…His many policy flip-flops
BY OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT, ABUJA – The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) under the leadership Mr. Bayo Ojulari, Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO) is seriously experiencing upheaval following rumblings taking place as a result of his leadership style that is seen as likely to crumble the nation’s Oil company in no distant time if allowed to continue.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu appointed Ojulari to the privileged position in April 2025, after retiring Malam Mele Kyari, who served as GCEO from 2019.
President Tinubu, who is desirous to get results in fulfilment of his Renewed Hope Agenda for the oil sector, mandated Ojulari to enhance the operational efficiency of the company as well as restore investors’ confidence, boost local content, drive economic growth, and advance gas commercialization and diversification.
The presidential mandate to the new GCEO of NNPCL, Mr Ojulari was clear and unambiguous just as oil industry watchers and Nigerians expected a new dawn at the national oil company.
However, insider sources within the company and checks by Forefront News clearly indicated that Ojulari’s leadership of the NNPC Limited is counterproductive as if anything elese, only succeeded in creating disaffection and stagnating movement towards the realization of the set objectives of the organization.
Forefront News specifically gathered that after spending 100 days as GCEO of the NNPC limited, there are clear signs that Ojulari is incapable of providing needed leadership for the company as things seem to be nosediving fast and negatively too,
One of the sources, a mid-level staff of the NNPCL, told Forefront News that the profligacy of Mr Ojulari has never been witnessed in the history of the company as he spends the company’s funds with reckless abandon as if there is no tomorrow.
Further checks by Forefront News indicate that Ojularin’s dalliance with infamy commenced upon his assumption of office as his first main step was to take members of the newly constituted board of the company on a retreat to Rwanda that only turned out to be a jamboree as he wasted millions of Naira to hire five private jets to convey the board members to the retreat against the advice of some of his management team that suggested that the retreat should take place in Nigeria for inclusive reasons. This was as he was also advised against chartering five jet for the Rwanda trip when one plane could have conveniently carry out the job at far less cost.
Forefront News which reported the story earlier, noted the reactions of Nigerians that were angered by such level of insensitivity at a time the nation is grappling with how to harness resources.
To say that Nigerians were livid with anger at what they felt was an unchecked recklessness of the NNPCL’s GCEO at a time, millions of Nigerians were struggling to feed, is an understatement.
For instance, Dr. Reuben Abati, a former presidential spokesman, and now presenter of a popular morning talk show on Arise television aptly captured the mood of Nigerians when he said on his programme: “I find it insulting and offensive. They give you a job, the first thing you do, is you say you are going on a retreat, and you are not just going on a retreat, you are going on a retreat to Rwanda. In Kigali. Okay, so why is Rwanda the destination.
“Bayo Ojulari is 60 years old. He was 60 recently. He must have enough basic commonsense that he cannot operate the way other Nigerians operate. You just think that this is an opportunity to live large. If he does that, President Tinubu should remove him immediately.
“What everyone was asking for is a new dispensation in NNPC and you get there, and you people put yourselves in a private jet, in a chartered flight and you go off to Rwanda to go and do retreat. You can do it in Abeokuta, you can do it in Cross Rivers, and you can do it in Akwa Ibom. What are you people going to look at?” Abati asked.
Further Checks at NNPCL Towers also show that aside from his extravagance, most of the top management and staff of the company are embarrassed by his many flip-flops on policy issues.
Another source said; “His inconsistencies are casting the company in bad light. You will recall that in an interview with Bloomberg on July 11, he had told them that the refineries were going to be sold because after investing so much over the years to repair them, they were still not fully operational. “Then suddenly, specifically yesterday, he told us during a townhall meeting with staff that they were no longer going to be sold. How can someone speak from both sides of the mouth at the same time.
“To think that he even based his reversal decision on staff not properly briefing him, makes things worse. This is just one of many such policy summersaults we witness here,” the source said.
The top staff further said that this attitude of the NNPCL GCEO points to a more serious malady which is nothing but “incompetence”.
According to the Staff; “The word around here is that the GCEO is out of his depths here. He doesn’t have a grip on things. Recently, the Senate Committee on Public Accounts summoned him to explain the whereabouts of over N201 trillion allegedly not remitted to the coffers of the Federal Government. He appeared confused as the Senators questioned him.
“He was not able to answer their questions claiming he has only been in office for a short while. He begged for more time to consult with the company’s auditors who were mysteriously absent from the hearing. Is that how a GCEO should behave in the public? Didn’t he know that he was going before the Senate? As a matter of fact, the Senate has been on this matter for over two months. An effect GCEO would get proper briefing before appearing before the Senate,” the staff said.
It was further gathered that Ojulari gets so easily distracted with his social life than concentrating on the job given to him by Mr President thus, in his 100 days in office, he has not deemed it fit to visit any NNPCL facility let alone the refineries, and its other vital assets spread across the country, but instead, he has an unquenchable appetite for hosting courtesy and solidarity visitations
Highly placed stakeholders in the oil and gas industry wonder why President Tinubu settled for Mr. Ojulari as the new helmsman of NNPCL, “when it is common knowledge in the industry that Ojulari was actually dismissed and not retired from SNEPCO for graft and inflating contracts on a gas-related project”.
