The Niger Delta Stakeholders Forum (NDSF) has hailed the First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, for snubbing the moves to recruit her into the sinister plot to unseat the Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), Mr. Mele Kyari.
NDSF fingered the Executive Vice President, Upstream, NNPCL, Mrs. Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan, as the brain-behind the moves to unseat her boss.
NDSF said Eyesan had mustered contacts to recruit the Wife of the President into the unpatriotic agenda.
Stating that its findings revealed that the First Lady declined to give support to the nefarious mission, the group said the plan was to get the First Lady on board to persuade her husband to sack the NNPCL’s GCEO.
The emissaries to the First Lady were mandated to persuade her on the need to convince the President to appoint Eyesan to replace Kyari in the prevailing circumstances.
The NDSF, in a statement signed by its Leader, Chief Julius Daukoru, on Tuesday, said Eyesan appointed known Itsekiri allies of the First Lady, especially those resident in Lagos into the lobby group in the plot perfected to ensure her emergence as the new GCEO of the oil conglomerate.
The Niger Delta group, however, praised the First Lady for demonstrating an uncommon patriotic zeal by declining to be “used to execute the sinister agenda.”
“The reports available to us (NDSF) revealed that the EVP, Upstream, NNPCL (Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan) mobilised notable heavy-weights, especially the Itsekiri kinsmen of the First Lady in Lagos to meet with the First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, to persuade her husband, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to fire the GCEO of NNPCL, Engineer Mele Kyari and get Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan appointed as his successor.”
“We learnt that the promoters of Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan painted a fascinating picture of the advantages inherent in the appointment of her Itsekiri sister into the highly prestigious office, to the First Lady, especially the benefits and opportunities accruable and beneficial to her Itsekiri brothers and sisters in Itsekiri homeland in Delta State.”
“The First Lady reportedly listened to the emissaries, led by a prominent Itsekiri chief with rapt attention before she angrily turned down their request. We learnt that she also tongue-lashed and lampooned the delegation. We gathered that the First Lady told them that her husband enjoyed a pan-Nigeria mandate following her election by majority of Nigerians accross ethnic divides.”
“Our reliable sources hinted NDSF that the First Lady said having secured the mandate of all Nigerians, that it would be inappropriate for her husband to turn around to play ethnic cards by supporting the narrow interests being canvassed by some parochial interests groups.”
“The First Lady was quoted to have told them that Nigeria at the present stage of its development cannot survive if appointments into strategic position of authorities are not made on merit. She refused to be part of the ethnic agenda of her Itsekiri kinsmen.”
” She said her husband would continue to retain Mele Kyari on the job since he’s doing very well. She warned the delegation not to come to her office to propagate such such unpatriotic agenda in the future.*
“The emissaries left her office, dejected and traumatised.”
Meanwhile, NDSF has accused failed pipelines surveillance contractors as sponsors of the moves to replace Kyari with Eyesan.
NDSF in the statement further said contractors, who lost out in the recent award and renewal of pipelines surveillance contracts, especially the Pipelines Infrastructures Nigeria Limited (IPNL), operated by the Olu of Warri, Ogiame Atuwatse III, are behind the plot to remove the NNPCL’s GCEO.
Daukoru, in the statement, said, “The surveillance contract for the Trans-forcados pipelines hitherto handled by the Olu of Warri’s company was terminated lately by the Kyari-led management.”
“Frantic and desperate efforts by Eyesan to ensure that his Itsekiri monarch retained the job was rebuffed by the management of NNPCL.”
“This has attracted protests by the the Olu and some of his sympathising gullible subjects, who could not differentiate private) business pursuit by their monarch from issues of general interests affecting the Itsekiri ethnic nationality.”
“To the extent one group hurriedly assembled by the Olu of Warri, Itsekiri Pipelines Surveillance Stakeholders was quoted at a recent media briefing in Warri, as demanding explanation from the NNPCL board for the termination of the Trans-forcados pipelines surveillance contracts.”
“Those who want Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan as GCEO of NNPCL want the job for her primarily to protect the Olu and other parochial interests in NNPCL.”
To this end, Daukoru urged Kyari to remain steadfast and undaunted in the midst of the protests by the aggrieved failed pipeline surveillance contractors.
He urged Kyari not to succumb to blackmail and intimidation by the angry contractors, saying the “antics of the failed contractors against Mele Kyari will fail like packs of cards because Mr. President is conscious of the fact that the NNPCL under the management of Engineer Mele Kyari, is delivering on its mandate.”