The Director General of Voice of Nigeria (VON), Mr. Osita Okechukwu has reassured Nigerians that President Muhammabu Buhari would do the needful and not disappoint on the allegations against the Group Managing Director of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
Okechukwu spoke against the backdrop of the feud between Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr Ibe Kachikwu and the Group Managing Director of Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Dr Maikanti Baru.
Kachikwu had written to the President, complaining about Baru’s excesses including alleged award of contracts worth over 25 billion dollars without due process and approval of NNPC Board which he (Kachikwu) heads.
Fielding questions from reporters in Enugu over the weekend, Okechukwu said: “President Buhari will do the needful and will not allow anyone to dent his image or tarnish his integrity quotient, if the allegations are valid. This is his political capital upon which we followed him, upon which Nigerians voted for him and upon which the international community endorsed him”
The VON DG equally noted that Buhari’s urgent meeting with Kachikwu has vindicated some of them who believed abinitio that the Minister’s letter did not get to the President,
“As I said before, I have not seen nor heard from Mr President since the altercation, am at Enugu as you know, but permit me to opine from my observation that the meeting President Buhari had with Kachikwu vindicated some of us who had expressed the candid view that it is possible that those who blocked Kachikwu from seeing Mr President might had blocked the letter from getting to him. Otherwise the urgent verification meeting he had with Kachikwu signposts this assumption. Aso Villa has unresolved culture of mix-bag.”
Okechukwu said that for the much he knew of President Buhari, he had always placed public interest above self and cannot allow his political capital of integrity quotient to be extinguished by anyone, even his traducers can attest to his selflessness.
He attributed the unfolding events to “the palace guards, in every palace, who sometimes in this instance, work 100 degrees at variance with Buhari’s public service trajectory. They wittingly or unwittingly fail to recognize the treasury and premium Buhari places on the Social Contract he has with Nigerians to make a change.”