Barely 72 hours after President Bola Tinubu’s first cabinet reshuffle, a founding member of All Progressives Congress (APC), Osita Okechukwu has asked him to reconsider relinquishing the position of Minister of Petroleum resources he has occupied since May 29, 2023.
Commending President Tinubu for compelling all the ministers to be on their toes; by exercising the executive powers conferred on him by Section 5(1) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic, he described the President’s action as a milestone.
Okechukwu made the appeal while reacting formally to the recent reshuffle of ministerial portfolio, stressing that many APC members want him to succeed and win the 2027 presidential election through free and fair ballot devoid of controversy.
“Mr. President deserves kudos for adhering to the ageless doctrine of Key Performance Index (KPI) evaluation, which is a major management tool that guarantees transparency and accountability.
“In the same vein, I wish to appeal to Mr President to complete the reshuffle process by relinquishing the post of Minister of Petroleum Resources as a matter of urgent national importance. This step would go a long way to stem, if not weed out, the buccaneer antics of the less than transparent Oil Mafia,” he stated.
The former Director General of Voice of Nigeria (VON), recalled that the cabinet review, which was announced during the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting last week, was a signpost as it resulted in the dismissal of five ministers and reassignment of few others.
He argued that it will help bring sanity in the Petroleum sector not only in positioning the President effectively as General Overseer of the entire Federal Ministries; but also an enablement for the Hadiza Bala Usman Coordinating Policy Unit to effectively sanitise the oil industry.
“It would be strategic if President Tinubu, GCFR, willingly vacates the office of Minister. I am making this humble appeal on the grounds that it is practically unimaginable and absolutely impossible for the Hadiza Bala Usman-led Coordinating Policy Unit to monitor or even take a cursory glance at the Petroleum Ministry as it would amount to supervising her principal, the President, who is the Minister,” he noted.
Okechukwu, a Public Relations Consultant also cautioned the President not to fall into the toxic state capture trap of Minister of Petroleum, which made the operation of the oil industry opaque and made it impossible for former Presidents to even fix one out of four petroleum refineries in over two decades.
According to him; “the failure to make any of the country’s four refineries functional made Nigerians to lose faith in democracy, just as it has generated hunger and multidimensional poverty.
“Nigeria has also, over the years, suffered great economic haemorrhage by squandering over $70 billion on importation of refined petroleum products as well as undue imbalance on the country’s foreign exchange earnings,” Okechukwu noted in the statement.
