INSIDERS, particularly workers, watching the power play
between the workstations of the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr.
Emmanuel Kachikwu and the Group Managing Director, GMD, Nigeria National
Petroleum Corporation, NNPC...
in the last six months, at the NNPC Towers, Abuja,
had diagnosed that it was only a matter of time for things to explode. In fact,
when the powers that be at the corporation started taking more than a passing
interest in the workers that stopped at the Minister’s work floor and the
deeper reason of them by-passing, it was palpable that matters could run out of
control. Kachikwu, Buhari and Baru Not unanticipated: By and large, the
developments were not totally unexpected. Some have described it as a
personality problem between Kachikwu, the former GMD of NNPC and Dr. Maikanti
Baru, the incumbent GMD, his successor. Unmistakably, when President Muhammadu
Buhari, who doubled as the Minister of Petroleum Resources, relieved Dr.
Kachikwu of his NNPC GMD portfolio, last year, albeit retaining him as Minister
of State for Petroleum with Chairman, NNPC Board of Directors as pacifier, it
was apparent to even the dumb that “power has changed hands.” What was
indistinguishable is the extent he would cope with the ‘ambuscade’ or whether
he would suffocate. In Nigeria, a junior minister plays a subservient role to
the senior minister. So when it concerns petroleum and the President himself is
the key Minister of Petroleum, the whys and wherefores for certain happenings
are bald-faced. Before now: Discoveries showed that as GMD and Minister of
State, Petroleum, Kachikwu was reporting directly to Buhari not only as his
senior minister, but also as President. There was no other go-between as he is
the junior minister. Existing order: Probably due to the circumstances of
Baru’s appointment designed to cut Kachikwu’s growing influence at the time,
the enablers did not see any need for the GMD to pass through the Minister of
State for Petroleum Resources to the Minister of Petroleum Resources, as the
latter, who is President could not be reached through another channel with the
correct knob. Seeming assent And since the senior minister did not kick against
the modus- operandi of side-tracking his junior minister, the rebellion not
just blossomed but grew wings. Way out: A federal bureaucrat familiar with the
problematic told this reporter, weekend: “It is not a difficult matter to
resolve. The question is that there is no structure, no defined line of
communication between the NNPC, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources and
Minister of Petroleum, who is the President. “Some people saw the lacunae and
they took advantage of it to achieve their ambition. Now that it has reached a
roasting point and the President had invited Kachikwu to listen first-hand to
him and Dr. Baru also met with the Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, to
debrief him, the solution is at the corner. The President should have done this
earlier than now. “He (Buhari) should clearly spell out the structure,
supervisory power and line of communication. He should neither entertain nor
condone a breach of the guidelines to be rolled out. The guidelines will show
if he was tacitly in support of the strange happenings all along or not. “I can
tell you that once this is done, the disagreement will fizzle out, each officer
will know his boundary. Even if it is ego at play, the new rules will check it.
Indeed, this should be done at other ministries and agencies where such
unhealthy rivalry exists, but providentially it has not ballooned like the
present case,” he added.
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