Corruption, ‘illegal’ appointments, anti-north allegation… six highlights of Ibe Kachikwu’s letter to President Buhari



Ibe Kachikwu, minister of state for petroleum resources, wrote a letter to President Muhammadu Buhari, over the alleged insubordination of Maikanti Baru, group managing director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).

In the letter seen by TheCable, Kachikwu accused Baru of undermining his (Kachikwu’s) office and dragging the reputation of the NNPC into the mud.

He also said he was being sidelined based on allegations that he is corrupt, anti-north and conspiring in collusion with militants.

Below are six highlights of the petition:

‘UNDERMINING THE MINISTER’S OFFICE’

Kachikwu said since Baru’s assumption of office, he has failed to consult and carry him along in the activities of the corporation. He alleged that acts of misbehaviour by Baru were already hindering all the envisaged positive changes for the oil and gas sector.

The minister said he decided to bring the issues to the attention of the president after one year of tolerating “these disrespectful and humiliating conducts”. He said he would have preferred to personally discuss the issues with the president but he had not been able to secure an appointment despite many attempts.

Kachikwu appealed to Buhari to intervene and “save the NNPC and oil industry from collapse arising from above non-transparent practices and empower the board you inaugurated to do the needful”.

“That you save the office of the minister of state from further humiliation and disrespect by compelling all parastatals to submit to oversight regulatory mandate and proper supervision which I am supposed to manage on your behalf,” he wrote.

ANTI-NORTH ALLEGATION

The minister said he had been accused of working against the north and also influencing the appointments of some persons. He denied the allegations and described himself as a “completely detribalised Nigerian”.

“I have lived my formative years in the east, west, north and south-south parts of the country,” he wrote.

“All my appointments were generated with key inputs from all the COOs of the NNPC and were balanced and based strictly on skills, experience, drive and ethnic balancing for senior management position.

“I have never betrayed the trust you placed on me. I did not deploy any public financial resources to achieve the results in the Niger Delta.”

APPOINTMENTS WITHOUT DUE CONSULTATION

The minister said he was not consulted in most of the appointments made by Baru. He said he learnt about them on social media or through press releases. Kachikwu explained that on one occasion, he held a meeting with the GMD to raise concerns about the appointments and also wrote a letter to him, but that Baru ignored him by making some changes without his involvement.

He appealed to the president to suspend these appointments.

“I resumed work confronted by many publications of massive changes within NNPC. Like the previous reorganisations and repostings done since Mr Baru resumed as GMD, I was never given the opportunity before the announcements to discuss these appointments,” he wrote.

“This is so despite being the minister of state petroleum and chairman, NNPC board.

“The board of NNPC which you appointed and which has met every month since its inauguration, and which by the NNPC is meant to review these planned appointments and postings, was never briefed.

“Members of the board learnt of these appointments from the pages of social media and the press release of NNPC. The above is just one of the many occurrences of disrespectful experience with the GMD as your minister of state.”

In August, fifty-five management staff of the corporation were affected in a shake-up. The reshuffling raised dust, with Ohaneze Ndigbo, apex socio-cultural organisation of the Igbo, alleging that the north was clearly favoured while “the south-east totally ignored”.

ASSIGNMENT OF CONTRACTS WITHOUT DUE PROCESS

Kachikwu said against the rules, some major contracts were never reviewed or discussed with him or the board of NNPC. He listed some of the contracts as:

The crude Term contracts- value at over @$10bn
The DSDP contracts – value over $5bn
The AKK pipeline contract- value approximately $3bn
Various financing allocation funding contracts with the NOCs- value over $3bn
Various NPDC production service contracts- value at over $3bn-$4bn
“The legal and procedural requirement is that all contracts above $20m would need to be reviewed and approved by the board of NNPC Mr President, in over one year of Mr Baru’s tenure, no contract has been run through the board,” Kachikwu wrote.

“This is despite my diplomatic encouragement to Mr Baru to do so to avoid wrongfully painting you as a president who does not allow due process to thrive in the NNPC.”

‘CONSPIRING WITH MILITANTS’

In response to the above allegation, Kachikwu said: “nothing, your excellency, can be further from the truth”.

“I mention this because this will be the likely response you will receive to this attempt I am making to alert you on the state of affairs under the GMD’s leadership,” he wrote.

“I have done nothing during my time at the NNPC or the ministry that is corrupt or laced with any such intent. Anyone peddling any contrary information is resorting to cheap blackmail.”

REDEEMING THE IMAGE OF NNPC AND OIL INDUSTRY

Kachikwu said the public impression about the NNPC is that of corruption and in-transparency in its activities.

He appealed to the president to instruct the GMD to leave the NNPC to run as a proper institution and report out along due process lines to the board.

“Given the history of malpractice and the public perception of the NNPC as having a history of non-transparency, the NNPC Tenders Board (NTB) cannot be the final clearance authority for clearance it enters into,” he said.

“The open administration I introduced with your support in our year of pushing reforms, has been completely eroded. NNPC staff are afraid of contacting me for the fear of being punished, sidelined in appointments and targeted.

“The effect of the attitude of the GMD and the sidelining of the board is that there is a fear culture in NNPC.

“However, truth is that given global challenge in this sector, we must aggresively pursue out of the box ideas on rejuvenating this sector, getting the best yield and increasing our earnings from oil and gas.

“To do otherwise or to exempt any of the parastatals would be to emplace a stunted growth for the industry

These are serious allegations. I expect PMB to demonstrate preference for discipline within the ranks. He needs to investigate this and either fire Barau for insorbodination or Kachikwu for raising false alarm. If he keeps quiet, it will affect the performance of his team. Not that they are performing sef.

Campusity:
These are serious allegations. I expect PMB to demonstrate preference for discipline within the ranks. He needs to investigate this and either fire Barau for insorbodination or Kachikwu for raising false alarm. If he keeps quiet, it will affect the performance of his team. Not that they are performing sef.

You go wait tire if you expect Baru to be sacked.

How many of Buhari kitchen cabinet members alleged to be corrupt has been sacked?

Remember the grasscutter who even had the effontery to asked 'who is the presidency or Oke, Dambazzau, Buratai, Kyari e.t.c who were alleged to be involved in one shady deals or the other?

I won't be surprised the gargantuan corruption that'll be exposed after this regime leaves power will make present anticorruption allegations a child's play.

Kachiukwu sorry o

Baru has the cabal support. So he is untouchable

Congratulations to Ibe Kachikwu... Servant of a slave

What a zoo...

Buhari is president of North and for the North and he is not even pretending about it.

Ojiofor:
Buhari is president of North and for the North and he is not even pretending about it.

A leopard does not change it spots. We are in for the worst govt since 1914.
May God rescue us from this rudderless govt and its gullible fans!

Thank you Kachikwu for being honest and courageous.

PMB needs to address this issue wisely and timely before our oil and gas sector suffers another setback.

Emotions are already high and fingers pointing bitterly to a particular direction. The ND youths, if they perceive the slightest threat to their dignity, will borrow the devil's tools and that won't be too good considering the uprising in a nearby region.

After they will list this as one of the appointment given to Igbo - figure head.

If I say cabal now they say I don come again.

Kachukwith please resign I beg of you.

I am not expecting Buhari to sack or deal with the issue . he is always an absentee president that expect people to do things for him n still stay loyal.

I am so disappointed this is happening in his cabinet.

Campusity:
These are serious allegations. I expect PMB to demonstrate preference for discipline within the ranks. He needs to investigate this and either fire Barau for insorbodination or Kachikwu for raising false alarm. If he keeps quiet, it will affect the performance of his team. Not that they are performing sef.

When he couldn't deal decisively with Babachair that was court red handed and later indicted by a panel headed by VP.

Expect nothing. If anything, Kachukwu's days are numbered

It's a lesson to all those southerners currently in office and undermining their own people.

Kachikwu was one of those ministers that used Buhari's illness to try and position themselves.


At the peak of Buhari's illness, he lied to nigerians that Buhari has been working hard and managing the oil industry from London!


Such a man is an enemy of the people and gets no sympathy from me when karma decides visits him.

the only thing I am voting for come 2019 is a southerner that is not a northern ass-licker,other than that I can't stand under the sun for any man up north, what this sell-out is complaining about is very little compared to what is really happening, go to 50% of the ministries in Abuja and see things for yourselves, for the first time in the history of Nigeria, federal character commission has northern Muslims occupying the posts of chairman and secretary(equivalent to perm sec)it is usually northern Muslim/southern Christian arrangement, two southerners(1 Yoruba, 1 Igbo) were pitched to be promoted to the secretary position for one to win, only for Buhari to appoint the now former miyetti Allah secretary that has never worked for one day in federal character office as the secretary and the others to resign as they have reached the peak. this is the same story in all ministries, the last NNPC reshuffling,most Igbo MDs were left behind and the northerners under them and their ass-licking wannabes were taken above them, when Buhari made himself minister of petroleum some southern mofos were saying he is doing it to fight corruption, how can someone that worked under abacha fight corruption?,this is a person that fought for Muslim-muslim ticket anything this man does is simply for northern domination a fruit that will be reaped in 10years to come