Kachikwu, It’s Time to Step Aside- Yemi Adebowale

Ibe Kachikwu, the junior minister for petroleum is one man that has brought maximum opprobrium to the Buhari administration. His management of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation has brought unprecedented misery to Nigerians. All the “gigantic” strides of this tetchy minister in the petroleum sector have all collapsed before our eyes. For example, he is the only one seeing progress being made by his warped restructuring of the NNPC. This cosmetic action has failed to solve a single problem at the corporation. The fundamental problems of this firm are still very much around. This state oil corporation remains inefficient and corrupt. NNPC has been losing billions of Naira monthly, despite the restructuring. According to the latest financial report released by the NNPC, it lost over N18 billion during its operation in March this year.  If NNPC were to be Kachikwu’s private company, will he be celebrating this fabulous losses?

This minister is consistently economical with the truth. His incongruous pronouncements and propaganda are legendary. At one point, he told us that fuel subsidy had been removed through his inventiveness and that Nigeria was saving billions of USD monthly in subsidy removal on fuel importation. The next moment, he was talking about government paying N12 subsidy per litre of imported fuel. The next thing, he was talking about full deregulation, yet fixing price. Kachikwu is consistently regaling us with stories of refineries, deports and pipelines that have roared back to life, yet, we still import virtually all the fuel consumed in this country. Suddenly, he told us that he would need $500 million to turn around the refineries. We were still digesting this, when he increased the figure to $700 million. Haba! Which turnaround? We can build brand new refineries with these figures being bandied by Kachikwu.

It is a shame that nobody is ready to tell Kachikwu that everything he is doing in the oil industry is not working. His actions and inactions, coupled with his superciliousness have made things worse. Anything built on deceit will always fail. Under his watch, we experienced four months of unparalleled excruciating fuel scarcity. The next round of scarcity is imminent with the newly introduced regulated-deregulation. When the N145 per litre price was announced, Naira was exchanging at N321/$. Now, it is almost N370/$. The already deregulated diesel and kerosene importers will also be sourcing their forex from the secondary market. So, Naira will go down further. With this further depreciation of the Naira, will any importer still be able to sell at the regulated price? What will happen if crude prices go up? This was also not considered before announcing this regulated-deregulation. With the way things are going, we may end up buying petrol at N400 per litre. Our haughty Kachikwu is clearly not on top of this game. His mentors at Mobil Oil must be disappointed. He should be courageous enough to step aside and allow somebody else to carry this cross. We need a breath of fresh air in this crucial sector.

THISDAY