Oil & Gas
EMMANUEL Ibe Kachikwu, minister of State for Petroleum Resources, and Maikanti Baru, the group managing director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, on Tuesday, October 10, met for the first time since the controversy that trailed the minister’s leaked memo to President Muhammad Buhari.
Both men were at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel Abuja, for the Nigerian Economic Summit Group 2017, where they sat on the same panel. The minister served as chairman of the session, while Baru was among the panel of discussants.
In his remark, Baru who chaired a group on the topic: Unlocking the Opportunities through second Marginal Fields Bid Round, insisted on the independence of the regulatory agencies, with little or no political interference for the oil industry to operate.
Baru said for Nigeria to get it right on the marginal fields, the autonomy of the regulator and the transparency of the process must be enshrined.
Kachikwu readily agreed with Baru in his reaction, saying that the point “is very, very key to see an independent regulator with very enormous powers, with less of political interface so that individual could do their work.”
The minister said at the moment he was whittling down the powers of the minister’s office in the on-going reforms of the industry “so that these institutions could work and work well, the reality is that no one will work as a minister forever, you are going to hand over that portfolio.
“We should be looking for the system surviving and been able to work well, so it’s something that we are working very hard on and I think if you look at the issues that come up, there are a lot of emphasis on that independence. We are still working to make it better by the time the National Assembly finishes what they are doing we are going to see a much stronger, a much larger independent regulator.”
Baru listed the opportunities in the forthcoming marginal oil fields bid round, adding that a successful completion of the process would present a veritable opportunity for Nigeria to grow it is crude oil output and create employment.
At the end of the programme, Kachikwu and Baru again exchanged pleasantries, took some photographs together, chatted and walked out of the hall together.
– Oct 11, 2017 @ 12:58 GMT /
Tags: DPR Emmanuel Ibe kachikwu Maikanti Baru PRESIDENT Muhammad Buhari Transcorp Hilton Hotel Abuja
I expected Kachikwu to have done his homework very well before putting pen on paper. Having been on Baru’s seat before, he ought to have known that he has no power over him as does his minister. I had asked the question as whether a minister of state has statutory power and whether such powers are provided for in our constitution. The answer I got was that a minister of state only has power as delegated to him by the substantive minister. If that is the case why was the hew-and-cry by Kachikwu that he was being sidelined? What he perhaps may not know, or except it was deliberate, is that he has succeeded in politicizing his case and those who don’t understand particularly from south-south have turned it to mean that their son was being sidelined and marginalized by Buhari or Buhari’s men. I doubt if Kachikwu will be able to dowse the fire he has lit by himself and the south-south since everything that happens in Nigeria can only be seen through the prism of these vicabularies: political, sidelining, marginalization, ethnicity, tribalism, and the rest of them. For me, Kachikwu has to lick his wounds alone.