The Niger Delta Youth Coalition has cautioned the ‘cabal’ in the oil and gas sector to allow the Minister of State for Petroleum, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, to carry out his mandate of cleansing the sector.
The coalition said in a statement in Abuja that Kachikwu, who is also the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), has been facing serious opposition from the oil cabal, who are bent on ruining the sector to the detriment of generality of Nigerians.
The statement, signed by the leaders of the various Niger Delta youth groups from the six states of the region, said Kachikwu had within the few months of his assumption of office, brought some major changes to the NNPC and the oil sector, which the cabal were not happy with.
Those that signed the statement were Ebipade Jackson (Bayelsa), Eghosa Idehen (Edo), Tony Gbemudu (Delta), Amezhinim Ekiye (Rivers), Aniebet Nsikan (A/Ibom) and Odey Christopher (C/River).
They said: “It is on record that Dr. Kachikwu has made some far-reaching changes since assumption of office. His reengineering of the NNPC to make it more profit-oriented and a veritable revenue earner for Nigeria is a great feat which past administrations failed to achieve.”
They also said the recent statement by Kachikwu on the petroleum scarcity was misunderstood and misinterpreted by the cabal. All that the petroleum minister did was to tell Nigerians “the bitter truth, which others won’t want us to hear,” they said.
