Face-off with Baru: What Buhari told me – Kachikwu

The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, on Friday revealed what President Muhammadu Buhari told him during their meeting over his controversial memo on the activities of the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Dr. Maikanti Baru.
President Buhari had summoned Kachikwu to the Presidential Villa, Abuja for a meeting after the memo became a public document.
In the memo, Kachiwku accused Baru of unilaterally awarding $25 billion contracts without recourse to him or the board of the NNPC and for making changes in the management of the corporation and its subsidiaries without consultation.
Speaking on Friday in Owerri, the Imo State capital, Kachikwu said the meeting between him and the President, had Buhari telling him to find a common ground in working with Baru.
Kachikwu, who spoke at the end of a three-day Nigerian Content Workshop organised by the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board, said it was also unfortunate that many people had termed the memo an accusation of fraud against Baru.
He said this is far from being so as the memo was about governance.
He said: “The conversation has been largely misunderstood to bother on fraud.
“It was not on fraud, but on governance and suggestions on ways to go about it.
“I think a lot of people got it wrong.
“People dwell much on issues of sensationalism and leave the main substance.
“The Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Dr. Maikanti Baru, and I are working together as Mr. President had directed to move forward.
“Mr. President has urged the two of us to find ways of working together to remove doubt and rift.
“Mr. President is a decent man and what he wants to achieve in this country is to live a legacy for posterity.
“He is a sincere leader, so nobody should accuse him of engaging in fraud.”
Speaking on the workshop, Kachikwu commended the management of NCDMB, led by its Executive Secretary, Engineer Simbi Wakote, for scoring high in the efforts to promote Nigerian content in the oil and gas sector of the nation’s economy.