Former NNPC GMD comforted he’s leaving Nigeria’s oil corporation in ‘better hands’

As Mele Kyari resumed as the Group Managing Director of Nigeria’s biggest oil corporation, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), after his successor Dr Maikanti Baru, stepped down following his retirement from office, Baru said leaving with the “comfort of knowing” the corporation “in better hands.

“I have the comfort of knowing that from today, we are leaving NNPC in better hands. I say without exaggeration that Mallam Mele Kolo Kyari and his team are the most capable and caring leaders that’ll take NNPC to greater heights.

“Before now, Kyari has effectively managed the COMD and the DSDP scheme that enabled us manage the petroleum products supply of which without this intervention, it would have been very difficult for NNPC and the nation,” he said.

Baru, who took over the oil corporation three years ago, said he’s leaving a “behind competent, vibrant and good hands that I can entrust the leadership of the Organisation to,” in an address at the Valedictory service welcoming the new GMD into office, in Abuja, on Monday.

While in office as the GMD, Baru led the corporation “on the path of recovery, then to sustainable growth” including cash call exit repayment process of $5 billion arrears of the JV through incremental production, regular monthly publication of the corporation’s operations and finanacial reports. According to Baru, his leadership saw the restoration, stabilisation and increase in three-folds the gas supply to domestic market for power generation, industries and other users, leading to an existing 1.7 bscf gas supply  per day in the country.

“I look back with so much pride of what we have achieved together as a family towards moving this great Corporation forward with the Twelve Business Focus Areas (12 BUFA),” Baru, who said he lost 45 percent of his pension and N1.5 million in monthly allowance to accomodate lower earning pensioners, told guests at the Valedictory service.

Kyari, on resumption of office, promised to entrench transparency, accountability, and performance excellence across all NNPC operations, promising to put structures in place to ensure compliance with these principles that will see reporting corporation’s activities better aligned values his predecessor left behind.