The humiliation of Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, Nigeria’s Minister of State for Petroleum, is becoming more and more worrisome.
Below is a beautiful piece on the whole drama by respected columnist and Publisher of The Interwiew, Mr. Azubuike Ishiekwene. It’s entitled WHO IS IN CHARGE OF NNPC? CERTAINLY NOT IBE KACHIKWU:
Ibe Kachikwu is just a piece of furniture. He’s not in charge of NNPC.
If Kachikwu still has any illusions, the unilateral appointments made this week by the NNPC GMD, Maikanti Baru, should settle the matter. Baru reversed virtually all the appointments made by Kachikwu six months ago and left his boss to find out what had happened in his backyard from the pages of newspapers.
Kachikwu, who is supposed to be junior minister and chairman of the NNPC Board, had no idea of what was coming, when or why.
Baru may argue till the next super moon that he had only good intentions, but that’s the paving stone on the road to hell. How can he possibly defend making such large scale changes behind the back of his immediate boss and the board?
The clandestine way the changes were made has already invited needless suspicions of an ethnic agenda. Out of 108 appointments, for example, 31 (or nearly 34 per cent) are from the North West, his zone.
The South South comes second with 20; the North East and South West come next with 17 each; the North Central, 16, and the South East, 7.
In Nigeria’s ethnically charged math, Baru’s changes work out to 64 appointments for the North and 44 for the South. And he passed over the head of his Southern boss to get approval.
For an administration that has been frequently accused of favouring a section of the country, it should find these changes worrisome.
Insiders in Baru’s office have denied any ethnic motive. They have denied that this was partly vendetta against a few among whom Garbadeen Muhammad, former president of the Nigerian Guild of Editors and Kachikwu appointee, is the poster victim.
But the question is, why were the changes done behind the back of the junior minister and the board? And why is the announcement coming 24 hours before the inauguration of the board?
I don’t know how much longer he is willing to put up with being kicked around, but this is clearly Kachikwu’s moment of truth.
If he can be moved to a largely ceremonial position without a reason; if NNPC’s pump price changes can be made without his knowledge, and if appointments can be made in a ministry that he supervises without his input, then he needs to ask himself if he still has a job.
The real elephant in the room is Buhari approving the changes before Kachikwu found out. It’s yet another sad chapter in the greasy tale of the NNPC, a beast that apparently consumes the reform and the reformer he concluded.
If you ask me, Ibe Kachikwu is the only competent minister in Buhari’s cabinet. If our finance minister was as half competent as Ibe, we won’t be in a Recession by now.
To sideline and embarrass the hardworking man who left his job in the private sector to join this government is funny.
You then wonder why Niger Delta avengers are bombing the pipelines without any influential person in this government to rein them and talk to them.
Ibe Kachikwu is the only person they respect in this government, they respect him more than the president and the man he appointed into NNPC, see the humiliation they are giving to a man that took a pay cut from what he earns as vice chairman of Exxon Mobil to serve his fatherland.
It is funny but lets continue to observe.