Under the auspices of The Economy Rescue Group, fifteen legislators have demanded the resignation of Mele Kyari, the Group CEO of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL).
The organization asserted that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration’s problems were caused by mismanagement at the NNPCL under Kyari’s direction.
Their leader, Honourable Esosa Iyawe, a lawmaker from the Oredo Federal Constituency who serves on the House of Representatives, signed a press release on Tuesday in Abuja stating their insistence that Kyari be placed on leave until the conclusion of the joint Committee on Petroleum (Downstream and Midstream) of the House of Representatives’ forensic investigation into the state of the national oil company and the downstream and midstream sectors overall.
The legislators charged that Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda was being undermined by the CEO of NNPCL and other corporate executives.
In order to prevent any acts of sabotage, the MPs declared that they had to be given the way out until the forensic inquiry conducted by the House of Representatives through the Downstream and Midstream joint Committee was completed.
The group recommended that President Tinubu use the big stick and suspend the NNPCL top echelons until the House’s forensic investigation is concluded, even as they supported the House’s investigation into the presence of middlemen in trading, the indiscriminate issuance of licenses, the lack of laboratories to check adulterated products, and the influx of adulterated products into the country, among other issues.
“We the 15 concerned lawmakers state unequivocally that the woes of the Oil and Gas sector in the President Bola Ahmed- led administration are caused mainly by the failures and mismanagement of the NNPLC under Kyari’s management. Therefore, for this to be fixed, they should honourably resign.
“In an event they fail to step down on their own, the President should not hesitate to suspend them pending the investigation embarked upon the House of Representatives through its joint Committee on Petroleum: Downstream and Midstream.
“The petroleum sector remains the backbone of the nation’s economy and the allegations uncovered by the House which necessitated the forensic investigation are astounding and astonishing.
“They have to do with the presence of middlemen in trading, the indiscriminate issuance of licenses, the unavailability of laboratories to check adulterated products, the influx of adulterated products into the country, the allegation of non-domestication of profits realised from crude marketing sales in local banks, and other anomalies.
“Unfair subsidisation of PMS and other petroleum products which negatively affects competitiveness in the sector, racketeering and favouritism in the Pro Forma Invoice System (PFI) regime, indiscriminate issuance of licenses and importation of refined petroleum products.
“Return of PMS price intervention with its impact on domestic market, product unavailability to marketers from NNPC Retail. Endless shifting of timelines for refinery rehabilitation, the nefarious activities at petrol depot which have affected product distribution and caused scarcity and the use of middlemen in trading which has negatively affected domestic crude supply,” the lawmakers alleged.
They claimed that the economy could not expand while Kyari was in charge of all of these things.
“It is therefore, obvious that the NNPCL management is out to undermine and is already undermining the Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda with incompetence and they must be suspended to give room for unhindered probe,” they added.
Recall that recently, in the House, Hon. Esosa Iyawe moved a motion requesting that the Nigerian government suspend Farouk Ahmed, the CEO of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), while an investigation was conducted into his remarks regarding the quality of petroleum products at the Dangote Refinery.
