the situation, if you are there and you are not celebrated back home and you don’t do it, is it NNPC that is corrupt? Then we may need to go for a total national cleansing and deliverance,” he said.

The NNPC helmsman absolved his management of sharp practices, saying that oil production and revenue remittance are monitored by different agencies such as the Nigerian Navy, Nigerian Customs Service, Department of Petroleum Resources and Weight & Measure of Office, the Central Bank of Nigeria and others.

Maintaining that it is the NNPC that bears the blame in all Nigerian petroleum related matters, Yakubu pleaded that if there is any specific case, people should bring them out to be addressed instead of blanket condemnation and baseless allegations, which, according to him, can only tarnish the image of the corporation.