Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu is taking a brilliant CV to his new job as Group Managing Director of the NNPC.
With a First Class degree in Law from the University of Nigeria Nsukka and the Nigerian Law School, a masters and doctorate from Harvard Law School, corporate boardroom experience in Texaco and ExxonMobil, and being born in the Niger Delta, the new GMD is certainly a right choice for the much maligned state oil company.
President Buhari and Kachikwu reportedly exchanged ideas on the new directions Buhari wants to drive the corporation, after decades of bastardisation, since Buhari last had contact with it as head of state in 1985. It’s certainly not the same NNPC that maintained just two bank accounts then, not the same corporation that faithfully implemented swap crude contracts for refined products, or one that remitted proceeds to the federation account, without making questionable deductions.
An indication of the task ahead of Kachikwu was the report today by the National Resource Governance Institutes of the monumental corruption in the corporation, with lack of accountability on the crude volume it sells for Nigeria, with the corporation stealing the entire 10 year proceeds from an oil field, that it ought to have given Nigeria.
The President wants to break the company into two, but it already has many subsidiaries. May be what will be done by the new man will be to reintegrate all the various components into a whole and then split back into two.
Well, we shall leave the details to the new corporate minder, who has been appointed from the outside of the corrupt corporation and whose appointment is attracting favorable commentaries from the oil world.
What is indisputable however is that Kachikwu, in his 50s, is coming in as a man of passion, just like Buhari evinces passion for change and discipline in Nigeria.
Asked in a newspaper interview two years ago about his concerns about the Nigerian society and what motivates him in life, Kachikwu mentioned youth unemployment as his greatest worry. As for his motivating force and his decades of involvement in publishing magazines, he let this out:
“I have always loved writing. My first published work was at the age of 16; so I have always written, I have always published. Whether there are serious books or sector publications, I just like to let out my thought and let them influence people. That is the driving force. If I leave the oil company today, writing and publishing is one area I will turn all my attention to.
“You will find that a lot of institutions have been able to hold me down in terms of coming in as visiting professor, lecturer on part-time basis or on sitting basis. I do that to give back to society. I do it for free.
“It give gives me joy because it helps me practice that for which I went to school.
“Sometimes we can get carried away by business and the drive to make money.
“But at the end of the day, you have to ask yourself what really gives you joy. Seeing a published work gives one satisfaction, seeing a debate contribution that helps to influence changes notion or changes ideas is very important, more satisfying than a million dollars in a bank account.”