News
NNPC board: Tail shouldn’t wag the dog! *Avuru qualified to be CEO – PANDEF
There is no credible reason for the Niger Delta to continue playing second fiddle in the leadership of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited given its ownership of the oil and gas deposits for which the company was set up in the first place.
This was the position of the Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF), on Thursday in reaction to the constitution of a new board as announced by President Bola Tinubu on Wednesday, with both the offices of the Chairman of Board and the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (MD-CEO) going elsewhere outside the region.
The regional body, which champions the interest of the oil-rich zone and Nigeria’s goose that lays the golden egg, argued that overlooking it despite the abundance of its abundant human resources in the oil and gas sector of the Nigerian economy, for the choice of the leadership of the company was akin to the tail wagging the dog.
Godknows Igali, PANDEF Chairman, told ARISE NEWS Network, while appearing on Prime Time, its public affairs programme that the relegation of the area despite its strategic position as the owners of Nigeria’s oil and gas, had remained quite worrisome.
Hear him: “Our representation, we don’t think it is fair to us. It is not fair to us because the oil, the gas, the natural resources in the oil and gas industry are produced in the Niger Delta, and there is no part of this country that has the amount of human resources in the oil and gas industry as the Niger Delta.
“Mind you, because this is a resource in our part of the country, University of Benin, University of Port Harcourt, University of Calabar – they started the relevant disciplines quite a long time ago. Even our people that went to universities abroad before then, focused on oil and gas. So, the core of professionals in the sector are from the area.
“Good, we have one of the most qualified people, Austin Avuru as an Executive Director. But if you look at the rating, he could have as well been the Group Managing Director. The point we’re making is that the days when you say we don’t have people are not there. There are qualified people.
“They can’t always want us to play from outside. Besides upstream, besides actual production, there are a number of issues – community issues, environmental issues – that it is only somebody who is from there that can smell the coffee – that can bring other factors to play.
“So, the persistent keeping out of the people of the Niger Delta from the core management of the NNPC does not augur well. It is not fair, it is not just, it is not a good way to promote proper inclusion of our people. It is a consistent policy of exclusion.
“Sometimes, some of us think it is deliberate to leave our people out. You don’t do this to people of the other parts of the country – for a period that we are not having the top, this continues to occur. But we’ll keep talking, because it is not fair. If we don’t have the people, its different. We have the critical mass of the professionals in the sector.
“So, why do you always leave them with auxiliary positions or a Minister of State position that is more or less a position of a placeholder. Even the position of a substantive Minister does not exist. You have a Minister of State for Gas, a Minister of State for Oil, who don’t have any substantive functions – just general policy issues – because you’re neither the Minister nor the proper Chief Executive of the industry.”
Igali, who admitted that things were different during the tenure of Goodluck Jonathan as President, because the area produced the substantive Minister, he said such a development would always create the required balance because Ministers had executive capacity not only to influence policies, but break all the other prevailing factors.
“But when you don’t have a substantive Minister, you don’t have a substantive member in the executive management of the sector, you’re excluded, Igali said, warning that the issue of environmental remediation of the region would continue to resonate for as long as there remained the absence of an intentional policy of the Nigerian government to the problem.
Seyi Makinde of Oyo State, Governor of Oyo State, on Thursday, finally threw his hats into the ring by declaring his intention to run for president in 2027, with a message – history beckons.
The governor, whose ambition has been a matter of speculations for months now and who had teamed up with forces angling to force President Bola Tinubu, out of power, told a teeming crowd in Ibadan on Thursday that time had come to reset Nigeria.
At a mega-rally to announce the alliance between the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), and the Allied Peoples’ Movement, (APM), Makinde, expressed worry over the dwindling fortunes of Nigerians, vowing to engage Nigerians to end the drift.
Hear him: “Without a multi-party system, there is no democracy. Where is our multi-party? Where do we go from here? We have been pushed to the wall.
“They calculated and self-opposition cannot unite but I am here to say that the opposition is the everyday Nigerian. This is the time for all us to ensure Nigeria works for us. This is the time to confront it fears. It is time to engage as citizens and not spectators.
“For the opposition political parties, this is the time to unite and work in unity and give our nation the much reset it needs. The time to reset Nigeria is now. Ibadan is the city of warriors. The first grand alliance is formed. The PDP and APM is formed. This handshake will allow us to field candidates from presidency to state Assembly. And so, I declare my candidacy for office of the president of Nigeria.”
Eyo Ekpe, a professor of cardiothoracic surgery at the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital (UUTH), on Wednesday, gave a detailed account on how operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) manhandled him on Monday.
He told reporters that he was at sea on why he should fall victim to the assault against his person and eventually arrested given that was not right person directly involved in the information the agency sought.
Some operatives of the EFCC who invaded the hospital, had whisked Ekpe away after firing teargas to scare away the workers, patients and visitors to the hospital, following what appeared like a fracas the ensued over what it claimed was a routine duty in the facility.
Ekpe, Deputy Chairman of the hospital’s Medical Advisory Committee (MAC), described how an operative had first entered his office to make inquiries on why the hospital was yet to give a response to an EFCC inquiry over a medical report linked to a suspect facing trial.
He detailed how he briefed the operative that the said response was being prepared and even went ahead to show him the draft of a letter in that regard, which needed to go through the gamut of official endorsement before being released.
Hear him: “The head of that internal medicine department looked at the report and also discovered that the name of the doctor that signed the report is not a member of staff of that department.
“I had prepared prepared a response to the EFCC on Monday, May 11, 2026, based on the findings. When the EFCC operative visited my office the next morning to collect the document, I told him that the response was ready in draft. I even showed him the draft, but told him that the document still needed approval from the Chief Medical Director (CMD) of the hospital before it could be officially signed and released.
“He pretended to have accepted that. He left, but later later returned with another armed operative and informed me that I was under arrest. I asked him why. I was not the one that issued the medical report. My name is not on the medical report. The report was not issued from my unit.
“But he said I would get the answer when I get to their office. I then asked him to at least wait for my staff member who I sent on an errand before joining them. But they refused.
“They started pushing me. They dragged me out of the office. Then I began to cry while they were dragging me. They had warned me not to speak. They had taken my phone. My cry as they were dragging me, attracted the workers to the scene, who enquired what was going on, but because they ordered me not to speak, I couldn’t say anything. They had their guns.
The members of staff of the hospital initially blocked them from taking me away. They then made a call. After that I saw many masked and armed men came violently, broke the protector, threatening the people that were around and people ran away.
“They picked some staff that were still by me. they dragged me and other staff, five of us into their van downstairs. By that time they discovered that the gate of the hospital were locked. So, they drove towards the gate and packed and the commotion continued. We were inside the van.
“I was so emotionally and psychologically traumatised that I couldn’t even look out of the vehicle to see what was happening outside. But I know that teargas and live bullets were shot. That’s all I can say for now.”
Joyce Abdulmalik, of the Federal High Court, Abuja, heard on Wednesday, how Zenith Bank raised alarm over the huge transaction in one of its branches by Abubakar Malami, former Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice (AGF-MoJ).
The bank said it immediately filed a Suspicious Transaction Report (STR) in respect to the transactions, during its appearance in the ongoing trial of Malami, his wife, and son over allegation of massive looting of funds belonging to the Federal Government during his tenure.
Mashelia Bata, a compliance officer with the bank, who appeared as witness in the case, where Malami, et al, are facing a 16-count charge bordering on alleged money laundering to the tune of N8.7 billion, to which they pleaded not guilty, gave the testimony while being questioned on the bank’s roles in the matter.
Details of the testimony conveyed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), stated how the compliance officer who was cross-examined by Adebayo Adedeji, lawyer to the defendants admitted that the deposits in the account statements complied with the guidelines of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Arguments had stretched when Adedeji, opposed Jibrin Okutepa (SAN), lawyer to the EFCC, who had asked the witness to explain the meaning of a suspicious transaction report, stressing that there was no ambiguity in the term.
However, Okutepa, in response, maintained that section 215(3) of the Evidence Act did not preclude him from re-examining the witness while urging the court to allow the question for proper explanation.
After Abdulmalik, agreed and overruled Adedeji, the witness told the court that banks were required to alert the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) about fund deposits coming in a repetitive pattern, adding: “Any deposition of funds seen in a pattern or repetitive, you must escalate it to the NFIU.”
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