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Deji Adeyanju: An ‘activist’ stuck in the past

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Deji Adeyanju

 

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By Prof. Oladimeji Akere

 

There appears to be an undeclared war being waged against the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) and its Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO), Mallam Mele Kyari.

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Since President Bola Tinubu took office on May 29, 2023, there has been a coordinated attack on the company by vested interests using proxies.

 

After the phantom Kyari suspension eposide, proponents of the nefarious agenda, immediately unfolded their Plan B.

 

Precisely on  Sunday, June 11. This time, rather than adopt an indirect strategy, they opted to tackle Kyari head on. This time their arrowhead was Timi Frank, the disgraced former Deputy national Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), who over time has become a gun for hire to any interested individual. Frank, in a statement titled, “Why Buhari’s Ministers, CEOs should sink with Emefiele” said Tinubu’s suspension and arrest of Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele should be followed up with similar treatment meted to heads of government agencies alleged to have serially abused their offices and diverted public funds. He noted in that article:

 

“Those who illegally benefited from illegal allocation of oil blocks and marginal oil fields championed by the NNPCL and the CBN’s Money Redesign Policy must be fished out and prosecuted”

 

While on the surface, it appeared Frank meant well, it was clear from the general tone of the statement that it was a hatchet job meant to turn Tinubu against the NNPCL helmsman.

 

Frank’s call fell flat and went unheeded by Tinubu who has remained focus on fixing the rot in the Nigerian economy and society engendered by the sycophancy of men like Frank who saw nothing wrong in the previous government style of governance until he fell out of favour.

 

With the Frank gambit failing, the conspirators have launched a new offensive. This time their stooge is a so-called activist called Deji Adeyanju. On Friday, June 16, Adeyanju, in a tweet called on President Tinubu to restructure the “rotten and bigoted NNPC”. According to him:

 

“The NNPC or Northern Nigeria Petroleum Company? The all-Muslim top 20 executives in NNPC makes Nigeria look like a joke. President Tinubu must restructure the rotten & bigoted NNPC of Buhari.”

 

He gave the following names as those in the top 20 list:

 

  • Mele Kyari (GMD)

 

  • Umar Ajiya (Chief Finance Officer/Finance and Accounts)

 

  • Yusuf Usman (Chief Operating Officer)

 

  • Farouk Garba Sa’id (Chief Operating Officer, Corporate Services)

 

  • Mustapha Yakubu (Chief Operating Officer, Refining and Petrochemicals)

 

  • Hadiza Coomassie (Corporate Secretary/Legal Adviser to the Corporation)

 

  • Omar Ibrahim (Group General Manager, International Energy Relations)

 

  • Kallamu Abdullahi (GGM Renewable Energy)

 

  1. Ibrahim Birma (GGM Governance Risk and Compliance)

 

  • Bala Wunti (GGM NAPIMS)

 

  • Inuwa Waya (MD NNPC Shipping)

 

  • Musa Lawan (MD Pipelines And Product Marketing)

 

  • Mansur Sambo (MD Nigeria Petroleum Development Company)

 

  • Lawal Sade (MD Duke Oil/NNPC Trading Company)

 

  • Malami Shehu (MD Port Harcourt Refining Company)

 

  • Muhammed Abah (MD Warri Refining and Petrochemical Company)

 

  • Abdulkadir Ahmed (MD Nigeria Gas Marketing Company)

 

  • Salihu Jamari (MD Nigeria Gas and Power Investment Company Limited)

 

  • Mohammed Zango (MD NNPC Medical Services)

 

  • Sarki Auwalu (Director, Department of Petroleum Resources)

 

Before responding to Adeyanju’s tweet, let me first present to Nigerians, a brief profile of him Adeyanju, a man of questionable morals, came into national limelight around 2014 in the build up to the 2015 general elections. At the time he floated around Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) top brass shaking them down for money and other favours. When the PDP lost the presidency to the APC, Mr. Adeyanju turned an emergency activist making a show of criticizing any and every step taken by the Muhammadu Buhari administration but it was all a ruse; a “notice me” strategy to attract the attention of the power brokers in the APC. It worked because after a while, Mr. Adeyanju turned on his former benefactor, the PDP, deriding the party, it leadership and members in a new found “activism” powered by secret funds by his new masters in the APC.

 

He has since been flitting surreptitiously from one politician to the other toadying up to them to assure his next meal. Whoever failed to “play ball” among them was fair game for blackmail But enough of his character! Let us engage the substance or otherwise of his argument.

 

Adeyanju has listed the names of northerners who he says are occupying the top 20 positions in the NNPC. Let us see if his position checks out.

 

To begin with, there is no longer any organization in Nigeria know as NNPC (Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation). That entity ceased to exist in 2021 with the coming into being of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) 2021. The PIA, a revolutionary piece of legislation hailed by oil and gas industry experts as the best thing to happen to the Nigerian oil and gas sector since independence, scrapped the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), a government-owned entity and created in its place, a commercial entity known as the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL). The Act also abolished long standing entities in the upstream and downstream sectors of the Nigerian oil and gas industry. These were the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), the Petroleum Products Price Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) and the Petroleum Equalization Fund (Management) Board (PEF(M)B). In the place of these agencies were created the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), which assumed the upstream functions of the defunct DPR, and the Nigerian Midstream, Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), which took over the downstream functions of the DPR, PPPRA and PEF(M)B.

 

By the creation of the NNPCL, Kyari transmuted from being the GMD of NNPC to the GCEO of NNPCL. A simple search in Google would have helped Mr. Adeyanju to get his facts right. But in his haste to execute the agenda of his paymasters, he goofed badly.

 

Let us look at the names Mr. Adeyanju has bandied as occupying the “all-Muslim top 20 executives in NNPC”.

 

A simple investigation would have revealed to him that of the 20 names he listed, only Kyari and Ajiya could be said to still hold their positions as captured in the phoney line up.

Others have since retired or transfered to new divisions while one was never part of the company. Let’s take a look at them.

 

For instance, while Omar Ibrahim who was Group General Manager, International Energy Relations retired in 2020, Yusuf Usman ,Chief Operating Officer, and Farouk Garba Sa’id, Chief Operating Officer, Corporate Services retired in 2021, Mustapha Yakubu, Chief Operating Officer, Refining and Petrochemicals, retired in 2022 while Hadiza Coomassie, Corporate Secretary/Legal Adviser to the Corporation was replaced by Chidi Momah the same year.

 

Further more, a little effort of Adeyanju’s part would have shown him that Malami Shehu, MD Port Harcourt Refining Company, retired since 2020 while Inuwa Waya, MD NNPC Shipping, Musa Lawan, MD Pipelines and Product Marketing, retired in 2021. Mansur Sambo, MD Nigeria Petroleum Development Company was replaced the same year.

 

The inclusion of Sarki Auwalu, the last name in his 20-man list is clearly laughable. Auwalu, the last Director of Department of Petroleum Resources, was not an employee of the NNPC. He retired in 2021 following the scrapping of the DPR as prescribed by the PIA. The DPR before it ceased to exist was a regulatory agency, which had existed for decades independently of the NNPC and even oversighted its upstream activities. How Auwalu managed to find his way into the list of employees of the NNPC, surely must be one of the greatest mysteries of our time.

 

What is clear from all of this is that Mr. Adeyanju is his bid to satisfy his patrons copied and pasted on his Twitter handle, a jaded WhatsApp platform message created by some mischief makers to create ethnic disharmony in the country. It says a lot about his predilection for mischief and sloppiness that he could not spare a moment to organize a simple “racket” for his benefactors who must have addled eggs dripping down their faces with faux pas concerning this list.

 

Prof. Akere, an electrical engineer writes in from Lagos.

 

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Reshuffle your cabinet now, prophet Ikuru tells Tinubu

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The prophetic hall of fame,a member of the defunct Presidential Campaign Council APC and founder of Jehovah eyes salvation Ministry Prophet Godwin lkuru have called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to dissolve or Reshuffle his cabinet after his one year in office come May 29 .

The popular online prophet who attained the Prophetic Hall of Fame described the Ministers in president Tinubu cabinet as incompetent and enemies of progressive in actualizing the true impact of Renewed Hope agenda as profess by Mr President in his campaign manifesto .

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Speaking to journalist on Tuesday , at his Ikeja office , Prophet Ikuru claimed that most of the ministers are not cognizant with their duties which have made Nigerians complained bitterly about the economic situation

” Honestly, President Tinubu should dissolve these cabinet a select people that are after his ideology in making the country better , imagine what is happening in Abuja , the FCT minister Wike Nysome have cause Abuja more security threat than before , also Minister of power who don’t even know the role of his duty as power minister , or is it the Minister for Mining , woman affair and Petroleum, None is helping Mr President to portray that Renewed Hope, so he should dissolve them or reshuffle the cabinet ”

 

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Hence , prophet Ikuru called on Nigerians to be patient with the president as he mean well for.the country , he is doing his best to make sure everything that have being a failure reflect the sense of hope in the country ,as he is going outside the shore of the country to bring back.investors that have left Nigeria for decades due to economy hardship and corruption.

Ikuru further stated that security should is a collective business which must be imbibed in our society, the Nigerian Army,Air force , Navy and other security agents are doing their best but we can assist them with vital in that will help in curbing down kidnappers and abductors in our society, he said .

He urged sub nationals to work with the people in justice , love and fairness ,so that the country will be more secured as the renewed hope of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is sacrosanct.

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‘’Yahaya Bello Helped Tinubu Win, President’s Appointees Fighting Him’’ – APC Chieftain

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A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, Jesutega Onokpasa, has revealed that certain appointees of President Bola Tinubu are plotting to succeed him before the end of his tenure and are seriously wishing that the President will not make it to 2027 for their selfish reasons.

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Onokpasa, a lawyer and former member of the APC Presidential Campaign Council for Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, who lamented the alleged hypocrisy, pull him down mentality and anti-party activities going on in the governing party, laid curses on those he accused of wishing Tinubu dead, saying, “If they don’t repent, Asiwaju will attend their funeral.”

He said this in a video, where he was seen addressing party members and drawing their attention to the belief that the ongoing drama around the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission’s allegations against former Governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello; and the continued attack on former Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, were plans mapped out by these individuals to allegedly perfect their plans.

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Expressing concern over ill treatments, selective prosecution and hounding meted out on some prominent chieftains of the party since the emergence of Tinubu’s presidency, Onokpasa alleged that the particular appointees he was referring to in Tinubu’s government were behind the ordeals of former Governors Yahaya Bello, Nasir El- Rufai and Abdullahi Ganduje in order to perfect their “satanic” succession plans, while allegedly wishing that the President would no longer be around by 2027.

Referring to a particular appointee of Tinubu whose name was not mentioned, the chieftain said, “You drive Rufai away, you start hounding Ganduje, although there are other things involved, you start attacking Yahaya Bello, what did you do? You don’t have mandate my friend, you are just an appointee… you think we don’t know what is going on?

“Listen, Asiwaju is a child of God. Asiwaju will rule this country for eight complete years. There is nothing anybody can do about that. He will rule this first four years, he will so perform, Nigerians, again, will vote for him and next time around, we will win a majority of the total votes cast. So, all these your satanic plans, plotting that our President will not make it to 2027, you are wasting your time. Get that through your head.”

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The party chieftain, who Nigerians know to be a die-hard supporter of President Tinubu, also angrily bemoaned what he called the attitude of “using and dumping” people who worked for the victory of the President in 2023, while those who were against the President and even insulted him, were being given priorities “over authentic supporters and genuine Batists.”

Onokpasa, who was also a member of the APC Presidential Legal Team and Chairman, Tinubu Media Support Group, said, “Of recent concern to me is the case of my younger brother, His Excellency, the former Governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello. In this party, we have had our brother, the former governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El Rufai basically chased out of our party despite what he did for us to make us win. Now, it is Yahaya Bello. A few weeks or months ago, it was our National Chairman, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje that was basically almost being chased from our party.”

Blowing hot against those behind the ugly trend, who he claimed were arrogating powers to themselves at the detriment of Tinubu’s wellbeing, and warning them to desist, Onokpasa stated, “Listen, we cannot tolerate such nonsense in a party. Let everybody in this party come to his senses. We know how we won election. We won election because of the grace of God, because the grace of God is upon our President, Asiwaju. We won election with the lowest margin. This our government has the lowest margin since 1999. We won with less than 40 per cent of the votes. In every other election, someone had won with 50 per cent of the votes.

“Everybody that contributed to our victory is important to me, because me, I am a fanatical Batist. This is the way I see Bola Tinubu’s administration. Bola Tinubu is a child of grace. The way I see it, God wants Bola Tinubu to be our President and we need him to be our President for eight years. What we should all square up to right now is a question of, there is no need to beat about the bush; there are people in our party who don’t believe in our President. For whatever reason they feel, I don’t know where they went to, that’s their headache.”

He cautioned those wishing Tinubu dead, stressing that the president would make it beyond 2027.

“Even after that eight years, he (Tinubu) will become an elder stateman for many years after that and none of you … all of you doing this rubbish, if you don’t repent, Asiwaju will attend all of your funerals. I am the one that is saying it,” he said.

Onokpasa recounted how a young man died in Edo State after wishing the President dead, saying, “I will like to share a story with you. There was this young man in Delta State where I come from. He had the guts to come to me and he said, uncle, this man, Bola Tinubu that you are supporting is going to die before the election and I told him, are you the God that created him? Do you know what happened? May his soul rest in peace, he died before Bola Tinubu won election.”

“There are people in this party who don’t believe in Asiwaju, they never believe that Asiwaju can make it to 2027. Do you know what? All these people, if they don’t repent, Asiwaju will attend all of their funerals. They are mad! They don’t have mandate, it is Asiwaju we voted for, it is Asiwaju that has mandate, it is Asiwaju that is the President. And we need Asiwaju to run complete eight years to finally make this country the pride of the black race,” APC chieftain stated.

On the Bello-EFCC controversy, he said it was for the court to decide, stating, “Nobody is supporting corruption. However, we fight corruption according to law and you will not have a personal indifference with somebody and then you use the instrumentality of office to torment that person. We will not tolerate that in this party. We must not.”

He also lambasted a particular appointee that he portrayed to be high-handed, alleging that the appointee funded an opposition member against the APC candidate, Usman Ododo, during the Kogi State governorship election.

The popular Tinubu loyalist said, “I mean, can you imagine the nonsense. You sponsored somebody who left our party, he used to be a member of our party committee, you claim to be a member of our party, you now sponsor him against our own candidate, Usman Ododo, you give him money, he lost, we defeated him. Sorry! Then, you say his lawyer, my learned friend, Jibril Okutepa, he is the one that you now brief to torment Yahaya Bello?

“I am very proud of Yahaya Bello, Yahaya Bello helped Asiwaju to win election. Anybody who helped Asiwaju to win election is my brother. He is my father’s son that my mother gave birth to. I don’t owe you any apology, who are you? Nonsense! You will turn all of us to cowards?”

 

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Stop worrying about the whereabouts of Mr.president, he went abroad for the betterment of the nation -prophet Ikuru

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By Collins Nkwocha

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The prophetic hall of fame, prophet Godwin Ikuru of Jehovah Eye Salvation Ministry has implored Nigerians to be patient and stop worrying about the whereabouts of the president because the trip he embarked on is for the betterment of the Nigerian nation.

 

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The handsome prophet who is a member of APC presidential campaign council insisted that it’s not all trips that requires publicity, “it’s not all trips that deserves to be made public,at times you quietly  make some important arrangements without making a noise, people will only get to know about it,when it materializes, that is exactly what the president has done”.

 

He insisted that with the plan that the president has for the nation, Nigeria will soon be better than South Africa.He said “Mr.president has great plans for the nation,I bet you that very soon, Nigeria will be better than South Africa,I want to implore all the ministers,the National Assembly and all the governors,to keep the things running excellently so that the president will not come back to start addressing trivial issues”.

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