President Muhammadu Buhari is set to head the Ministry of
Petroleum for 18 months before appointing a substantive minister for the
ministry.
The President said this while meeting with some members of
his political party, the All Progressives Congress, in Abuja recently.
One of those at the meeting, who spoke on condition of
anonymity, on Sunday said that the President said he would use the 18 months
of heading the petroleum ministry to reposition it.
According to him,
“At the meeting we had recently, we discussed the issues of
portfolios and other matters,” the President said he was going to handle the
Ministry of Petroleum himself for about 18 months.
“He said it was after this that he would appoint a
substantive minister for the ministry. He said he would only personally handle
the reorganisation of the much-important ministry.
“Besides, he said the ministry needed to be reformed and be
rid of corruption. He promised to sanitise the ministry.”
It was, however, gathered that the President was thinking of
appointing an experienced person as his special adviser on petroleum.
The President was once a minister in charge of the ministry
so due to this experience, he was said to have vowed to make sure that he
blocked all the loopholes that enabled stealing of money or petroleum products.
He plans to split the NNPC in two, creating a regulator and
a vehicle for investments, according to Femi Adesina, a presidential spokesman.
So far the president has fired the board and management of
the company and replaced its Jonathan-appointed chief with Emmanuel Ibe
Kachikwu, who was executive vice-chariman of Exxon Mobil Africa. He has also
ordered a review of oil-swap contracts and barred 113 vessels from loading oil
and gas, about 250,000 barrels of Nigerian crude, about 10 percent of the
country’s daily output, are stolen daily, Buhari has said.
Speaking on the issue, the Peoples Democratic Party said it
would be too early to speculate on whether the President would head the
ministry or not.
Rather, the opposition party urged Nigerians to wait till
September when the President promised to name his cabinet.
The Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the party, Alhaji
Ibrahim Jalo, told our correspondent that he was only sure that the President
was going to split the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.
Jalo said, “That Buhari is going to head the ministry is
speculative. But what we know, going by his body language and actions so far,
is that he is going to split the NNPC.
“This is what we know. So, let’s wait and see what he’s
going to do before we make comments.”
However, the Conference of Nigeria Political Parties said
the constitution vested powers on the President to head any ministry or
parastatal of his choice or appoint a representative.
The National Publicity Secretary of the organisation, Mr.
Osita Okechukwu, said that Section 5 of the 1999 Constitution “vested executive
powers on the President.
He said
“He can decide to exercise such powers by himself or
delegate it to his deputy, or public officers of the public service of the
federation. That’s what the law says.
“Whether he chooses to manage any ministry by himself is
immaterial. Whether he decides to be in charge of ministries such as power,
works, women affairs or culture does not mean anything to the Nigerian people.”
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