The Nigerian Association of Online Publishers has faulted the recent postings at the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
The association has therefore called on President Muhammadu Buhari and Minister for Petroleum, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, to “quickly review the recent movement of management personnel in the organisation because it contains very palpable cases of vendetta and injustice.”
In a statement by the President of the Association, Wole Arisekola, and made available to newsmen in Abuja, the posting was carried out in bad faith.
The association made particular reference to the NNPC spokesperson, Mallam Garba Deen Muhammed, who was given an ambiguous posting in the new shake up.
Until the recent postings, Muhammed was the Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs of the NNPC.
According to the association, “But in a very curious action, he was moved to the position of General Manager, Communication and Strategy.”
The association said the act was capable of eroding confidence in any one and also kill the morale of workers in the corporation.
The Online Publishers also queried the rush with which the Group Managing Director (GMD), Dr. Maikanti Kacalla Baru, went about the postings.
“The association observeed that if Baru’s motives were sincere and in the interest of the corporation, he would have waited for another couple of days when the NNPC board would have been inaugurated and then run the process through the board. That way, he would have avoided the suspicion and errors that normally accompany a one man know all decision. But as it were, Baru cannot defend himself against accusations of carrying out a personal vendetta against his perceived enemies. It is very possible”.
The Online Publishers further noted that Muhammed who joined the NNPC about six months ago is a victim of of hate and vendetta by the Baru, who has not hidden his disdain for the so called outsiders joining the the NNPC.
“This attitude is particularly dangerous when the case of Muhammed is examined.”
The online body of publishers added that Muhammed was invited by the Minister of State for Petroleum to come and serve his country. “Dr. Kachikwu, who then doubled as GMD, invited Muhammed to come and serve his country; Muhammed accepted to serve out of sense of national duty. Muhammed left his flourishing media practice, a respectable job as editor at large with The Sun Newspapers, a popular and respected columnist and at the time, the prestigious position of the President of the Nigerian Guild of Editors, to come and serve his country, only for him to be treated so shabbily and so wickedly. This is injustice and unacceptable under any any guise. It is in this light that we call on President Buhari whose sense of justice is not in doubt to intervene and salvage the reputation of an honest and patriotic citizen whose only crime was that he answered the national call to serve his country at the expense of a brilliant career that he built painfully over the last two decades.”
The association further maintained that apart from discouraging competent Nigerians at home and abroad from making sacrifices for the country, such inexplicable inconsistency coming less than six months after a similar exercise will discourage investors and stunt the growth of the oil and gas industry.
The online practitioners again averred that if indeed the President granted approval for this injustice, it must be because he was misled by Baru, and that is why the President and the board of the NNPC have the moral obligation to review the exercise and wherever infractions were detected must be redressed, recalling the role that Muhammed played during the fuel subsidy standoff with labour and other stakeholders.
The online publishers ended by warning that “humiliating Muhammed so cruelly for the personal satisfaction of one man is sad and a depressing indicator of why the corporation has been going down over the years. The NNPC is bigger than the interest of any individual and injustice to one is injustice to all”.