SAM OHUABUNWA'S PARADIGM

The other day I heard the NNPC Group Managing Director, lamenting that the image of NNPC was being tainted so much by constant accusations and negative press,that the group was losing credibility in the International Market and this was affecting their ability to attract foreign investments to the oil and gas industry where NNPC is the face of Nigeria. This got me thinking and I felt empathy for him and the organisation he leads. When the National oil company was just called National Oil Company( NOC),it was a small organisation that Nigerians respected. Then we expanded its scope and mandate and changed its name to Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation(NNPC). It holds Nigeria's equity in all the joint ventures with International Oil companies(IOC), it has it's own independent upstream operations, it is the sole participant in the midstream refining and piping operations and it is involved in the downstream operations of importing refined petroleum products and distributing t...

  The first Challenge the new CBN governor has is to reframe the autonomy of the bank within the context of being an institution of the Federal government and indeed part of the Executive arm of the government. From the look of things, the outgoing governor expanded the autonomy of the bank beyond reasonable contemplation. He tended to act as  a parallel government authority that was not accountable to the President and indeed seemed to be in competition with the President. This led him to rebut any attempt to make him accountable and he seemed to carry on as the lord of manor with the unquestionable power and discretion.   Second, is that he also must uphold the conservative nature of Bankers and especially  that of a Central Bank governor. He must know when to speak and when to be quiet. He must not reveal all he knows and comment on every subject in the media. He must not overheat the system with off- cuff comments.He must restore the dignity of the central bank g...

  For nearly two weeks now, the fate of 239 passengers on the Malaysian Airline flight 307 travelling from Kuala Lumpur( Malaysia) to Beijing (China) has remained a painful conjecture. What is certain is that the plane departed Kuala Lumpur about midnight and travelled to the edge of Malaysian air space about 1.30am, said good bye to the Air traffic Controllers (ATCs)in Malaysia. Just when they were being expected to receive welcome from the Vietnamese Air traffic controllers, the plane went silent, transponders switched off or cut off or malfunctioned and the plane disappeared into 'thin air' or ' deep sea'. In short the plane just vanished!    What happened? Thirteen days after, what we have are all conjectures, theories and guesses. After 4 days of bewilderment by Malaysian Airlines and the Malaysian government, the anxious families of the passengers and the watching world were told that the plane had turned back full circle, flew past the Malaysian te...

In the last week, fuel queues returned to a number of Nigeria's major cities including Lagos, Abuja, Owerri and PORTHARCOURT ,cities which I traversed last week. I personally spent hours in a filling Station in PH on my way to Kwale last weekend, forcing me to arrive late to the event I was attending in Delta State. And on top of that,I paid the market determined 'deregulated price'. Of course,that was not my real concern, I just wanted to get to my destination on time. And which I did not, even after paying above 'recommended' price and haggling and begging at the only filling station selling fuel,as many around were closed. Thursday this week, I missed my flight to Owerri, because the road to the domestic airport in Lagos was blocked. By who? you may ask. By Lagos drivers queuing and struggling to buy fuel! Truly, I have been through this scenario very many times in my life that I can not even begin to count,though the frequency has been largely reduced in the...