Ibe Kachikwu, Please, Assert Yourself
of the pensioners, because one day, we will all retire, either on account of age or length of service. As of now, pensioners are being owed five-month arrears while gratuity has not been paid since 2012 when Kayode Fayemi was in the saddle.”
My dear Fayose has thoroughly derailed. Governors like Fayose who give prickly excuses for not paying salaries are not worthy of their offices. Their usual story is dwindling federal allocation. So what? Nigerians are tired of governors who can’t think out of the box. Leaders who don’t know how to raise funds to run their states have no business remaining in office a day longer. Instead of focusing on tackling the challenges in Ekiti, Fayose is busy pursuing a pointless Presidential ambition; obviously with state resources. This is happening in a state where civil servants have been turned into paupers. This Ekiti governor is taking his jest too far. I sincerely hope that those close to Fayose will call him to order.
The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu, is a big disappointment in his battle against the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Maikanti Baru. Kachikwu, who was appointed the Chairman of the NNPC Board, with powers of the board clearly spelt out, is now asking President Buhari to come and help him do his job. The federal government has almost over 900 agencies with boards. Just imagine the chaos, if the chairmen of these boards are all running to Buhari, to help them run their agencies. This fraidy-cat called Kachikwu is busy writing petitions to Buhari, to help him curb Baru’s alleged insubordination and corruption, instead of taming the monster. Is Kachikwu unaware that the board of the NNPC has the power to discipline Baru? What action did the Board of NNPC take when it discovered that Baru was acting unilaterally? Baru should be the one running to Buhari, if Kachikwu had affirmed himself as the NNPC board Chairman. The NNPC GMD simply took advantage of this minister’s sloppiness to take key decisions without the Board’s approval.
I have given up on Kachikwu and his NNPC Board. As for Buhari and the NNPC, I reserve the story for another day. I sincerely hope the Senate will help tame Baru who has become power drunk because of his closeness to the seat of power. He does not submit to oversight regulatory mandate and supervision. This has resulted into several clear cases of corruption, which the Senate must further dig into as soon as the approved probe of Baru commences. A good example here is the award of contracts running into billions of USD exclusively by Baru, without due process. Some of them include crude term contracts valued at over $10 billion; DSDP contracts valued at over $5 billion; the AKK pipeline contract valued at approximately $3 billion; various financing allocation-funding contracts with the NOCs valued at over $3 billion and various NPDC production service contracts valued at over $3 billion.
The senate must take seriously Kachikwu’s allegation that in over one year of Baru’s tenure, no contract was cleared by the NNPC board, despite legal and procedural requirements that all contracts above $20 million would need to be reviewed and approved by the board.