Now that Kachikwu is politically correct

The venom with which political leaders descended on him must have been a jolting experience. Politicians are known to defend their own and, by extension, their appointees even to ridiculous levels. But he is not one of them. He honed his skills in the board room, he is used to laying out discernible plans before execution, time lines are sacrosant and there is no room for misleading shareholders. His shareholders this time are Nigerians for whom he owed a duty to do something different.

The importation of refined petroleum products is one cesspool of wheeling and dealing that has defied the understanding of many a technocrat. The periodic blackmail of Nigerians through suspension of shipments is one sure strategy that routinely brings every government to its knees. Combating the cabal goes beyond the rhetorics that have characterised the stance of politicians manning our oil industry.

The appointment of Dr. Ibe Kachikwu as Minister of State for Petroleum following his earlier job as group managing director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) had elicited a lot of expectations and optimism. Apart from the late Rilwan Lukman, Kachikwu is perhaps the only industry technocrat to head the ministry. The optimism was not misplaced. As the chief executive of NNPC, he had opened the books of the oil behemoth to public scrutiny by publishing the monthly operational result of the corporation. And what Nigerians have always known was officially confirm: if NNPC was a commercial enterprisedriven by profit, it would have filed for bankruptcy. Although that exercise may seem perfunctory given the notoriously opaque nature of NNPC over the years, it was unprecedented.

Every chief executive before him had allowed himself to be sucked into the whirlpool that has held the government hostage to the manipulations of the oil barons. Essentially, they lost the plot because they failed to connect with the people. Given the enormous powers of the barons to whip every new comer into line, only by taking the running of the industry to the court of the public will a reformer stand a chance to succeed. Kachikwu had taken the critical first step by publishing the operational result of NNPC, a gesture with the potential of preparing the people to align with him in the arduous battle of reforming the industry.

So he had the candour to tell Nigerians that normal fuel supply may not be achieved until May? Why not? Coming from the private sector, Kachikwu is apparently sees leadership as a matter of trust and integrity. That is what shareholders demand of the managers of their company. By stating that he is no magician to make things better sooner, he ujwittingly opened his flanks to political leaders who see smart leadership in painting a poor situation in glossy colours. The severe and scathing upbrade of Kachikwu by Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, leader of the All Progressive Congress (APC) over his choice of words may turned out to be the best tonic barons and members of the cartel need to thwart the reforms needed to clean up the augean stable.

Whatever Kachikwu does now as the Minister of State may be pivotal in dtermining the fate of Nigeria’s oil industry. It is a period the support of political leaders is crucial in the looming battle for reforms. Disappointingly, Tinubu has struck the wrong chord with his criticism which is at best uncharitable. By denying him support he so needed awnd coercing him to recant on the May timeline he earlier given for the stabilisation of fuel supply, the initiative may have been handed back to the cartel that continues to run the industry. It is a tragic show of power as the new April 7 date was only given to assuage the ego of those who preferred political correctness to pragmatism and candour in governance.

At the end of it all, the April deadline was not realistic to nobody’s surprise. The mystery is what may have prompted the targeting of Kachikwu, a top class technocrat with no distinguished political leaning, for the level of censure and threat he was subjected to when his colleagues in the executive branch are all trying to get a bearing on their jobs. On the strength of our recent history and what is unravelling, the criticisms were not for altruistic reasons. But if the country is to turn a new corner from the ignoble past, Kachikwu should be given a chance to show what he has got.

Pius Mordi

Pius Mordi, a journalist, wrote from Asaba