[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he recent reconstitution of the board of the state-owned oil company, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, by President Muhammadu Buhari is another gross abuse of the powers of the president and flagrant disregard for our laws, the same laws which Buhari swore to uphold at his inauguration.
With the benefit of insight, this latest naked display of executive powers by the president is not a mistake, it has been part of this administration right from inception to the extent that citizens, even Buhari’s die-hard supporters, have started repenting in droves and regretting their support for the president before the elections and in the earlier times of this administration.
Despite the president’s well-mouthed commitment to Nigeria’s unity, his actions have consistently proved otherwise. Never in the history of our modern democracy has the nation been so bitterly divided along ethnic and religious lines than as it is under Buhari. Although he has claimed on some occasions that his appointments have not breached any section of the constitution, he has not admitted that these appointments offend humanity and morality.
The cryonic appointments which the president himself has had to defend on several occasions saying most of the people he is appointing are those who have been with him since his days at APP through ANPP, the CPC and then APC, reduces Nigeria to the archaic system of monarchical governance. The continued appointment of Muslims from northern part of the country to the exclusion of Nigerians of other religions and ethnic extraction is the reason for the continued multiple restiveness bedeviling the country today.
To assuage those who feel rightly aggrieved about the disrespectful situation on ground, Buhari, rather than beg for understanding and ceasefire should begin to act right; he should begin to lead right. He is not doing this, he is not showing understanding of the delicate complexities that bind us together as a nation; he has continued to carry on as if Nigeria is a fiefdom perpetually enslaved to the dictates of his immediate ethnic and religious demands. This is exactly what is fuelling the agitations and restiveness all over the country.
In furtherance of his continued flagrant disregard for our laws, the president recently reconstituted the Board of the NNPC in a manner that is not in tandem with the provisions of the law, and therefore unconstitutional.
While the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Act, Chapter N123 Laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 2004, Part 1 (2) (a) stipulates inter alia:
“The affairs of the Corporation shall, subject to Part II of this Act, be conducted by a Board of Directors of the Corporation which shall consist of a Chairman and the following other members, that is-
(a) the Director-General, Federal Ministry of Finance and Economic Development;
(b) the Managing Director of the Corporation; and
(c) three persons to be appointed by the National Council of Ministers, being persons who by reason of their ability, experience or specialised knowledge of the oil industry or of business or professional attainments are capable of making useful contributions to the work of the Corporation.
(Please, note that when this Act was first promulgated in 1977, Permanent Secretaries were then referred to as Directors-General)
With the above provision, it is clear what the Board of NNPC should look like. In fact, the board as stipulated in the Act should consist of 6 appointees. But what do we have today? President Buhari has not only excluded a section of the country, the South East from the Board, he has done this even when he appointed 9 persons (Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, Dr. Maikanti Baru, permanent secretary of the ministry of finance, Mallam Abba Kyari, Dr. Thomas John, Dr. Pius Akinyelure, Dr. Tajuddeen Umar, Mallam Mohammed Lawal, Mallam Yusuf Lawal) instead of 6 as stipulated by law. Where did the president derive the powers to constitute the NNPC board as he recently did?
President Buhari and those who are managing him should know that when you preach one Nigeria and keep appealing to agitators and aggrieved people to sheathe their swords and allow peace to reign, but your actions go the opposite direction, you intentionally fan the embers of agitation and stoke the fires of aggression.
When you claim that the unity of Nigeria is not negotiable but the next moment your appointments reflect otherwise, it is you and not the agitators, who are promoting disunity and increase in the calls for a negotiation of our unity.
When the president makes an infamous statement like that of the “97% vs 5%” and still goes ahead to act it out with recalcitrance and in aversion to common sense, it is he that should be told to keep Nigeria united and not those who are merely reacting to his divisive actions of not only segregating against Nigerians in their own country and dividing the nation along ethnic lines but also tearing her apart along religious leanings.
This is where the National Assembly is expected to save not only our democracy from collapse but also our nation from total ruin. They must raise their bar of performance and use every instrumentality within the law to tame the president to serve as deterrence to others and make him understand that no man, no matter his status, can be bigger than the nation. So many of our laws have been breached by the executive; the morality of our national fabric has been brazenly eroded. The time to stop this drift is now or we all perish together!
If any president cannot live above his ethnic and religious sentiments in a clime like ours, it is only natural that the resultant effect would be crises and more crises. While we all want peace, it is the president’s sole responsibility to create the atmosphere for that.
Family members, relations and friends have been rewarded enough, let us begin to see a reversal of those statements, appointments and policies of government that have sharply put a knife in those things that hold us together as a people; let us begin to see the real “change” promised. It is either this or we all walk straight into the looming doom.
Jude Ndukwe is a political analyst who lives and works in Abuja, Nigeria. He is a member of The Trent’s Elite Columnists. His column is published every Friday. He tweets from @stjudendukwe.
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.
