The accusation that President Bola Tinubu favours his ethnic Yoruba to dominate the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited’s hierarchy and the financial sector of the nation’s economy is baseless, a former presidential aide, Mr Reno Omokri, has said.
In a statement yesterday, the former presidential aide said the accusation contradicts the facts, which show that the president has been even-handed in his choice of appointments.
In an article titled “Tinubu’s Buharisation of the NNPC,” published last week, an academic, Prof Farouk Kperogi, accused President Tinubu of appointing “Yoruba people” to significant positions at the NNPC.
He added that the concentration of Yoruba figures in critical economic roles, including the minister of finance and the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), represented “state-sanctioned ethnocentric domination of a critical segment of national life.”
But a former governor of Kaduna State, Mr Nasir el-Rufai, responded to Kperogi’s claim on his X handle, admonishing, “Two wrongs do not make a right. Sensible inclusion always trumps arrogant exclusion!”
However, the Chief Corporate Communications Officer of the NNPC Ltd., Mr. Olufemi Soneye, addressed concerns raised in Kperogi’s article in a weekend statement, explaining that the NNPC’s leadership structure was guided by business requirements, expertise, and merit rather than ethnicity, tribe, religion, or political affiliation.
He said the NNPCL prided itself on being a professional organisation with a diverse leadership team that includes individuals from various parts of the world.
Yesterday, Omokri weighed in on the matter and said el-Rufai and Kperogi were mischievously misrepresenting facts.
“Let us consider the facts,” he said, adding, “Look at the breakdown of the current management of the NNPCL: Chief Pius Akinyelure: Non-Executive Board Chairman-Southwest;
Mallam Mele Kolo Kyari: Group Chief Executive Officer-Northeast; Adedapo Segun: Chief Financial Officer-Southwest; Mr Ledum Mitee: Non-Executive Director-South-South; Mr Musa Tumsa: Non-Executive Director-Northeast;
Mr Ghali Muhammad: Non-Executive Director-Northcentral;
Prof Mustapha Aliyu: Non-Executive Director-Northwest;
Mr. David Ogbodo: Non-Executive Director-Southeast; and
Ms. Eunice Thomas: Non-Executive Director-South-South.
He said from the record that only two company board members were from the Southwest, explaining that none of the top management of the supervisory agencies was from the president’s region.
He pointed out that the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil), Senator Heineken Lokpobori, and Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Gas), Mr Ekperikpe Ekpo, were from the South-South, while the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources, Mr Nicholas Agbo Ella, is North-Central.
“From the above, how can anybody honestly project to the Nigerian people that President Tinubu is Yorubacentric in his appointments at the NNPCL? It beggars belief,” Omokri said.
He said: “If there is any dominance at all, then that hegemony favours the South-South, which is the most represented on the board and cabinet-level with authority over NNPCL. Then you have the Northwest, Northeast, and North-Central.
“Now, even if you want to go to the ridiculous extent of scrutinising those in the lower cadre of the NNPCL, you will find that, except possibly two positions, all of those posts were filled by former President Muhammadu Buhari.
“Therefore, to say that a Yoruba heads every consequential agency in finance in Nigeria is not only without basis but also capable of causing the type of market ripples that negatively affect the All-Share Index of the Nigerian Stock Exchange.
“When you mention finance, you use a broad brush that includes revenue-generating agencies. And the highest revenue-generating agencies in Nigeria are not the Central Bank of Nigeria or the Ministry of Finance.
“In Nigeria, other than the NNPCL, the Nigerian Ports Authority, the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria, the Nigerian Communication Commission, the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, and the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation are the top five revenue earners for the Federal Government.”
“Only two of these six agencies (when you add NNPCL) are headed by people from the Southwest. The CEO of the NNPCL, Mr Mele Kyari, is from the Northeast; the CEO of the Nigerian Ports Authority, Mr Abubakar Dantsoho, is from the Northeast; the MD of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, Mrs Olubunmi Oluwaseun Kuku, is from the Southwest; the CEO of the Nigerian Communications Commission, Dr Aminu Maida, is from the Northwest; the CEO of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, Mr Dayo Mobereola, is from the Southwest; and the CEO of the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation, Mr Bello Hassan, is from the Northwest.
“Where does Yorubanisation or Yorubacentricity flow from the above? If you see it, can you please show it to me?”
Omokri cautioned against raising ethnic tension that could escalate and lead to violence and killings, pointing out that it was uncharitable to engage in such practices when the nation was already divided along regional lines on the issue of the Tax Reform Bills.
The former presidential aide recalled that some persons attempted to gaslight the country of a Yorubanisation of the military and security services until he analysed the ethnic composition of the heads of the agencies.
He said: “Not counting the Chief of Defence Staff, who is a Northerner, there are twenty Military, Security, Police and Law Enforcement agencies in Nigeria. And twenty-one men head these agencies. Out of that twenty-one, only five bodies are headed by the Southwest. The bulk of that number rightfully goes to the Northwest, and that geopolitical zone also occupies the choicest portions.
“The so-called Yorubanisation or Yorubacentricity of government under President Bola Tinubu is a myth. And if anyone chooses to push this discredited theory, Nigerians should not just accept broad accusations without data and statistics.
“Ask that person to provide stats. If he or she cites a sector, they should give Nigerians a regional breakdown of everybody in that sector rather than making broad statements to paint a manipulative narrative that is neither creative nor supportive of our national growth.”
