I will be ready to serve Nigeria again if President wants me to- Baru

Maikanti Baru, the outgoing group managing director of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), said he was willing and ready to do more if given the opportunity to serve the country.

This paper reports that Baru said this while speaking to journalists on the sideline of the 2019 annual lecture, life achievement awards and induction of new fellows of the Nigerian Academy of Engineering, on Thursday, June 20, in Lagos.

We gathered that Baru said the service to Nigeria is a call to everyone, which must be obeyed.

Speaking on his post-retirement plans as he retires on July 7, Baru said he was ever ready to serve Nigeria again if such opportunity arose.

“Service to Nigeria is everybody’s call. Every Nigerian should be willing to serve the country when called upon to do so. The system that has been put in place is for a public servant to retire when he is 60 years or after 35 years in service.

“However, if it is the prerogative of President Muhammadu Buhari to invite you to do more and of course you should look at it and you should do more. The President graciously accepted my statutory retirement but if he says I should come and do more, I’m willing to serve,” he said.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Baru would clock 60 years and retire from active service on July 7. Baru was born on July 7, 1959 and hailed from Jama’are in Bauchi state, northeast Nigeria, but grew up in Jos, Plateau.

He is a Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the Nigerian Society of Engineers.

He attended Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, where he obtained Bachelor of Engineering (Mechanical) with a first class honours.

He also holds a Ph.D in Mechanical Engineering. Until his appointment as the NNPC boss, he was the Special Adviser (Upstream) to the Minister of State for Petroleum, Dr Ibe Kachikwu.

Meanwhile, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) on Thursday, June 20, threw more light on why President Muhammadu Buhari relieved the present Baru of the responsibility.

The corporation in a statement that the group general manager, group public affairs, Ndu Ughamadu, issued in Abuja said that Baru is due for statutorily retire on July 7, 2019, on the ground of attainment of 60 years retirement age.

According to the statement, “A follow-up release on the new appointments by the NNPC Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs, Mr. Ndu Ughamadu, informed that the new Group Managing Director, Mr. Mele Kolo Kyari, who takes over from a current occupier of the office, Dr. Maikanti Baru, effectively on 8th July 2019, is until his new appointment the Group General Manager, Crude Oil Marketing Division of NNPC. Dr. Baru would retire statutorily on July 7, 2019.”

Meanwhile, this paper had previously reported that President Muhammadu Buhari appointed Mele Kolo Kyari as the new group managing director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).

It was reported that Kyari from Borno, became the 19th GMD of the NNPC with a rich profile of professional and service credentials.

A geologist, Kyari was known in the oil industry as a crude oil marketer with outfield pedigree in petroleum economics and crude oil and gas trading. With over 27 years of experience in the oil and gas industry, his tour of duty traversed the entire value chain of the petroleum industry.