In a burst of profuse praises over the weekend, Mele Kolo Kyari, Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited eulogised President Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja for giving the management of the company a free hand to work for its shareholders.
He said: “It is a privilege that I have to serve on behalf of all of you by the grace of Mr. President. I know that it is impossible to do many of the things we are doing today except you have a detached leadership from the business of this company, and I can tell you with all confidence that we have never seen it this good in the sense that we are free to take actions, we are free to make decisions. This President has never asked me to anything different from what we think is professionally correct, and that is the opportunity that we have today. And I know that this is sustainable. Your company is working for you. Your company will work for you.”
Malam Kyari spoke as a recipient of the African Industrial and Development Awards and Conference (AIDCA) at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja, where he emerged the 2022 AIDCA Outstanding Industrial Revolution Leader of the Year Award.
He said: “We know that when you decide to be transparent, to expose what you are doing, to be explicitly open to your shareholders, in our pattern, the first thing that comes is doubt. People don’t believe what they see. They don’t believe what they hear. But the realities are coming on the ground. This company is now better than it ever did. It is doing this because it is now accountable to its shareholders, everyone in this room, but more importantly the 200 million Nigerians who may not be in this room. I can assure you that this company will work for you. It is working on your behalf.”
He added: “Energy is everything. There cannot be industrial development without energy. No country can develop without energy. There can be no development without energy justice. There can also not be development without energy inclusion, and that inclusion means that everyone of us should have access to electricity, access to clean cooking gas. Not only that, so that when you wake up the next day, your industries are able to run. They are able to run because energy is available. We know that we are a resource rich country. We know that about 70 per cent of our population do not have access to clean cooking gas. We also know that over 50 per cent of this population do not have access to electricity. The combination of this is a call to action so that we must close this energy gap. The closing of this energy gap cannot be closed without having a just energy transition, which means walking away from the current fossil fuel energy-based sources to much cleaner fuel not necessarily in year 2050, but obviously, it can happen in year 2060.”
It may not mean a regime of zero hydrocarbon but the NNPCLtd GCEO is optimistic that it would mean that we use cleaner hydrocarbon while ensuring that our population has access to power, access to all forms of energy, including the right to prosperity. According to him, there cannot be prosperity without energy. “There hasn’t been any country that developed without people having access to power and energy; Therefore, your company the NNPC Limited is here; it’s accountable to you,” he further said.