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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Beks Dagogo-Jack: This Fixation On Lady Diezani – Enough Should Be Enough

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by Beks Dagogo-Jack

Over the past couple of years, particularly since her appointment as Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Allison-Madueke has been under the constant gaze of different stakeholder interests, each having different interpretations and indeed expectations of how she should do her job relative to their own well-defined interests. To be clear, Madueke is not the first minister of petroleum resources to face this level of acute tackling by vested interests across Nigeria’s socio-economic and political landscape. And she certainly would not be the last.

To provide some background, if indeed it is necessary, considering Nigeria’s near-total dependence on income from petroleum to run our economy at all the three tiers of government, the oil industry has been the most critical and viable sector of our economy for decades now. Yet, being largely public sector run, with significant political control and influence, the industry which in the last couple of years has been creating considerable opportunities for the flourish of indigenous operators and vendors, is today seen by both new and veteran private sector players as the surest path to achieving enterprise success and acquiring mind-boggling wealth.

In addition, the ministry and its agencies have been designed, from inception, to deal with various allocations and licenses capable of creating overnight millionaires and the likes. Does it, therefore, surprise anyone that the chief executive of this ministry would always be subjected to far more public and private pressures than any other, and indeed in some cases even more than the president? In this respect, the Nigerian people ought, ordinarily, to be moved more to appreciate the enormity of the multifarious daily challenges she must deal with, than being victims of manipulated propaganda antics of those struggling to substitute her with their cronies.

My personal opinion is that the current Minister of Petroleum Resources, Lady Deziani, came on board with better appreciation of the intricacies of the job than some of her predecessors did. Whilst this fact alone cannot and should not fully immunise her against the well-entrenched activities of decades-old vested capitalist forces in the oil and gas sector, yet evidence abound that her preparedness has helped to tide her, thus far, without caving in under the armada of attacks which had been the lot of several oil ministers before her.

The current campaign and attempts to stampede the minister out of office, with apparent undercurrents of organised attacks, mostly centered on her use of private jets, etc are, in my opinion, quite trivial, and a case of leaving substance in pursuit of shadows. Whilst no credible democratic government should stand idly by in the face of any impropriety or misuse of public funds, I am of the strong opinion that we must strive to build effective and efficient institutions, which should diligently handle such cases dispassionately and totally in our national interest. This would discourage this very harmful culture of over sensationalized trial of public office holders on the pages of newspapers, with mostly speculative and unfounded allegations.

Indeed, often times whilst the gullible public is treated to the high drama of sensationalised media campaign against public officials with the sole goal of instigating their sack from office, we often lose sight of the fact that most of such campaigns are engineered and promoted by capitalist interests, which in most cases, are founded and fueled by personal vendetta anchored on business and political interests. I repeat: a robust institutional framework for dealing with all cases of abuse of public trust remains our best hope for exposing and punishing genuine cases of violation of public trust, whilst seeking prevention and deterrence for new violations.

Without any doubt in my mind, Lady Diezani’s tenure has come with its own unique risks, challenges, quirks and opportunities which she and her team have tackled with visible zeal and tangible results to show for their efforts. The multiplicity of demands on her ministerial duties and responsibilities, in view of the strategic position of oil and gas in our economy, is not comparable to any other ministerial portfolio. Over these years, even her harshest critics would readily admit that she has learnt quite a bit on the job and is headed towards the point of measurable confidence in the handling of the intricacies of this hugely peculiar duty post. Whilst the experience she has gathered in the last couple of years now stand ready to benefit the government and the Nigerian people, those who have personal and political axes to grind seem hell bent on a totally different mission.

It is indeed a sad irony that on the one hand, Nigerians expect public office holders to demonstrate required expertise and experience in the discharge of their duties, and yet on the other hand, we so readily yield to our baser instincts. We pressurise government at the slightest opportunity to change ministers at such short intervals that they hardly ever settle in and tackle the job requirements before we begin to demand for them to be rolled off, invariably sending the wrong signal that acquisitive interests rather best practices on the job is the overriding factor in making such critical appointments. It is, therefore, hardly surprising that over the years, the performance level of public office holders across the sectors have continued to decline to the overall disadvantage of our national economy.

It is obviously a rewarding testament to her well-grounded training that in the face of these seemingly unceasing torrents of mudslinging against her, with yet no case proven against her, Lady Diezani has continued to comport herself with dignity and calm. Let us not forget, because we are in a hurry to undo her, that she is also human and so not perfect. Lets’s have enough of this fixation of stampeding Diezani out of office. Let common sense reign!

Beks Dagogo-Jack is chairman, Presidential Task Force on Power.

The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.

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