Kachikwu and Buhari’s Anti-Corruption Rhetoric (2)
In the letter Kachikwu said “…the NNPC Tenders Board (NTB) cannot be the final clearance authority for contracts it enters into. The NTB which is a collection of top-level NNPC executives and COOs, with the GMD as Chairman, cannot continue to be the final approval authority for multi-million dollar contracts and transactions involving NNPC to the exclusion of the board…” He then listed five contracts valued at $24 -25billion adding in his words that “there are many more…” such contracts or transactions that were never discussed or reviewed by him as minister of State, or with the board of NNPC! If we believe Kachikwu, the possibility is that we are potentially dealing with transaction values larger than $25billion!!!
The second set of allegations involve those related to appointments, postings and corporate re-organisations within the NNPC on which the Board was not briefed and which came to the knowledge of the board through news and social media. Kachikwu claimed that on one occasion, Baru attempted to obtain approval from then Acting President Yemi Osinbajo for some of these, who directed they be discussed with Kachikwu, which was never done.
The third broad allegation made by Kachikwu relates to acts of insubordination, poor working relationship characterised by “humiliation, sidelining and campaigns of character defamation” by the NNPC MD. These acts include ignoring meetings summoned by the minister; creating a climate of fear (“NNPC staff are afraid of contacting me to avoid being punished, sidelined in appointments and targeted”) and accusations that the minister is “anti-North”, “corrupt” and “in collusion with militants”.
It is significant that in his reply through a statement (the release to the public of which must have been authorised by the president) Baru did not offer any response to the allegations of unauthorised appointments and postings as well as acts of insubordination, sidelining, humiliation and defamation, in effect admitting those claims. Indeed the substance of his response to the single issue of improper contract awards was to admit that in his opinion, the board of NNPC and the office of the Minister of State for Petroleum are irrelevant, redundant, sinecure (a position requiring little or no work, labour, active service or responsibility but giving the holder status and income or financial benefit!) and of no substantive purpose!
So the MD of NNPC in effect admits ignoring the board in appointments, postings and corporate restructurings and also does not dispute allegations of disrespect, sidelining, humiliating and defaming the office of chairman of the corporation, its board and a minister of state. In any decent society or organisation, he would be fired immediately!!! The political and policy implications of the NNPC’s defence are also severe and glaring-the NNPC MD and his sponsors have thus confirmed publicly the suspected gerrymandering and deliberate manipulations on the part of the presidency that has created a board and minister of state in our critical petroleum ministry that is powerless! Everyone but the deliberately self-deceiving will recognise the geo-ethnic pattern relating to power and powerlessness under Buhari that is vividly demonstrated and affirmed in this case!
The kernel of Baru’s reply was entirely technical-laying out the procedure for award of contracts in NNPC (to the effect that the board is of no consequence in that process-which in law cannot be correct: a company’s directors and board represent the entity and cannot be irrelevant in its contracts or transactions with third parties, especially to the value of billions of dollars!); arguing that some of the deals listed by Kachikwu were not contracts but “merely the short listing of prospective off-takers of crude oil and suppliers of petroleum under agreed terms…these transactions were not required to be presented as contracts to the board of NNPC…” He similarly dismissed other transactions with various third-parties as not requiring board approval.
This argument sounds to me like a bank treasurer arguing that the list of counterparties with which the bank makes placements does not require approval since it’s just a shortlist of off-takers! It could also resemble the Finance Director of a listed manufacturing company dismissing the board’s role in approving the list of banks with which he places surplus funds or the list of distributors to whom the company grants credit facilities!!! This is a self-serving argument –at the point the shortlisted off-takers were then “awarded” specific transactions with huge monetary values, were approvals requested for the transactions?
The other dimension of Baru’s reply has been curiouser and curiouser since the saga commenced! First he mentioned some transactions that were approved by the president; when members of the public assumed a reference to President Buhari and wondered if it was not illegal for Buhari to approve anything while he was on medical leave outside Nigeria, having duly transmitted power to the Vice President constitutionally, the presidency then clarified that the approvals were infact made by Osinbajo as Acting President.
Vice President Osinbajo’s spokesman then confirmed that indeed his boss approved the said contracts only for the VP himself to contradict his spokesman, claiming that what he approved were financing or loan transactions, not contracts. The President’s final word on the matter is that there were no $25 billion deals whatsoever! It is noteworthy that in the responses from NNPC and government, beyond technical arguments, no reference is made to what is right, proper or best practice in a government that claims an anti-corruption mandate! Frankly the whole affair appears to be a complete mess!
I wondered at the beginning of this whether Kachikwu’s actions were driven by naivety or courage. His adversaries appear to impute a third possible suggestion-that he was acting to cover his own tracks, resurrecting some previous allegations of corruption against Ibe Kachikwu and his junior brother, Dumebi. Even Baru suggested that some of the approval mechanisms Kachikwu complains about today were in place during his own tenure as NNPC MD! Whatever his real intention and/or motivation, Kachikwu has advertently or inadvertently served the public record well by bringing these matters into the open.
Opeyemi Agbaje