NNPC, Ojulari, and the ‘owners’ of Nigeria
By AbdulGanny Ibraheem
Since his appointment on 2nd April this year, perceptive watchers of Nigeria’s oil sector knew very well that the new Group CEO of the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Ltd. Engr Bashir Bayo Ojulari, is in for a strenuous tenure. And this envisaged strain is on all conceivable fronts, socio-political, economic, and geographical.
In all these, the mighty and powerful, the pretentious ‘owners’ of this country, are up in arms, as usual, against a consummate technocrat they perceive as an ‘outsider’.
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Engr Ojulari’s rumoured forceful resignation last weekend, following a phantom abduction by security operatives, is the latest antics of embittered members of an entrenched cabal who felt shortchanged in government’s ongoing attempt to reposition the NNPC for viability, profitability, and better service for the benefit of Nigerians.
Engr. Ojulari brought into the job a vast experience in and a distinguished career in national and international oil and gas industry.
Having bagged a First Class degree in Mechanical Engineering from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, the new NNPC GCEO has a distinguished career in the oil industry, having served as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Renaissance Africa Energy Company and led a consortium in the $2.4 billion acquisition of Shell Petroleum Development Company’s equity in Nigeria. He had earlier held key positions at Shell and Elf Aquitaine, making significant contributions to the oil and gas industry. He has also served as Managing Director of Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company (SNEPCo) from 2015 to 2021.
But to these self-acclaimed owners of Nigeria, Ojulari’s intimidating credentials and indubitable industry expertise, and obviously genuine commitment to reposition the country’s wonky energy sector count for nothing in as much as it would sound the stoppage knell for their unconscionable milking of the nation’s oil wealth.
On the economic front, the oil racketeers and profiteers are hemorrhaging over the new NNPC boss’ intention to sanitize the oil sector and curb all sorts of shady deals in the sector that make members of the proverbial butcher’s family to invidiously settle for bony and remnant meats at the end of the day.
On the socio-political front, certain powerful groups and individuals felt slighted that an outsider, someone who does not belong to the inner circle of the exclusive cult who believe it is their birth right to perpetually head what they consider to be juicy sectors in the country, could be appointed NNPC MD, “just like that”. That was probably the reason why, even though Ojulari is from the North Central Zone, certain elements in Northern Nigeria were still crying that the North, “their” own ‘North’, was marginalised by the appointment of the new NNPC boss. And since the past 125 days of his mounting the saddle, these elements have not seen any need to fully cooperate with Ojulari to make his tenure an easy venture. Rather, they have continued to tighten the noose on him to frustrate his good intentions for the oil behemoth in particular and the nation’s socio-economic development in general.
In an attempt to placate the Northern cabal, Ojulari tried so hard to convince them about his ‘northernity’, a move that ruffled not a few feathers among those who know him up to his birthplace.
But fundamentally, the cabals are obviously angered by some bold decisions taken by the GCEO immediately on assumption of office. One of these was the sweeping reorganization, which affected about 200 non-performing top management officers, a decision viewed by Energy sector watchers as a step in the right direction and in the best interest of the nation’s economic development. Many people are of the opinion that this decision really got on the nerves of the cabals and they were said to have vowed that the new GCEO must be cut short on his tracks in order not to wreak more havocs on their interests.
Engr Ojulari’s dogged pursuit of the NNPC repositioning agenda to set the national oil company on the path of profitability and transparency also riled even some fifth columnists at the top echelon of the company such that their major preoccupation now is to sabotage the system and shoot down the forward-looking moves.
For instance, within just four months of coming on board, Ojulari has recorded several groundbreaking achievements, which include significant increase in NNPCL’s profitability, excellent and transparent remittances to the Federation Account, commendable collaborations with upstream partners in a strategic move to boost oil and gas production in Nigeria as well as transparent monthly financial and operational reports, which have been in abeyance since the past eight years.
Another probable offence the new NNPCL boss might have committed, in the reckoning of the cabals, could have been his facilitation of the settlement of the long drawn battle between NNPC and Dangote Refinery to allow naira denominated payment for crude oil purchase.
Naturally, all these do not excite the powerful cabals and their in-house collaborators, who are bent on keeping the NNPCL in its wonky state to continue their strangle-hold on the nation’s economic life-wire.
However, President Bola Tinubu must be commended for headhunting this critical technocrat to head the NNPCL at this point in time. And it is very obvious that Ojulari has fallen short of expectations since his appointment. In view of this, the President must not allow saboteurs to undermine the ongoing oil industry reorganization. In the national interest, the naysayers’ plans must not be allowed to fly. The wings of these revisionists must be clipped before they succeed in reversing the gains made so far. God forbid!
*Ibraheem, a Public Policy Analyst, writes from Mokwa
