The Integrity Youth Alliance has berated the so-called Northern Youth Council of Nigeria (NYCN) for calling on the Group Chief Executive Officer, National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL), Kolo Mele Kyari, to step aside concerning the alleged payment of N20 billion to a ghost consultant.
In a press release on Tuesday, 11th April 2023 signed by its Board Chair, Adewole Kehinde, he said that on the assumption of office, Mallam Mele Kyari pledged to open the NNPCL financial books to the public as part of his management’s commitment to openness, transparency, and accountability in line with the global EITI principles.
“Kyari published the audited accounts of NNPC for 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021. This would never have been possible if Mal. Mele Kolo Kyari had not summoned the courage to go public with the 2018 financial statement.
The statement read, “The huge loss in 2018 made them stop leakages, improve on forethought and introduce cost-saving measures.
“Kyari has rebranded Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited with a fresh panorama and obligation to transparency and accountability in consonance with the global principles of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI).
“He has kicked a fresh breath of openness into the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited. He has refused to follow the crowd. He has decided to do things differently; to account to his employers, Nigerians.
“Kyari’s insistence to depart from the path of past GMDs of the Company who kept the books sealed has already set him apart from the crowd.
“For the first time in many decades, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, under Mal Mele Kyari, got into the good books of the United States and her global anti-corruption watch agencies. This time, rather than the usual splatter of graft and miasma, NNPCL grabbed global attention for transparency in an industry tainted, globally, by corruption, sleaze and sluggers.
“The United States 2020 Report on Human Rights Practices in Nigeria released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labour under the US Department of State gave more than a passing glance at the state of human rights in Nigeria. It exhumed buried carcasses of corruption in Nigeria’s public service. But the same report also highlighted an almost neglected radiance of rainbow in the operations of Nigeria’s petroleum products mother hen, the NNPCL.
“To us, the so-called Northern Youth Council of Nigeria (NYCN) is just out to seek relevance as this is not the first time they are calling for the head of Mal Mele Kyari and they always end up being disgraced.
“The NNPC Limited is open to probe even beyond the House of Representatives, the company will always come out clean as usual, the statement said.
