Over Fifteen lawmakers, united under the banner of The Economy Rescue Group, have called for the resignation of Mele Kyari, the Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL).Â
They attribute the economic challenges faced by President Bola Tinubu’s administration to mismanagement under Kyari’s leadership at NNPCL.
In a press statement released on Tuesday in Abuja, Esosa Iyawe, the group’s leader and a representative of the Oredo Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, called for Kyari’s suspension pending the outcome of a forensic investigation by the House of Representatives’ Joint Committee on Petroleum (Downstream and Midstream).
The investigation aims to scrutinize the state of the national oil company and the broader downstream and midstream sectors.
The lawmakers accused Kyari and other NNPCL management staff of undermining President Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda.
They stressed that Kyari and his team should be removed to prevent any acts of sabotage during the investigation.
The Economy Rescue Group expressed support for the House’s investigation into various issues, including the presence of middlemen in trading, the indiscriminate issuance of licenses, the lack of laboratories to check adulterated products, and the influx of adulterated products into the country.
The group advised President Tinubu to take decisive action by suspending the top echelons of NNPCL until the probe is completed.
In their statement, the lawmakers asserted, “We, the 15 concerned lawmakers, state unequivocally that the woes of the oil and gas sector in the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu-led administration are caused mainly by the failures and mismanagement of the NNPCL under Kyari’s management. Therefore, to resolve these issues, they should honorably resign.
“In the event they fail to step down on their own, the President should not hesitate to suspend them pending the investigation conducted by the House of Representatives through its Joint Committee on Petroleum: Downstream and Midstream.
“The petroleum sector remains the backbone of the nation’s economy, and the allegations uncovered by the House, which necessitated the forensic investigation, are astounding.
“They relate to the presence of middlemen in trading, the indiscriminate issuance of licenses, the unavailability of laboratories to check adulterated products, the influx of adulterated products into the country, the allegation of non-domestication of profits realized from crude marketing sales in local banks, and other anomalies.
“Unfair subsidization of PMS and other petroleum products, which negatively affects competitiveness in the sector, racketeering, and favoritism in the Pro Forma Invoice System (PFI) regime, indiscriminate issuance of licenses, and importation of refined petroleum products.”
The lawmakers also pointed to the return of PMS price intervention and its impact on the domestic market, product unavailability to marketers from NNPC Retail, ongoing delays in refinery rehabilitation, and nefarious activities at petrol depots that have affected product distribution and caused scarcity.
They highlighted the negative impact of using middlemen in trading on domestic crude supply.
“With all these issues occurring under Kyari’s watch, there is no way the economy can grow,” they argued. “It is therefore obvious that the NNPCL management is undermining and is already undermining Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda through incompetence, and they must be suspended to allow for an unhindered probe.”
Iyawe recently moved a motion in the House calling for the suspension of the CEO of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, Farouk Ahmed, pending an investigation into his remarks about the quality of petroleum products at Dangote Refinery.
In May, Iyawe also urged the Federal Government to renovate and convert its abandoned buildings and forfeited land locally and abroad for public use.
