Major shake-up in NNPC has seen more northerners taking over key positions, NewsOne Nigeria has learned.
NewsOne Nigeria understands that Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mele Kyari, has been accused of nepotism and favouritism following the recent forceful retirement and deployment of 40 top management officials of the corporation.
This burgeoning online news platform had reported that the affected senior officials were group general managers and general managers. It was gathered that the affected GGMs and GMs were asked to leave the employ of the oil firm on Wednesday. Sources at the corporation stated that the reorganisation touched other very senior positions at the headquarters of the national oil firm, as well as in some of its subsidiaries.
The GGMs, who operate from the corporate headquarters are equivalent to managing directors of subsidiaries of the corporation, while the GMs, who work at the subsidiaries, are equivalent to executive directors.
“About 40 GGMs and GMs were asked to leave, as they were retired by the corporation yesterday (Wednesday). Most of those affected are also not happy because they felt they were not due for retirement.
“However, they were all asked to leave yesterday and that is raising dust and concern among staff at the corporation,” the source revealed.
Major shake-up in NNPC as Northern Agenda takes centre stage
However, those in the know informed THE WITNESS, a Nigerian newspaper that the silent exercise was calculated to ingratiate particular interests, which is promoting Northern agenda to pacify President Muhammadu Buhari and the infamous Aso Rock cabal.
According to THE WITNESS, the nepotism-driven shakeup, the Fulanis and people from the Northern region have been penciled down for key positions from the last charade called recruitment exercise in 2019. This newspaper gathered that these officers have been positioned to take over the vacant positions silently, but there is fear that the corporation was losing good hands to mediocrity and subservience.
The report said the system is currently heated up and employees from other regions of the country are not happy about the development.
On the deployment and postings saga, sources divulged that officers from the northern region are made to head plump and active departments of the corporation while officials from other parts of the country head redundant departments.
“In the corporation, we have two categories of subsidiaries, the ones considered as redundant and the ones considered as grade A subsidiaries, such as NAPIMS, NPDC, shipping, NNPC Trading, PPMC, but under the present dispensation, one would have expected some form of balancing in terms of postings to these subsidiaries. But as it is right now, most of the positions in these subsidiaries are headed by people from one region of the country.”
Sources informed the newspaper that a top chief operating officer from the southern region has been moved from a position that he only assumed last year to another position of COO that is not comparable to his former office. This, according to sources, was not welcomed by some persons in the corporation, especially those from the region where the affected COO hailed from.
On Friday, some of the affected officers officially handed over at the corporation’s headquarters in Abuja.
The report added that efforts to reach the new group general manager, Public Affairs Division of the corporation, Kennie Obateru, for his reaction to the development proved futile as calls placed to his mobile line by our reporter were not responded to as at press time.
