Ibe Kachukwu Is a Floating Minister – Edwin Clark

Chief Edwin Clark

Renowned Ijaw leader, Chief Edwin Clark has advised Mr Ibe Kachukwu , the Minister of State Petroleum to stand for his right in the Ministry of Petroleum, noting that he is merely a floating Minister with his responsibilities allegedly being hijacked by the Group Managing Director, GMD, of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC.

Chief Edwin Clark made this assertion on Wednesday at his Kiagbodo residence in Delta state.

Kachukwu should be careful not to make it in history as the most sidelined Minister in President Muhammadu Buhari’s cabinet, Clark said, noting that the region would stand by him if he chose to do the needful.

“The Minister of State for Petroleum is floating, he hardly finds job to do. If contracts can be awarded without him and approved by Mr President then what is his business as a Minister . His job has been taken over by the GMD of NNPC. The Minister should stay behind, he should not resign. He should fight for his rights. He was number two man in Mobil and could have been number one if he had not been appointed Minister.

“A situation where the GMD of NNPC awards contract and the tender board reports to him (GMD) and he in turns gets access to Mr President for approval of the contracts, tells you that Mr Kachukwu is a floating Minister who should fight for his rightful place”, the elder statesman said.

Clark who said he was not happy by the alleged marginalization of the South south region in federal employment, road construction and other key development projects of the Federal Government called on President Buhari to employ urgent measure to address the alleged injustice against the region, stressing that not doing so could provoke another round of crisis in the nation.

“Inspite of the neglect we suffer and the unnecessary provocation, the people of the Niger Delta region remained committed to unity and oneness of Nigeria because we believe in the cooperate existence of our great country, Nigeria. We are not asking for too much, all we are saying is that our people should maximally benefit from the resources from their land. We therefore call on Mr President to without delay , redirect a correction of the various imbalances of these very sensitive issues in the interest of equity, fairness and peace , if we fail to provide rational and realistic interventions we leave room for decadents to further devise trajectories for unorthodox alterations “, he warned.

Chief Clark who is the leader of Pan Niger Delta Forum, PANDEF, also said that out of the 16 demands made by the region, only one has been met by the federal government, noting that the government had allegedly almost abandoned the East West road project“.

“The 16 point agenda which we submitted to Mr President is yet to be properly addressed. The only tangible item that has been attended to is the take off of the Maritime University , Okerenkoko in Delta state. Our request such as setting up of joint negotiating team for sustainable peace, relocation of oil companies back to the area, allocation of oil bloc to our communities, greater participation in the industry, the appointment of our sons and daughters, setting up of modular refineries are all totally neglected or being addressed with unfulfilled promises“, he said.

“Even our legacy East West road remains treated with levity. As we speak nothing is happening on that critical road, ten years after its take off”, he added.

Chief Clark also recalled that federal government budgets had been in trillions, asking that the government should in “truth and good conscience tell us how much of this mammoth sum came to fund projects in the Niger delta. Is this fair, just and equitable”, he queried .