Report of Kyari’s suspension as NNPCL GCEO fake news

By BASHIR ADEFAKA

Some social media posts that Mallam Mele Kyari has been suspended from office as Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd is said to be fake, The DEFENDER can authoritatively report.

President Bola Tinubu, according to the posts, had purportedly directed the suspension of Kyari on Saturday but this online newspaper has gathered that there was no such directive from the President..

Although our enquiries to Presidency sources were yet to be responded to as at the time of filing this report, reliable information available to us showed that the President did not give such directive for the suspension of Kyari as boss of the NNPCL.

Recall that NNPC, following the unbundling programme of former President Muhammadu Buhari, had since become a privately owned public liability company with a Board of Directors.

African Business report of July 22, 2022 had quoted, “July 19 should go down as a special moment in the economic history of Nigeria,” wrote Premium Times columnist Reuben Abat. On that day, nearly a year after Nigeria’s long-awaited Petroleum Industry Bill became law, providing the legal framework for the selling of shares, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation finally became a private company – the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd.

By this, Kyari, except otherwise proven, ceased to be a political appointee that can just be unilaterally suspended or sacked by President of Nigeria.

Social media platforms were agog Saturday evening with posts that appeared to celebrate the acclaimed immediate suspension of Kyari as NNPCL GCEO by President Tinubu.

The posts suddenly filtered into circulation barely 24 hours after the Presidency announced the suspension of Mr Godwin Emefiele from office as Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

Even, this newspaper gathered that President has no power to sact a CBN Governor but can only suspend him until after certain procedure is passed through, meaning that Friday’s suspension of Emefiele may not yet be called end of the road to his foray in the nation’s apex bank except he is indicted in the ongoing investigations by the Department of State Services (DSS).

Recall that following the February 20, 2014 development, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi had gone to the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja to challenge his suspension from office CBN Governor by then President Goodluck Jonathan, insisting that the president had no such powers under the CBN law.

The governor can only be removed by two-thirds majority of the senate, according to the CBN Act 2007, but it is silent on suspension.

Edmonton Harvey Specter, who said he was on president’s legal team, tweeted this Friday night after the suspension of Godwin Emefiele as CBN governor by President Bola Tinubu: “Can the President suspend the CBN Governor? In Sanusi Lamido v. President & Ors where I was part of Counsel that represented the President and which was decided at the FHC Abuja, it was held that ‘While the President cannot remove the Governor, he can exercise some form of disciplinary control which includes suspension over him’. The matter was not appealed.”

As for the suspension of Mele Kyari of NNPCL, there was no such plan to suspend him, it was gathered Saturday night.

Media report quoted a presidency source saying, “We got to know about the purported suspension through social media posts.

“But I can confirm to you that there is no such directive coming from the President. Nigerians are known to play a lot with trends and someone may just have sat down somewhere to make such posts.”