BARELY 24 hours after former Group Managing Director of Nigerian Na­tional Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mr. Joseph Dawha, was relieved of his appoint­ment by President Muham­madu Buhari, all Group Exec­utive Directors (GEDs) of the corporation have also been sacked with immediate effect.

And in order to inject new life into the corporation in line with President Buhari’s prom­ise to transform the state oil company into a world-class company, four new director­ates have been created.

The affected GEDs who were fired yesterday are Mr. Ian Udoh, Refining and Pet­rochemicals; Mr. Adebayo Ibirogba, Engineering and Technical; Dr. David Ige, Gas and Power; Dr. Attahir Yusuf, Business Development; Dr. Dan Efebo, Corporate Servic­es; Mr. Bernard Otti, Finance and Accounts and Ms. Aisah Abdurrahman, Commercial and Investments.

With this development, the number of directorates in the state-run oil firm has been cut down from eight to four in ac­cordance with President Bu­hari’s strategy to shrink gov­ernment agencies to reduce cost of governance. The new Directorates and their Group Executive Directors include Refining and Engineering, which is now headed by Dr. M. K. Baru; Exploration and Production now under Den­nis Nnamdi; Commercial and Investment to be overseen by Bankole Komolafe while Finance Department is under the supervision of Isiaka Ab­dulRazak.

All four appointees were formerly Group General Managers of the corporation. The decision to promote them was hinged on their experi­ence within the corporation.

The last set of GEDs was appointed by the Jonathan administration in March last year. This latest raft of ap­pointments demonstrates the President’s determination to crack down with the reforms needed to turn NNPC around and institute transparency and accountability in its opera­tions.

Speaking shortly after taking over from his pre­decessor on Tuesday, new NNPC GMD, Ibe Kachikwu, pledged to work assiduously in achieving the president’s growth aspiration for the oil and gas industry.

He is taking over the affairs of the troubled oil company at a time the global industry is grappling with low crude oil prices and will therefore be confronted with a plethora of problems, including dislodg­ing a deadly oil industry cabal working to frustrate reforms in the industry. His other chal­lenges inlude pipeline van­dalism, the nation’s ailing re­fineries, fuel subsidy politics and funding of Joint Venture Cash Call Operations, among others.

The new boss is expected to bring his experience on board to resolve the constant TAM, which had become a pain in the neck for Nigerians, as the corporation keeps making huge budget for TAM, with nothing to show for the huge expenditure while the refin­eries have failed to deliver petroleum products to Nige­rians.

With the announcement by NNPC that Port Harcourt and Warri refineries have success­fully restarted production after a nine-month phased rehabili­tation programme.