Nigerian President Steps Up Oil Reforms

Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua has announced that he will soon seek approval for new laws to reform the country’s oil industry and break up the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). Yar'Adua termed the reforms long overdue, saying they ought to have been implemented two decades ago. Nigerian trade unions and opposition parties have often criticized the NNPC, which controls 60 per cent of the country’s oil production, of lack of transparency and poor management. The reforms were recommended by a government committee, which presented a draft oil bill Monday after nine months of deliberation.[PE]