Adedayo Akinwale
The House of Representatives has kicked against an alleged skewed internal repositioning of personnel of the Nigeria Agip Oil Company (NAOC) from one geo-political zone into strategic management positions at the expense of zones in the country.
The House also mandated its Committee on Petroleum Resources (Upstream) to investigate the skewed repositioning of personnel and report back within three weeks for further legislative actions.
The resolution of the House was sequel to the adoption of a motion on urgent national importance “to address the imminent civil disorder and breakdown of law and order across the Niger Delta arising from Agip” that was moved yesterday by Hon. Preye Oseke.
Moving the motion, the lamwaker said that the NAOC is the operator of the Joint Venture (JV) agreements between the federal government, which is represented by the Nigeria Petroleum Development Company (NNPC), and Oando, just as it does with the Total Nigeria Limited and the Shell Petroleum Development Company Limited respectively.
Oseke added that JV facilities operated by the NAOC are in Bayelsa, Rivers, Delta, and Imo States.
He said that the federal government owned 60 per cent of the shares in all the JV agreements.
The lawmaker pointed out that being largely federal government entities, there must be a semblance of federal characters across all the JV operations viz-a-viz the recruitment of local qualified manpower.
Oseke said: “Disturbed, however, that all senior management positions in the NAOC are occupied by personnel of a certain geopolitical zone.”
The lawmaker expressed worry that the deliberate and calculated attempt in a sustained fashion to replace all senior management staff of the NAOC with those of the afore stated geo-political zone was not only discriminatory, but amounts to a clear breach of sections 14 (3) and (4) of the 1999 Constitution as amended on the application of the federal character principle.
He noted that apart from those manned by expatriate staff, the Head of Legal, the General Manager Human Resources, the Head, Division of Operations, the Project Development, the Stakeholders Department, the Health Safety and Environment and the Medicals are all headed by personnel of the said zone.
Oseke stressed that almost eighty-five percent (85%) of senior management positions in NAOC are occupied by persons of the same zone.
The lawmaker argued that Section 318 (1) defines federal character as “the distinctive desire of the people of Nigeria to promote national unity, foster national loyalty and give every citizen of Nigeria a sense of belonging to the nation as expressed in Section 14 (3) and (4) of the Constitution.”
Oseke stated: “Worried that the skewed repositioning of personnel from one geo-political zone at the expense of others, into strategic management positions has deprived others particularly of the host states of Bayelsa, Rivers and Delta.
“More worried that this seeming marginalisation and discrimination is a potential cause for disaffection amongst Bayelsa, Rivers and Delta States capable of negating the conducive environment the said states have thus far created for the company’s operations that happen in a rather hitch-free manner.”
