Incoming Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) Secretary-General Mohammed Barkindo yesterday backed the adoption of the “carrot and stick” approach to ending vandalism and bombing of oil, gas and power installations by the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA).
He spoke at Aso Villa after a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari.
Barkindo, a former Group Managing Director (GMD) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), was last month elected head of the secretariat of the oil cartel.
He is the third Nigerian to hold the position after the late Dr. Rilanu Lukman and Michael Fidele before him.
Barkindo said: “Well, I don’t think it will be appropriate for me to comment on this issue because we have heard what the minister of state has said; negotiations are ongoing. For me, based on my own experience here, the option of carrot and stick, ýas they call it, I think is the way forward.
“Government, I understand, is negotiating, discussing and we are beginning to see positive results. So I don’t think it will be proper to preempt these discussions that are being handled by Dr. Kachukwu.
“But I remain confident that through these negotiations, stable and permanent solutions will be found to this problem ýbecause the Niger Delta region is a very important part of our country and whatever we can do to address the challenges of development I think is the way forward.
“I have been told that production is beginning to rise again; so, for us in OPEC this is the first thing we look at; how much is a member country producing? When we saw that production was falling in Nigeria as a result of recent challenges, the international community, the market also took note of that.
“But now I think things are beginning to come back to normalcy and I have seen some of your reports that are also very positive. So your support is also very important because the oil market is fed by information not by crude oil.”
Barkindo went on: “Now this structural changes swept across the entire industry, member countries of OPEC will have to remain united to confront these challenges. Every member country of OPEC has a variety of challenges both within the industry and the economy at least.
“But tremendous efforts are being made by member countries to overcome the challenges. But at the organisational level, we will need more unity of ministers and governments, as well as our governors and our national representatives, so that together OPEC will be able to overcome these challenges and become even stronger.”
“As I have told Mr. President a short while ago, there is no alternative to these reforms. Therefore, what we need to do is to together ensure these reforms are sustained.
“The bane in the past has been lack of continuity of policies and programmes. Energy reforms, the world over, normally take some time to reach their targets. So, I think we have taken the right steps here and what we need is to continue and sustain these reforms so that the entire energy scene will be totally reformed at the end of the day in the interest of the country and the international community.”
According to him, he got the OPEC job because of the tremendous respect ýand goodwill President Buhari commands internationally.
He recalled that all the six countries that aspired for the position stepped down for him.
Barkindo said: “It is not just Nigeria they took into cognisance; the integrity and status of Mr. President, that anybody that he will put his stamp of authority and endorse ýshould be considered and should be given a chance.
“I’m flattered about Mr. Kachukwu’s remarks that my credentials made it easier for him to sell me but I must seize this opportunity to say though I had not met him before this, I am extremely impressed with the way and manner he carried out this special assignment given to him by Mr. President.
“It has established him in the OPEC circle within a very short period of time, he is highly respected, being a lawyer, I think, also helped. He has very strong persuasive skills and he campaigned day and night and I just mentioned to Mr. President that you can’t have ýa better campaign manager than Dr. Ibe Kachukwu, who has turned himself to a real diplomat, in addition to being a technocrat. So, I think he should also be celebrated.”