Ibe Kachikwu, minister of state for
petroleum resources, submitted his controversial memo to the office of
President Muhammadu Buhari only after it was leaked to the media,
TheCable can report.
Whereas the letter — dated August 30, 2017 — leaked on Tuesday, October 3, 2007, he submitted it only on Thursday, October 5.
Buhari
was said to have been surprised that he had not seen a letter
supposedly written to him before it appeared in the media. He
immediately raised an internal query on its whereabouts.
The
registry of the chief of staff, which takes delivery of official mails
for the president, denied receiving any such letter from the minister.
In
standard public sector practice, all incoming mails are stamped
“received” with date, time and signature of the receiving clerk all
recorded. An acknowledgement copy is then given to the sender.
Kachikwu
was asked by presidency to provide an acknowledgment copy of his
letter, TheCable understands, but he said he could not find it, further
fuelling internal suspicion that there was a political slant to the
controversy.
ONLINE VERSION
He was then directed to submit another copy, which was received and stamped “received” on October 5.
However,
the formatting of the letter he submitted on Thursday was different
from what was circulated in the media, although the substance is the
same.
In the new copy, the last paragraph on the opening page had
four lines, whereas there were only two lines in the internet version
with the other two lines “jumping” into the second page, TheCable
learnt.
On page 6, the subheading of the first paragraph was “STOP” — but this was not in the online version.
It was also said that his story became inconsistent along the line.
In
the fresh copy Kachikwu sent to the office of the president on October
5, he wrote in the covering note that he was “re-sending” what he had
earlier sent “to the registry of the chief of staff”, but TheCable
understands that when he was asked at a security meeting on Tuesday, he
said he actually sent the letter to Daura, where the president had gone
for the Eid-el-Kabir celebrations.
NO MEETING
The
president does not have official mail receiving facility in his hometown
but sources said Kachikwu might have requested someone to hand-deliver
it to him and the courier might have failed to do so.
Kachikwu,
who complained in his memo about insubordination and humiliation by the
group managing director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation
(NNPC), Maikanti Baru, in the widely publicised letter, was at the
presidential villa on Friday, October 6 — ostensibly for a meeting with
the Buhari.
Although it was reported in the media, TheCable
inclusive, that he met with Buhari that day, it has turned out no such
meeting was held.
TheCable confirmed that he was only able to
meet presidential aides and that was why there were no pictures with
Buhari and he did not make any comments to the State House media on the
visit.
However, an angry Buhari ordered Baru to reply Kachikwu’s
letter through the media since that was also where he read the
minister’s complaints.
Buhari, sources told TheCable, believes
the letter was meant to embarrass him because as the petroleum minister,
he, and not Kachikwu, has the supervisory function over NNPC.
CONTRACT AWARDS
Baru
was specifically instructed to explain the contract-awarding process at
the NNPC under the procedures established by Kachikwu himself when he
was GMD.
The NNPC, in a statement by Ndu Ughamadu, the group
general manager (group public affairs), on Monday denied Kachikwu’s
allegations and maintained that no law had been broken in the contract
awards, most of which were not on cash basis and could not be valued as
done by the minister in the memo.
But the corporation was silent
on the issue of key management appointments which Kachikwu complained
were made without his knowledge.
Aso Rock insiders also dismissed
Kachikwu’s claims that he was denied access to the president which he
said forced him to write the memo.
“The president was away on
medical leave from May 7 to August 19. While still settling in, he went
to Daura for the Sallah break, and not longer after that he went for the
UN general assembly,” a senior presidency official told TheCable.
“Kachikwu
dated his letter August 30th. When was he prevented from seeing the
president? Kachikwu had been doing a lot of travelling, from the
Netherlands to Abu Dhabi, Beijing, Washington DC and other places all
the while.”
TheCable tried to get in touch with Kachikwu but he did not pick his calls or respond to messages all throughout Tuesday.
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