Last Friday, President Goodluck Jonathan relieved Engineer Andrew Yakubu of his appointment as the Group Managing Director (GMD) of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and replaced him with Dr. Joseph Thlama Dawha.
Although the president did not give any reason for his removal, investigation has however revealed that his sack was the handwork of the all powerful Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke.
Recall that the sack of Engineer Yakubu is the fourth under the supervision of the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke. Under her, it has been an average of one NNPC GMD a year. All three previous GMD’s, Dr Mohammed Sanusi Barkindo, before Mr. Yakubu, Mallam Shehu Ladan and Austin Oniwon before the appointment of Andrew Yakubu were sacked over one form of disagreement or the other with the minister.
Yakubu had not been in office for long when the talk began to circulate that there was no love lost between him and the Petroleum Resources minister. A report said though the two shared offices in the same building, they wouldn’t see each other for days. Sources said Yakubu had not been cooperating with some of Alison-Madueke’s demands, and had long submitted his name for sack to the President.
Engineer Yakubu’s sins according to finding boils down to a running battle he has been having with the minister before his sack, especially following the various probes by the National Assembly, which project the NNPC as being corrupt. The last straw that broke the camel’s back was the N10 billion private jet hire outcry. It was learnt that Engineer Yakubu refused to approve the renewal of the jet hire contract, hence the minister insisted on his removal.
Although under Yakubu’s two-year administration, the NNPC had gone through series of challenges that threatened its integrity and accountability, many staffers of the Corporation commended his doggedness and concern to their welfare, and his insistence on due process in the management of the affairs of the Corporation.
One contentious issue he was said not to be comfortable with was the disagreement between the NNPC and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) over alleged unremitted $49.8 billion crude oil revenue. A lot of Nigerians are yet to be convinced about how much exact amount is missing.
Some analysts have also linked Yakubu’s removal and the installation of a replacement to issue of funds as the general elections come up next year. The analyst believed that with Yakubu’s tough stance on the judicious use of the corporation’s fund, he may not play to the tune of making the oil money available for the 2015 general election which the NNPC has been used as a conduit pipe to fund.
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