By Comfort Olayinka
The Arewa Intelligentsia Caucus (AIS), a Northern Socio-political group has asked President Tinubu to prevail and checkmate the excesses of NNPCL Executive Vice President, Upstream operations, Mrs Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan against the lay down procedures.
The group in a strongly worded petition issued on Tuesday and jointly signed by the President, Abubakar Chiroma and Publicity Secretary, Nasir Adamu, frowned on the linkage of the President’s wife, Senator Oluremi Tinubu to the excessive show of power by the NNPCL top management staff, Mrs Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan.
The leadership of the group maintained that, because of the dogged stance of the Nigeria’s first lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu on the issue of gender balance, the likes of Mrs Eyesan had abused the opportunity by engaging in so many untoward activities in the oil regulatory body.
“Senator Oluremi Bola Tinubu’s name is being bandied and dropped for power grabbing at the NNPCL Headquarters Abuja”, it said.
The group said, “her recalcitrant attitudes does not stop at nothing to the high profile customers and business partners of NNPCL all in the name of the President’s wife, but had displayed such attitudes even towards the Group Managing Director GMD and Chief Executive officer CEO, Mele Kolo Kyari, boasting as the next Chief Executive of the organization, even while her boss still holds sway.”
Aside the President’s wife, the group also accused the Executive Vice President (Upstream Operations) of lobbying top Yoruba leaders with connection to Mr. President to prevail on him to approve the removal of Mele Kyari and install her as GCEO.
“As it is, she no longer takes directives from GCEO. She sees herself as over and above him.
“With the present configuration of offices and positions based on Federal Character for national balance, the current GCEO position remains zoned to the North East, any undue intervention could spark troubles and consequences.
“Mr. President must navigate round the treacherous tide to avoid heating the polity. The North will resist any unceremonious displacement of the serving GCEO, Mallam Kyari. He must be allowed to serve out his full term”, the Arewa group fumed.
They therefore called for the urgent intervention of the President to avoid public misgivings and to prevent crises in the corporation.
According to the body, her excesses and unbecoming attitude is capable of eroding corporate governance, introduce recalcitrant attitudes in a wholly corporate organization that had adhered strictly to corporate governance over five decades.
“Eyesan’s boastful and the provoked attitudes towards the GCEO had threatened to use her connection to truncate the tenure of Mele Kolo Kyari, even though, the position was not zoned to the South South, but North East under the federal arrangement.
“Using her tribal and the President’s wife extraction connection, Eyesan no longer takes instructions from the top echelon and leadership of NNPCL, under the guise of been the next Boss of the organization.
“For an organisation that thrives on bureaucracy and hierarchy, it was becoming an aberration for Mrs Eyesan who claimed to be of the same tribe with the President’s wife, without recourse to federal character.
“For a listening President, detribalized and non sectional leader under which purview Mrs. Tinubu was groomed over the years, the boastful and audacious tendencies of Mrs. Eyesan should be checked, as it will not stand the taste of time, giving the public knowledge and orientation of the President and his wife” the petition reads in part.
The body advised President Tinubu to be wary of the activities and attitude of Mrs. Eyesan and her antics, that are “glaringly manipulative”, “so as not to succumb to her whims and ways”.
They alerted the President of Mrs. Eyesan’s “unilateral decisions which negates the official norms by allocating over bloated pipelines security surveillance contracts to Olu of Warri, Ogiame Atuwase 111 with obvious lapses in Trans Forcados Lines in Delta State, by passing the GCEO, Mele Kolo Kyari and due process.
“She curried more favour to the Itsekiris, her tribe at the expense of the Urhobos who were both entitled to the Jobs.
“It is high time, Mr. President checked the excesses of the Executive Vice President, Upstream Operations, Mrs Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan before it will get out of hand or become a norm in the newly formed and thriving NNPCL.
“Her insistence and impression of becoming the next GCEO of NNPCL, already in the public knowledge is hinged on the current relocation of some departments of CBN and FAAN to Lagos, stating and assuring people that similar decisions will occur in NNPCL in no distance time”.
The group therefore, requested for her immediate removal from the oil regulatory body, the NNPCL, to somewhere else, “due to her usurpation and distraction to the present management under Mele Kolo Kyari”.
The Arewa Intelligentsia Caucus warned on the consequences of allowing Mrs. Eyesan remaining in the current position, as it is capable of eroding the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Tinubu’s administration.
