 |
| Reuben Abati |
The current NNPC debacle is probably the
most embarrassing, even if mercifully, eye-opening crisis in the
history of that nationally strategic institution since its creation in
1977. I seek in the following commentary to offer a number of
observations that would probably throw some light on the muck and
confusion running riot out there on the matter. In my view, it was an
error to have paired the Group Managing Director of the Nigeria National
Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Dr Maikanti Baru, with Dr. Ibe Kachikwu.
I say this for two reasons. When Dr. Ibe
Kachikwu was appointed the GMD in charge of the NNPC and as Minister of
State in 2015, it looked like a dream appointment and an extra-ordinary
career point for him but not necessarily for the sector. Dr Kachikwu
did not hesitate to assert himself and in his attempt to reform the
NNPC, one of the victims was a certain Dr Maikanti Baru, most senior
Executive Director at the NNPC, who was redeployed under the new
dispensation as a Technical Adviser in the Ministry of Petroleum. This
was like sending Baru to desert territory of the oil and gas sector. How
the same Baru eventually got rehabilitated as GMD of the NNPC, to work
with the same man who had tried to marginalize him within the system was
a poor demonstration of an understanding of human psychology.
It was common knowledge that there was no love lost between the two men,
and yet someone thought it was a good idea to force them to work
together as a team. Leadership failed at that point, because the
arrangement was not going to work. The Ministry of Petroleum and NNPC
that emerged at that point was built on a fulcrum of conflict of
personality and interest. The key players in the oil and gas sector can
only work together as a team if they must reduce the opaqueness and
conflicts in that sector, but the pairing of Kachikwu and Baru
practically showed a lack of understanding. The crisis that has now
erupted between both men was foreseeable, and I dare say, avoidable.
Where is the wisdom in forcing two persons who have shown open dislike
for each other to work together?
But let us consider the other level of
the conflict: and that is the conflict of interest. One major issue in
the oil and gas industry, over the years has been the uneasy
relationship between the Ministry of Petroleum and the International Oil
Companies (IOCs). The Ministry of Petroleum through its parastatals,
the NNPC, and more particularly, NAPIMS, regulates the IOCs.
Nonetheless, the relationship between the regulator and the IOCs has
always been like that between the cat and the mouse. Civil servants not
just in the NNPC but elsewhere within the government have a penchant to
want to work with their own.
Political appointees are treated with suspicion, as wayfarers, as the
civil servants seek to protect their own territory. The battle for
territory in the Nigerian government is one of the most vicious fights
in the corridors of power. So it has been that in the oil and gas
industry in Nigeria, every attempt to appoint an IOC-associated person
as head of the NNPC or other parastatals under the Ministry of Petroleum
has always resulted in the equivalent of street fights.
Under President Olusegun Obasanjo,
Edmund Daukoru and Funso Kupolokun could not forge a seamless
relationship even if Daukoru spent only five months or so in that
position. Diezani Allison-Madueke was also from the IOCs (in her case
Shell) and obviously she had issues with NNPC and Ministry officials.
She had an advantage though: no GMD of NNPC would dare stand up to her,
or by-pass her.
The belief within the Ministry of
Petroleum system is that Ministerial appointees from the IOCs have
interests that are different from their own traditions. President Buhari
made the matter worse by making Kachikwu, an IOC man, from Exxon Mobil,
GMD and Minister of State of Petroleum. On the surface of it, the
impression was created that he could generate policies as he deemed fit,
enjoy direct access to the Minister of Petroleum and gain the
authorization to implement the same policies as he liked. From day one,
Kachikwu was thus a marked man within the Ministry of Petroleum system.
It will be naïve to assume that it is only Maikanti Baru that is
fighting him. It will be safer to assume that it is the establishment
that is trying to cut him down to size. If you doubt that, then check
the history of the system: most of the former Ministers of Petroleum
that managed to do well are not even from the system but complete
outsiders. Caught in the middle of this conflict, Kachikwu does not want
to take the matter lying low. He is fighting back. I’ll comment on
whether that is a smart or clever move anon.
No comments:
Post a Comment