The recent reconstitution of the board
of the state-owned oil company, the Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation, NNPC, by President Muhammadu Buhari is another gross abuse
of the powers of the president and flagrant disregard for our laws, the same laws which Buhari swore to uphold at his inauguration.
With the benefit of insight, this latest
naked display of executive powers by the president is not a mistake, it
has been part of this administration right from inception to the extent
that citizens, even Buhari’s die-hard supporters, have started
repenting in droves and regretting their support for the president
before the elections and in the earlier times of this administration.
Despite the president’s well-mouthed
commitment to Nigeria’s unity, his actions have consistently proved
otherwise. Never in the history of our modern democracy has the nation
been so bitterly divided along ethnic and religious lines than as it is
under Buhari. Although he has claimed on some occasions that his
appointments have not breached any section of the constitution, he has
not admitted that these appointments offend humanity and morality.
The cryonic appointments which the
president himself has had to defend on several occasions saying most of
the people he is appointing are those who have been with him since his
days at APP through ANPP, the CPC and then APC, reduces Nigeria to the
archaic system of monarchical governance. The continued appointment of
Muslims from northern part of the country to the exclusion of Nigerians
of other religions and ethnic extraction is the reason for the continued
multiple restiveness bedeviling the country today.
To assuage those who feel rightly
aggrieved about the disrespectful situation on ground, Buhari, rather
than beg for understanding and ceasefire should begin to act right; he
should begin to lead right. He is not doing this, he is not showing
understanding of the delicate complexities that bind us together as a
nation; he has continued to carry on as if Nigeria is a fiefdom
perpetually enslaved to the dictates of his immediate ethnic and
religious demands. This is exactly what is fuelling the agitations and
restiveness all over the country.
In furtherance of his continued flagrant
disregard for our laws, the president recently reconstituted the Board
of the NNPC in a manner that is not in tandem with the provisions of the
law, and therefore unconstitutional.
While the Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation Act, Chapter N123 Laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria
2004, Part 1 (2) (a) stipulates inter alia:
“The affairs of
the Corporation shall, subject to Part II of this Act, be conducted by a
Board of Directors of the Corporation which shall consist of a Chairman
and the following other members, that is-
(a) the Director-General, Federal Ministry of Finance and Economic Development;
(b) the Managing Director of the Corporation; and
(c) three
persons to be appointed by the National Council of Ministers, being
persons who by reason of their ability, experience or specialised
knowledge of the oil industry or of business or professional attainments
are capable of making useful contributions to the work of the
Corporation.
(Please, note that when this Act was
first promulgated in 1977, Permanent Secretaries were then referred to
as Directors-General)
With the above provision, it is clear
what the Board of NNPC should look like. In fact, the board as
stipulated in the Act should consist of 6 appointees. But what do we
have today? President Buhari has not only excluded a section of the
country, the South East from the Board, he has done this even when he
appointed 9 persons (Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, Dr. Maikanti Baru, permanent
secretary of the ministry of finance, Mallam Abba Kyari, Dr. Thomas
John, Dr. Pius Akinyelure, Dr. Tajuddeen Umar, Mallam Mohammed Lawal,
Mallam Yusuf Lawal) instead of 6 as stipulated by law. Where did the president derive the powers to constitute the NNPC board as he recently did?
President Buhari and those who are
managing him should know that when you preach one Nigeria and keep
appealing to agitators and aggrieved people to sheathe their swords and
allow peace to reign, but your actions go the opposite direction, you
intentionally fan the embers of agitation and stoke the fires of
aggression.
When you claim that the unity of Nigeria
is not negotiable but the next moment your appointments reflect
otherwise, it is you and not the agitators, who are promoting disunity
and increase in the calls for a negotiation of our unity.
When the president makes an infamous statement like that of the “97% vs 5%”
and still goes ahead to act it out with recalcitrance and in aversion
to common sense, it is he that should be told to keep Nigeria united and
not those who are merely reacting to his divisive actions of not only
segregating against Nigerians in their own country and dividing the
nation along ethnic lines but also tearing her apart along religious
leanings.
This is where the National Assembly is
expected to save not only our democracy from collapse but also our
nation from total ruin. They must raise their bar of performance and use
every instrumentality within the law to tame the president to serve as
deterrence to others and make him understand that no man, no matter his
status, can be bigger than the nation. So many of our laws have been
breached by the executive; the morality of our national fabric has been
brazenly eroded. The time to stop this drift is now or we all perish
together!
If any president cannot live above his
ethnic and religious sentiments in a clime like ours, it is only natural
that the resultant effect would be crises and more crises. While we all
want peace, it is the president’s sole responsibility to create the
atmosphere for that.
Family members, relations and friends
have been rewarded enough, let us begin to see a reversal of those
statements, appointments and policies of government that have sharply
put a knife in those things that hold us together as a people; let us
begin to see the real “change” promised. It is either this or we all
walk straight into the looming doom.
Jude Ndukwe is a
political analyst who lives and works in Abuja, Nigeria. He is a member
of The Trent’s Elite Columnists. His column is published every Friday.
He tweets from @stjudendukwe.
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.
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