NNPC AS REPOSITORY FOR RICH KIDS

Monday  letter2

Over here in my school, the Federal University of Technology, Minna, a repressed indignant din just reluctantly subsided after the non-academic staff unions were paid their long-overdue hazard allowances. It was “long overdue” because members of these unions knew that the principal negotiator with the federal government, who is a technical staff over here but is the national president of the key non-academic union benefiting from payment of hazard allowances, was duly “settled” by the Presidency to scuttle agitations by members from embarking on strike for all of last year so as not to colour the government bad.

This “settlement” was an assured employment for his daughter at the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), that non-efficient and lumbering government “fat cow” parastatal; that young lady was your typical Nigerian graduate of biochemistry who would have slugged it out with others through the NYSC process and the job-search process. Thus, now, the NNPC is the repository for rich kids and those who can count on their familial privilege to get connected for plush job openings. The NNPC that should be competing with Mobil, Total, Shell, Agip-ENI, is a haven for nepotism and cronyism. What, now, to do with it? Privatisation of the NNPC in the best way to go.

 Sunday Adole Jonah,

Department of Physics Federal University of Technology, Minna Niger Stat