Kachikwu is NNPC’s new MD, Danbatta heads NCC

THE much-awaited change of guard in some of the country’s critical establishments gathered pace yesterday with the appointment by President Muhammadu Buhari of the Executive Vice Chairman of ExxonMobil Africa, Dr. Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu as the new Group Managing Director (GMD) of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).

The President also appointed a new Executive Vice Chairman (EVC) for the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) in person of Prof. Umaru Garba Danbatta who takes over from Dr. Eugene Juwah, whose tenure expired on July 29, 2015. His announcement as the new NCC EVC formally puts an end to speculations that Juwah had successfully secured a second term. Juwah assumed the leadership of NCC on July 29, 2010, the post, which was hitherto held by Dr. Ernest Ndukwe, who had served two terms of five years as the commission’s boss.

According to a statement by the President’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, Kachikwu takes over from Dr. Joseph Thlama Dawha who was appointed NNPC GMD in August 2014. Before his appointment as the new NNPC GMD, Dr. Kachikwu was the Executive Vice Chairman and General Counsel of Exxon Mobil Nigeria. In that capacity, he oversaw the compliance programmes of Exxon Mobil in Nigeria and on issues related to adherence to regulations and Anti-Corruption Laws for the company in Africa.

Kachikwu bagged a first class degree in Law and was best graduate and multiple awards winner from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka and Nigerian Law School. He thereafter obtained a Masters and Doctorate Degree in Law from Harvard Law School USA, with distinctions. He has worked as an Investment Attorney in USA, as General Counsel with Texaco Upstream and Downstream in Nigeria and is now Executive Vice Chairman of Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited and General Counsel for Exxon Mobil Nigeria affiliate Upstream and Downstream Companies in Nigeria.

He has forayed into business, working as chairman and chief executive officer of his own companies in downstream petroleum, law practice and consultancy and publishing. He has lectured in Nigeria, at Harvard and various institutions around the world as either a visiting lecturer or Professor in Law.

He has three published law books in Investment Law and Contracts and numerous articles in various journals. Danbatta holds a Doctorate Degree in Electronic Engineering as well as earlier qualifications including a Bachelors Degree in Electronic Engineering and Telecommunications as well as a Masters Degree in the same field. According to Adesina’s statement, Dambatta, a Fellow of the Nigerian Society of Engineers has had a meritorious career during which he rose to become Professor of Electrical Engineering and Electronics at Bayero University, Kano, specialising in Telecommunications Engineering and Information and Communications Technology. “

Before his new appointment, Danbatta held top management and leadership positions at different times including head of Department, Dean of Faculty, Director, Centre for Information Technology, chairman of the Nigerian Society of Engineers (Kano branch), Deputy Vice Chancellor and Acting Vice Chancellor. “His appointment as Executive Vice Chairman of the NCC is for five years in the first instance,” the statement informed. Danbatta’s main administrative responsibilities, in the university, included Deputy and Acting Dean of Students’ Affairs, Administrator of the Works Department and later, Director of the Centre for Information Technology (CIT).

He was also chairman to, or member of, over 60 university committees and task forces. In administrative and other responsibilities outside the university, he has served as chairman or member to over 20 committees, prominent among, which was the chairmanship of the Implementation Committee of Kano State University of Science and Technology and subsequently became its pioneer Deputy and Acting Vice-Chancellor when it took off in 2001.

He has supervised more than 60 PhD, MEng and BEng projects in the diverse areas of telecommunications and has also served as external examiner to seven universities and polytechnics and is an assessor, technical reviewer and editorial member to eight research journals.

He is a recipient of 18 distinguished awards and certificates of honour. Danbatta, who had served two terms of five years as a member of Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN), is also a COREN registered engineer and member of the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE). He has to his credit more than 50 articles in journals, conference proceedings and technical reports.

He is also the author of a six-chapter, 167-page book titled Elements of Static Engineering Electromagnetics. He was the Vice President of the Digital Bridge Institute (DBI), International Centre for Advanced Communications Studies, which was established in the year 2004 by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to build capacity for the Nigerian/African telecom industry in the diverse areas of Information and Communication Technology (ICT).

NNPC had gone through series of challenges that threatened its integrity and accountability as a state-owned oil company; one of such was the disagreements between the NNPC and Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) over alleged unremitted $49.8 billion crude oil revenue. The latest was $13.7 billion allegedly stolen under the watch of NNPC. The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) had said that between 2009 and 2012, about 160 million barrels of oil valued at $13.7 billion was stolen under the watch of the national oil giant.