Fuel Crisis: Tinubu’s Misplaced Attack On Kachikwu
It is preposterous for APC Leader, Senator Bola Tinubu to single out Dr. Ibe Kachikwu (Minister of State for Petroleum Resources and GMD of NNPC) for condemnation over the lingering scarcity of petroleum products in the country that has almost grounded socio-economic activities across the nation, with no clear hope that the situation will abate soon.
Whereas we are also very disappointed though not surprised, that almost ten months into this APC government, the issue of fuel scarcity would linger without hope in sight. Whereas we were in the vanguard of demanding that President Buhari assume the position of Minister of Petroleum Resources in view of the intrigues and the high level of financial crimes and corruption that pervades the petroleum sector of Nigeria, whereas we have also consistently disagreed with the policies and actions of Dr Ibe Kachikwu for the oil sector, we however wish to remind APC Leader Bola Tinubu of the fact that Dr Ibe Kachikwu is not the Minister of petroleum resources, President Buhari is. He therefore ought to be courageous enough to ventilate his anger on President Buhari (the Minister for Petroleum) if indeed his (Tinubu) anger is driven by patriotism and concern for the suffering and exploited masses of Nigeria as he claims and not driven by politics and survival for 2019 elections.
It is also very imperative to remind Tinubu that the Ministries of Power (electricity), Works and Finance are all as equally very critical to the survival of our nation but are also at very low ebb under the leadership of Ministers Tinubu nominated and who are his core loyalists. The electricity situation is worse than the scarcity of petroleum products. The nation is in darkness with businesses (large, medium and small scales) collapsing and folding up on daily basis due to lack of public power supply. Our trunk A Roads are fast becoming death traps and nightmare to business owners and commuters with increasing difficult for commerce across the nation. The finance and economy is also in very gloomy situation and biting so hard on the Nigerian masses and businesses.
Have we not been told several times by media reports that by Lai Mohammed (Minister of Information/Culture) and some top chieftains of APC who are also from Tinubu’s camp that APC Govt are not magicians? What about the recent report credited to Femi Adesina that he asked Nigerians to go and fight pipeline vandals if they want electricity? Dr Ibe Kachikwu only tried to copy and paste their political lexicon in order to be a true APC party loyalist. What then has he done wrong to warrant this attack from Tinubu? This attack should be strongly condemned.
We however call on Tinubu to rise above partisanship, ethnic and other parochial interests to condemn anyone who should be condemned for poor performance. We also call on him to use his political connections to galvanize all Nigerians from all sections and political parties to work in unity for the urgent rescue and survival of the Nigerian nation. This is not a time in our nation's history for any politician or political party to place self and or party's interest above that of the nation and her over 170 million suffering Nigerians. There is time for governance and time for politics. This is time for governance and nothing more. Elections 2019 should not be placed on our national agenda for now!
Written by Comrade Igbini Odafe Emmanuel, National President, Vanguard for Transparent Leadership and Democracy (VATLAD), Warri, Delta State.