“Abe having laid bare his uncultured mannerisms before the President, every iota of doubt about his true nature has been cleared, and it is therefore left to the President to decide the relevance to attach to such a sell-out’’
Ex-Senator Magnus Abe from Rivers has continued to receive heat following his questioning of President Muhammadu Buhari’s cancellation of the revocation slammed on four oil mining leases operated by Addax Petroleum Exploration Nigeria Ltd, a Chinese company.
The latest is from a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and erstwhile National Publicity Secretary of the defunct New Peoples Democratic Party (NPDP), Chief Eze Chukwuemeka Eze, who described Abe’s action as insubordination and uncultured mannerism.
Persecondnews had reported that on March 30, the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) revoked the four Addax licences over alleged poor development of the assets. The PSCs consists of Oil Mining Licence (OML) 123, 124, 126 and 137.
Sarki Auwalu, DPR director, had claimed that over 50 percent of the assets were underdeveloped, which he said cost the government lost revenue.
But on Friday, April 23, 2021, President Buhari through an executive order restored the leases on OMLs 123, 124, 126 and 137 to the NNPC which is in Production Sharing Contract (PSC) with Addax Petroleum.
Presidential spokesman Garba Shehu said:“The restoration of the OMLs to Addax Petroleum was in line with the current administration’s commitment to the rule of law, fairness and enabling a stable business climate for investment.
“This reaffirms the Buhari administration’s obligation to the rule of law and sanctity of contracts.
“The President had also directed NNPC to utilize contractual provisions to resolve issues in line with the extant provisions of the Production Sharing Contract arrangement between NNPC and Addax. This is indisputably the way to go.’’
Sen. Magnus Abe, former senator from Rivers South/East, and currently a member of Board of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), had said: “The Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) was right to recommend a revocation of the mining leases issued to Addax in the national interest’’.
But Eze, reacting, said Sen. Magnus Abe “having laid bare his uncultured mannerisms before the President, every iota of doubt about his true nature has been cleared, and it is therefore left to the President to decide the relevance to attach to such a sell-out.’’
In a statement, he noted that Sen. Magnus Abe “is a man with a towering reputation of unreliability and thus, no amount of human-induced refinement can restore his sense of decency’’.
“His appointment which was conceived by analysts as a contrived escapade to further sway him into a deal of sabotage against the political fortunes and rising profile of his benefactor and Minister of Transportation, Rt. Hon. Chibuike Amaechi, was widely criticized as unbefitting an impertinent and brassy backstabber whose perfidy resulted to the exclusion of the Rivers APC from the ballot in the 2019 polls.
`With his board appointment, one would have loved to see the Ogoni-born unscrupulous opportunist display some sense of decency in his public mannerisms, nonetheless, Abe has remained himself, and his moral repugnance lends credence to the general aphorism,turning an old wine into a new bottle can never improve its taste’,” he stated.
According to Eze, Abe after dragging the Rivers State Chapter of the All Progressives Congress into a messy political imbroglio in the pursuit of his private vendetta, was handsomely reinforced by his propellers and those who exert controlling influence over him and his devilry, for his outré roles and backstage machinations in frustrating the fortunes of over 6 million people residing in Rivers State.
The party stalwart called on the NNPC and the Presidency to be weary of Abe and his antics, and to closely monitor his actions, stressing that the former lawmaker “is always at a ready to play the spoiler’s script like he did in Rivers in 2019’’.
“The country cannot afford the concomitant effects of the outlandish activities of an unrepentant saboteur especially in an agency as critical as the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
“The unregulated activities of Senator Magnus Abe in the NNPC poses a material threat to the yields of bilateral trade agreements and diplomatic relations of the country with other nations with which it shares trade and other economic ties.
“It will be regretful to allow the awful gauche of a recklessly overzealous meddler to sour the country’s diplomatic amity with other countries of the world, in a bid to discredit the efforts of the Buhari/APC administration in driving Nigeria’s foreign policy towards a national rebirth,’’ Eze said in the statement given to Persecondnews.
He commended President Buhari for restoring the oil licences to Addax Petroleum, noting that China has been of immense assistance to the country especially in the infrastructural revolution in railway modernization scheme of the current administration.
Eze said the President’s determination in implementing thoughtful economic policies to tackle the harsh economic realities of the times and save jobs are noteworthy and further admonished the Central Bank of Nigeria and other key players in the financial industry to redouble efforts in sanctioning economic plans to strengthen the progressively dwindling and depreciating economy.
Eze expressed confidence that the country will recover her losses and take her rightful place in the comity of nations in due course and called on “Nigerians to continue to believe in the shared dream of greater, better nation.’’
Leave a comment