Unic Press UK: Nigeria Senate, the upper chamber of the National Assembly, Wednesday formed a committee that would investigate allegations of insubordination, disregard to legal requirements, and infringement of due process in the award of contracts by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
The seven-member adhoc committee is chaired by a former Sokoto state Governor, Aliu Wammako. “They must be investigated and the report brought back to us as soon as possible,” the Senate President Bukola Saraki said.
The advent of the committee is not unconnected to serious allegations expressed in a petition, [‘matters of insubordination and lack of adherence to due process perpetuated by the GMD NNPC – Dr Baru’], written to President Buhari by the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources and the immediate past Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Ibe Kachikwu.
In the aforesaid petition, which was dated 30th August 2017, Kachikwu accused Baru of insubordination, disrespect to the NNPC Board, gross violation of due process in $24 billion contracts awarded by the NNPC.
VIOLATION OF DUE PROCESS IN $24 Billion [£18.2 Billion] Contracts
The subsisting legal requirement is that any contract of a value in excess of $20 million will require a review and approval by the NNPC Board. However, this legal requirement had not been adhered to in the light of Kachikwu letter informing Buhari that a Baru-led NNPC had signed off on contracts worth billions of dollars, viz:
- Crude Term Contract valued at over $10 billion
- Direct Sale of Crude Oil and Direct Purchase of Product (DSDP) Contract worth more than $5 billion
- Ajaokuta-Kaduna Kano (AKK) Pipeline Contract with a value that is in excess of $3 billion
- Various financing allocation funding contracts worth more that $3 billion
- Various production service contracts in excess of $3 billion
INSUBORDINATION/DISRESPECT TO NNPC BOARD
Kachikwu, obviously making a reference to personnel changes, [ major re-organisation/transfers involving 55 top executives], made by the NNPC in August 2017, said:
“… these executive actions by NNPC were supposed to benefit from mine and the Board’s input prior to presentation to you… previous attempts to rush through these appointments through a non-governance backdoor and present same to the Acting President were met with a request that this be discussed with me. This was never done”
