Tag: helmsman

As Kachikwu takes over at NNPC, the task ahead is enormous

President Muhammadu Buhari took his first measured step to reposition the nation’s oil industry when on Tuesday August 4, he replaced Joseph Thlama Dawha with Ibe Kachikwu as Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.

At a time the nation would seem in dire need of its best and brightest to give fillip to the direction of the reformer-administration, Nigerians were certainly not disappointed that the President settled for one of the nation’s best. It certainly goes without saying that the new helmsman – a First Class Graduate of Law from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka and the Nigerian Law School with Masters and Doctorate Degrees in Law from the Harvard Law School and who until his appointment was Executive Vice Chairman and General Counsel of Exxon-Mobil (Africa) – more than fits the bill.

What remains in the coming months is what Kachikwu and his team make of President Muhammadu Buhari’s vision of a repositioned oil corporation.

At this time, just about every Nigerian must have witnessed the ills of the monstrosity that the NNPC has become in one form or the other. So, we appreciate the kind of changes that have become imperative. Nigerians, after all, are only too familiar with the story of a national oil corporation that has long abandoned its rationale to become a Special Purpose Vehicle for virtually all purposes under the sun – except its core mandate; one that routinely subverts the nation’s laws for the whims of political players; a citadel reeking with graft and unparalleled corruption – playground for all manners of shady characters with access and connections to top functionaries of government; a corporation that cannot even keep its four refineries in optimal shape, let alone maintain its depots and pipeline network – whose not-too-infrequent paralysis has become a regular rod of affliction on innocent households and motorists.

It is against the foregoing that recent calls for the scrapping of the NNPC can be situated; much as that option would sound rather drastic, we must acknowledge that they merely reflect the depth of public anger, frustration and disenchantment with the sliding fortunes of their state oil corporation.

It is also at the heart of why the current changes go beyond a mere salvage effort. To be sure, only fundamental changes can bring about the kind of changes that Nigerians expect of the corporation. We are encouraged that the President has already outlined six tasks for the incoming NNPC team. These are: a clean-up of the NNPC system of corrupt elements; recovery of all stolen oil funds; collaboration with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Directorate of State Services (DSS) to trace and recover stolen cash as well as a review of the structure of the NNPC to compete globally.

The President also wants to see new targets set for all subsidiaries and performance benchmarks; and, finally, the fixing of the refineries.

These are laudable visions to start with. At the very minimum, we expect the new team to run with it. Time, of course, is of the essence. To the extent that there can be no talk of any closure to the fiscal brigandage alleged to have been wreaked on the treasury by the immediate past administration  without a full accounting of all that happened, we expect the new team to set out in earnest to assist the investigators get to the bottom of all on-going investigations. It is about time the shadowy operators behind the pillaging of the treasury are exposed and punished. That would be the surest step to put the sordid chapter behind us.

Next is the future of the state oil corporation itself. Without question, the NNPC has a lot of catch-up to do when compared with what other state oil corporations founded at about the same time have achieved. Indeed, to say that the corporation is in a mess is to put things mildly. More than 50 years after the first barrel of crude was drilled, the corporation remains a fringe player in the upstream sector. Indeed, local content remains abysmally low.

The same is no less true of the refineries. After being out of action for several years, they are only just returning to action. Even at that, the exact status of the four refineries remains at best – a matter of speculation. The pipelines are perhaps in worse – no thanks to age and vandalism.

We expect the new leadership to tackle these challenges headlong. We expect the journey to a truly transformed oil corporation, one that is able to hold its own among the world’s best to begin now. As far as we know, the manpower is not lacking; what is lacking is the leadership imbued with the right vision.  The new NNPC  GMD’s  rich experience in the private sector should be able to supply that.

We wish him and his team good luck.