Twenty-four hours after the Federal
Government replaced the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National
Petroleum Corporation, it announced the sacking of all the eight
executive directors of the corporation.
This was confirmed by the Group General
Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, NNPC, Mr. Ohi Alegbe, in a
statement on Wednesday night in Abuja.
Alegbe said in the statement, “The
Federal Government has approved the retirement of all eight group
executive directors of the NNPC with immediate effect.
“The affected group executive directors
are Mr. Bernard Otti, GED, Finance and Accounts; Dr. Timothy Okon,
acting GED, Exploration and Production, who also doubled as the
Coordinator, Corporate Planning & Strategy; Mr. Adebayo Ibirogba,
Engineering and Technology; Dr. David Ige, Gas and Power; Ms. Aisha
Abdurrahman, Commercial and Investment; Dr. Dan Efebo, Corporate
Services; Mr. Ian Udoh, Refining & Petrochemicals; and Dr. Attahiru
Yusuf, Business Development.”
The
statement noted that the new Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Dr.
Ibe Kachikwu, personally conveyed the Federal Government’s decision to
the GEDs.
He expressed gratitude to them for their services to the corporation and wished them success in their future endeavours.
No replacements were named, but our
correspondent gathered that four new group executive director positions
had been created and that some names were already being considered by
President Muhammadu Buhari to fill them.
Sources at the corporation gave the new
directorates as of Refining and Engineering, Exploration and Production,
Commercial and Investment, and Finance.
Buhari had a week ago, pledged to fix the
oil sector, rid the industry of rot and recover money stolen by
operators in the sector.
On Tuesday, he relieved Dr. Joseph Dawha
of his appointment as the GMD of the national oil firm, replacing him
with Kachikwu, who until his appointment was the Executive Vice Chairman
and General Counsel of Exxon-Mobil (Africa).
The President had in late June dissolved the NNPC board.
The Federal Government, through the NNPC, regulates and participates in the country’s petroleum industry.
The NNPC was established on April 1, 1977
as a merger of the Nigerian National Oil Corporation and the Federal
Ministry of Mines and Steel.
The law that created the firm permits it
to manage the joint ventures between the Federal Government and some
foreign multinational corporations, including Shell, Agip, ExxonMobil,
Chevron and Total.
Through the collaboration with the companies, the Federal Government conducts petroleum exploration and production.
But industry observers had on several
occasions complained that the corporation lacked supervision, stressing
that it had degenerated to a rent-collector for the government with less
attention to transparency and accountability.
On Tuesday, the New York-based Natural
Resources Governance Initiative canvassed the need to overhaul the
management of the country’s oil sales process by the NNPC as top
priority for the Buhari-led administration to stem waste and loss of
billions of dollars in revenue.
The international watchdog said in one of
its latest reports that the NNPC’s approach to oil sales was suffering
from high corruption risks and had failed to maximise returns for the
nation.
The authors of the NRGI report, led by
Aaron Sayne, said, “We find that management of the NNPC’s oil sales has
worsened in recent years, and particularly since 2010. The largest
problems stem from the rising number of ad hoc, makeshift practices the
corporation has introduced to work around its deeper structural
problems.”
The NNPC receives about one million
barrels of oil per day, or almost half of the country’s total
production, part of which is sold to its subsidiary, Pipelines and
Product Marketing Company, for the country’s refineries, while a larger
volume is sold to traders.
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