By Shahid Abdulkadir
Throughout the history of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Limited there has never been a moment of radical reforms that the current era of Mele Kyari-led management. This is moreso because the former GMD now GCEO came on board fully prepared with his blueprint.
With an unwavering determination to turn around the fortunes of Africa’s biggest oil giant, Kyari set for himself, the management and staff very tough goals. Tough? Indeed! It would be no longer business as usual because any official from management level to the bottom is expected to work based on clear official principles, devoid of cutting corners. Tough, because transparency has become the official mantra of the NNPC.
Given his antecedents as a disciplinarian and action-oriented CEO, virtually everyone is NNPC was now on his/her toes – to deliver on their assignments with every sense of responsibility.
The fearless NNPC helmsman ran the organization in accordance with internationally accepted standards of professional excellence. Consequently, the NNPC and Kyari won quite a number of laurels for various feats.
The discovery of oil in some States of the federation and particularly in the Northern part of the oil took many Nigerians by surprise and many Northerners were overwhelmed with joy. It was the dawn of a new, bold era of economic emancipation of the North, nay Nigeria.
The milestone of identifying and initiating moves for oil drilling by the NNPC under the able leadership of Malam Mele Kyari set the tone for economic revolution on a national scale.
By dint of hard work, strategic management – characterised by clear goal setting and determination to deliver, made the NNPC reforms quite seamless.
Nigerian oil and gas history will not complete without the strategic reforms recorded by the NNPC management under Mele Kyari. The media shy GCEO has set standards that have remained uncompromising in the history of this all-important sector.
He has so far been able to successfully confound his critics and ensures that politicians with hidden agenda have failed woefully to paint the management in bad light, using the media as their stepping stone.
Understandably a section of the political class were disturbed by the massive interventions of the NNPC in the educational and health sectors as well as the funding of infrastructural development projects. This much the civil society has been hammering on since last year, to checkmate centrifugal forces on the prowl.
Crushing of illegal refineries in strategic locations of the South-South that Kyari-led NNPC has been doing would definitely not go down well with unpatriotic people feeding fat on the fortunes of the industry.
It is obvious that massive policing of oil pipelines in the Niger-Delta, by security forces, courtesy of NNPC’s review of strategy has touched on raw nerves of oil thieves in high places, with others threatening to harm Kyari. He has however refused to be distracted since middle of last year, when the threat to kill him surfaced. It is noticeable that since then, nothing has stopped Kyari from proceeding with his transparency accountability policy of running the oil giant. And his bravery, in this direction, is quite legendary.
Dan Zaki Media 