Fuel Scarcity: Tinubu Blasts NNPC GMD, Kachikwu

National Leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, yesterday ruled the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Mr. Ibe Kachikwu, out of order for saying he should not be expected to conjure magic in resolving the current fuel crisis in the country.He said the

minister strayed from the progressive calling required of the Buhari administration by making the statement attributed to him.Kachikwu who doubles as Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) had said, in reaction to public criticism of his handling of
the fuel scarcity, that Nigerians should count themselves fortunate that the NNPC under his stewardship has been able to bring in the amount of fuel it is currently doing.Tinubu, in a statement, threw in his lot with Nigerians who, according to him, were “as right to feel insulted as the minister was wrong to have said such a thing.”He said those charged with the responsibility of running the affairs of the country should learn to do things creatively and away from past practices.His words: “The art of governance is difficult and complex, especially during trying times. The steep reduction in global oil prices from over 100 dollars per barrel to roughly 40 presents a hard challenge. “We can no longer afford past practices. Nigeria now requires creative reform, materially changing the substance of national economic policy as well as the objectives of that policy and how the policy is presented to the people. Therein lies the essence of progressive democratic governance.“The Buhari administration represents the last best hope we have to install such governance in Nigeria and avert the catastrophe that would have befallen us had the prior government remained in place. Had the nation continued with the spendthrift corruption and vagabond economic policies of that administration, we would have soon experienced such a collision with the harsh consequences of that government’s malign ways that our very institutions of government may have been distorted beyond fixture and repair.”