PHOTONEWS: Buhari Appoints Emmanuel Kachikwu As New NNPC Managing Director

Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu’s appointment as NNPC group managing director was announced in a statement from Buhari’s spokesman Femi Adesina, which also listed other changes at the top of the state-run company.

Kachukwu, a very wealthy Nigerian was until his appointment the Vice Chairman and General Counsel at Exxon Mobil (Africa). Danbatta replaces Dr. Eugene Juwah whose five-year tenure expired last week.

According to sources, who pledged to be anonymous, President Buhari met with Kachikwu on August 3, to complete talks on his vision for the state owned corporation, which has been tangled in accusation of corruption and dubious accounting practices.

“He started his working career with the Nigerian/American Merchant Bank before moving on to Texaco Nigeria Limited from where he joined Exxon-Mobil”, it added.

“The new NCC Chief Executive’s other academic qualifications include a Bachelors Degree in Electronic Engineering and Telecommunications as well as a Masters Degree in the same field”.

He is a Fellow of the Nigerian Society of Engineers and had meritorious career in which he rose to become Professor of Electrical Engineering and Electronics at Bayero University, Kano.

The report made valuable recommendations, which somehow buttressed a recent statement by Kaduna Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, about the need to either scrap the NNPC or reform the oil and gas sector as a whole.

Oil industry sources told Daily Trust yesterday that the appointment of Dr. Kachikwu a rank outsider, was intended to breathe untainted air and restore sanity in a system that has largely been criticised for alleged brazen corruption. Their investigation unveiled the over $32 billion in oil revenue that Nigeria lost due to the money laundering and mismanagement of crude in the NNPC.

The NNPC is regarded as one of the world’s most opaque and corrupt publicly-controlled oil firms and has been linked to the massive theft of vast crude revenues.

But the traders claimed that the probe was a witch-hunt instigated by one of their competitors in the industry and argued that swaps and OPAs were covered by irrevocable standing letters of credit for the value of the crude oil lifted or petroleum products scheduled for delivery to PPMC.