$25bn NNPC contracts: Kachikwu risks booby traps

The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, may be walking into self-destruction on his sudden turn-back on his earlier petition to President Muhammadu Buhari against the Group Managing Director (GMD) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Dr. Maikanti Baru, over award of contracts to the tune of $25 billion without due process. Kachikwu had also, in the petition, accused the GMD of NNPC of insubordination and nepotism in appointments into the NNPC.

However, after the urgent meeting with President Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Kachikwu had since then maintained pacific silence on the issues he raised in the letter. The first time the Minister of State had to break his silence on the matter, he revealed how President Buhari persuaded him to suspend further protest and cooperate with Baru to maintain harmony in governance of the oil sector.

The Under-Minister further reversed some of the insinuations, giving the NNPC GMD a clean bill of fraud.

National Daily gathered that Kachikwu, at the Nigerian Content Workshop organised by the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board, in Owerri, Imo State, disclosed that the president prevailed on him to work together with Baru to avoid “doubt and rift”.

The junior Minster remarked that there is no fraud in the award of contracts by NNPC, adding that his letter was not based on fraud but on governance.

“The conversation has been largely misunderstood to border on fraud. It was not on fraud, but on governance and suggestions on ways to go about it. I think a lot of people got it wrong.

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“People dwell much on issues of sensationalism and leave the main substance. The Group Managing Director of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, Dr. Maikanti Baru, and I are working together as Mr. President had directed to move forward.

“Mr. President has urged the two of us to find ways of working together to remove doubt and rift.

“Mr. President is a decent man and what he wants to achieve in this country is to leave a legacy for posterity. He is a sincere leader, so nobody should accuse him of engaging in fraud.”

Several stakeholders in the Nigerian project are of the view that the minister could be displaying that level of trust in a political environment that is highly intricate with decoy. They contended that fighting corruption battle half way may be destructive in the long run because the opponent will never let go/ he could strike at a time that the fighter never expected and the mess would be so damaging; thus, admonishing Kachikwu to beware of unseen booboo traps that may destroy him as a more corrupt state actor in the future.