Time for GCEO, Mele Kyari,other subsidiaries’ CEOs to step down from NNPC Ltd…,By Charles Ibiang

Malam Mele Kyari and CEOs of the old NNPC Group Subsidiaries, have played a vital role in the NNPC Transition and therefore deserve commendation.

However, this is the time for the team to leave the stage for complete private sector driven orientation.

Those who haven’t reached the retirement age, should be reabsorbed into the Ministry of Petroleum Resources to continue their public service careers.

Now that NNPC Ltd is private sector-driven and a commercial entity, you cannot continue to have people who have public sector leadership orientation and mentality manning a competitive commercial entity in the dynamic energy sector like NNPC Ltd, that holds their shareholders’ profitability in the hands of public sector wastage and incompetence.

Advertisement

The entire leadership positions in the Group should be advertised to allow for fresh, competent and professional individuals, who have track records of managing global oil and gas conglomerates into great profitability.

The continuous retention of the current leadership of Mele Kyari and his loyalists shall only means, retaining inefficiency, influence peddling, cronyism, corruption and propensity for making losses. This can be succinctly captured in the maxim, that says, “The more things change, the more they remain the same.”

Investments and investors are watching the trend closely.

Recall that the IOCs are already divesting heavily from Nigerian Upstream Petroleum sector, with its attendant effects on the Nigeria Environment and Economy, under the current Leadership of our Country’s Petroleum sector. This doesn’t reflect trust and confidence, a major ingredient in the investments environment matrix.

Investors’ confidence is key, and retention of this Mele Kyari-led NNPC Ltd Group is going to send the very wrong signals, that nothing has changed.

This new entity, NNPC Ltd, should reflect a shift from the old normal of public sector wastage, to a new philosophy of private sector- driven management, anchored, on good corporate governance, probity, accountability, and transparency.

The transitory stage of the Global Energy Sector, requires highly competent Oil & Gas professionals to navigate the new NNPC Ltd to a global competitive energy company, capable of breaking new frontiers in the dynamic global energy ecosystem. The stakes are high!

This current leadership cannot offer Nigeria, the benefits envisaged of the new NNPC Ltd in terms of national pride, credibility and profitability. This is just the true position of things today.

We acknowledge and commend their hard work during the transition period.

In the light of the above patriotic arguments, there is an urgent need to call for the immediate advertisement of the positions of the Group CEO, and CEOS of the various subsidiary companies under the NNPC Ltd Group.

Nigerians and stakeholders, demand that reputable international recruitment organizations should be invited for EOI, pre-qualified and subsequent engagement by the NNPC Ltd Board without delay, to consolidate the renew impetus offered by the new NNPC Ltd transition, before the global enthusiasm dies down.

The Nigeria Petroleum sector deserves better, and to be savee from further decline due to lack of trust, official meddling, incompetence, official corruption, poor policy implementation, and retrogressive regulations.

This is our chance to get it right and redeem our image. We cannot be managing a commercial and Private sector entity with a public sector organizational behavior. It wouldn’t work.

What NNPC Ltd needs now is a private sector competent, globally competitive oil & gas professionals with impeccable track record and network to man the new commercial NNPC Ltd Group.

As a Country, let us make hay while the sun shines.

● Lord Charles Ibiang,
Petroleum and Energy Sector Analyst, is a former Oil Worker and nember of the Energy Committee ( Oil & Gas) of the National Conference, 2014. He is Chairman, Partners for Petroleum and Energy Sector Prosperity Initiative (P-PESPI), an Energy Sector focus Civil Society Organization with the objective of promoting best practices in Nigerian Petroleum and Energy Sector.