Buhari’s Emergence As Petroleum Minister Helped Promote Corruption, Says Richards

The Executive Director of Corruption Observatory, Mr. Ivie Richards has condemned in strong terms, the position of President Muhammadu Buhari as Minister for Petroleum Resources, stressing it promotes corruption.

Mr. Richards made this known while speaking as a guest on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily, in Lagos on Thursday.

He said, “I quarrel seriously and I condemn in its entirety the fact that a sitting President doubles as the Minister for Petroleum. That has helped this rot a great deal and the right things need to be done.

“Again, that is another aberration. In that report, Kachikwu said that he is the Chairman of the board, but he is not the Minister for Petroleum.

“Minister is supposed to be the Chairman of the board. If you watch closely between the lines, you will see the insinuation that the tender board of the NNPC got some approvals from the President.

“What my real interest is here is to invite the organized civil societies, at least those concerned with good governance, to drag the tender board of the NNPC, its governing board, to court to let Nigerians know of all that is happening behind the curtains.

The CO’s boss further noted that if the allegation is proven true that President Buhari gave approval for procurement to NNPC’s board, it is more than enough ground to impeach the nation’s Commander-in-Chief.

“But my major interest and focus would be, ‘Is it true that at any time, the President gave approval tacitly to this procurement, direct approval to the Tender board of the NNPC?’ If that is true, to me, that is an impeachable offence.

“If you look at the case in Brazil, South Korea, for we know leaders have been shown the door. They are not as grievous as this. So I would want this nation, organized civil societies to properly unravel what happened between the Tender board of the NNPC and Mr. President,” he stressed.