Who is in charge of NNPC?

In Anthony Sampson’s bestseller, The Seven Sisters, sleaze and oil go hand-in-hand. If there was a Nigerian version of that book, not only will sleaze and oil go hand-in-hand, they will be inseparable bedmates, with incompetence as their guardian angel.
This corporation, which has defied every serious effort at reform, has been at the heart of our hopes and miseries for decades.
Its place in our lives is so important that, in the last 16 years, two presidents – Olusegun Obasanjo and Muhammadu Buhari – decided to supervise it directly, regardless of public criticism.
Obasanjo could not quite tame the beast, and whatever little success he achieved has unraveled. That is really an understatement for what happened in the years after.
Between 2010 and 2015, Nigeria earned about N51trillion from oil, but that was also the time when the Jonathan government transferred vital oil asset to local gangs and left the Petroleum Resources minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke, to manage them.
While Jonathan held her bag, Diezani shared trillions of naira among politicians, brokered sweetheart oil swap deals and made sure NNPC was the ATM of the ruling party.
I’m told that one of the main reasons why Buhari decided to hold the ministerial portfolio was to restore confidence in oil majors who, due to their recent experiences, had vowed not to dine with any minister, even with a long spoon.
Before Buhari’s inauguration, Shell, Total, Agip, Chevron and ConocoPhillips offloaded asset valued at $11.5billion, partly because of the fall in oil prices, but mainly due to  the monster of corruption
That’s part of the legacy that President Buhari’s government wants to change. However, the news from the NNPC indicates that the beast is still alive and well.
If Buhari hoped to turn things around by directly supervising NNPC, that is clearly not working. Where his experience and good intention might have made a difference, poor, inconsistent and unimaginative appointments have undone the place.
Buhari’s first mistake was to give in to pressure from those who wanted him to kick Ibe Kachikwu upstairs. The arguments that he was combining two offices – GMD and minister of state – and that an “outsider” could not fix the place were largely self-serving.
The lobbyists, mostly insiders who felt threatened, wanted Kachikwu out of the way. He is not completely out of the way yet since he is still the junior minister and chairman of the NNPC Board. However, let us face it, the way things stand today, the man is just a piece of furniture.
If Kachikwu still has any illusions, the unilateral appointments made this week by the GMD, Maikanti Baru, should settle the matter. Baru reversed virtually all the appointments made by Kachikwu six months ago and left his boss to find out what had happened from newspapers.
Kachikwu, who is supposed to be junior minister and chairman of the NNPC Board, had no idea of what was coming, when or why.
Baru may argue until the next super moon that he had only good intentions, but that is the paving stone on the road to hell. How can he possibly defend making such large scale changes behind the back of his immediate boss and the board?
The clandestine way those changes have already invited needless suspicions of an ethnic agenda. Out of 108 appointments, for example, 31 (or nearly 34 percent) are from the Northwest, his zone.
The South-South comes second with 20; the Northeast and Southwest come next with 17 each; the North-Central, 16, and the Southeast, 7.
In Nigeria’s ethnically charged math, Baru’s changes work out to 64 appointments for the North and 44 for the South. In addition, he passed over the head of his Southern boss to get approval.
For an administration that has been frequently accused of favouring a section of the country, it should find these changes worrisome.
Insiders in Baru’s office have denied any ethnic motive. They have denied that this was partly vendetta.
However, question is, why were the changes done behind the back of Kachikwu and the board? Why is the announcement coming 24 hours before the inauguration of the board?
I do not know how much longer Kachikwu is willing to put up with being kicked around.
If he can be moved to a largely ceremonial position without a reason; if NNPC’s pump price changes can be made without his knowledge, and if appointments can be made in a ministry that he supervises without his input, then he needs to ask himself if he still has a job.
The real elephant in the room is Buhari approving the changes before Kachikwu found out. It is yet another sad chapter in the greasy tale of the NNPC, a beast that apparently consumes the reform and the reformer.