..says he did badly in pipeline surveillance contract
Pan-Niger Delta socio-political organisation under the aegis of
Niger Delta Peoples Assembly on Saturday provided a clue to why oil thieves, including a first class traditional ruler are against the Group Chief Executive (GCEO) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL), Mele Kyari.
The organization said the monarch was very annoyed when the NNPCL management informed him that his pipeline surveillance contract would not be renewed, as it would be subsumed under a very effective and efficient global contract.
The NDPA was reacting to a recent protest by a purported coalition of 26 youth groups at NNPCL’s building which hosts the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission ( NUPRC) and the Nigerian Midstream Petroleum Authority (NMPA) in Warri, Delta State.
The NDPA in a statement by its National Coordinator, Richard Toritseju Okotie, titled, “Frustrated monarch and illicit oil barons behind fake Warri protests against NNPCL’s Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO), Mele Kyari”, obtained by journalists in Abuja, said the supposed coalition protest was “a joke in its entirety and an orchestrated fiction poorly steam rolled.”
He said, “The offence of Mele Kyari is that he refused to renew the monarch’s contract when it expired a month ago. Hence, he is baying for his blood. The embattled monarch is also reported to be angry with the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) led by Mr. Gbenga Komolafe, for not circumventing the implementation of the PIA in his domain to his benefit.
“He devised desperate tactics to bypass the PIA law, but it ended in fiasco. He was roundly ignored by NUPRC and tamed by the NNPCL. The aggrieved monarch in cahoot with oil thieves is unimpressed with Mele Kyari’s bid to rid the NNPCL of all illegal oil operations, and had hired fake protesters to malign the committed GCEO.
“The act of organized protest has become a huge joke in the Niger Delta. How can anyone take what happened in Warri Delta State as a protest?”
The NDPA wondered if “few belligerent and ill informed youths, holding placards, in front of the NNPCL’s building that hosts the NUPRC and the Nigerian Midstream Petroleum Authority (NMPA) Warri, be referred to as a protest of a coalition of 26 youth groups.”
