Minister finally meets Buhari and he still got swag

No government official does ‘swag lord’ like Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu.

During the ministerial screening exercise of 2015 at the national assembly, Kachikwu showed up in a bespoke suit and designer shades. Words rolled off his tongue like he had carefully programmed them to roll out that way.

The Minister of State for Petroleum hasn’t stopped slaying since that time.

On Friday, October 6, 2017, Kachikwu arrived the State House where President Muhammadu Buhari’s office is engraved, with a spring in his steps.

Time check: 11:40am.

He strode through the corridors as briskly as he often does, bedecked in a trademark well-tailored suit with a pair of shades completing the ensemble. He was here for serious business, but you wouldn’t have guessed.

There was a hint of a smirk on the corner of his lips as the cameras rolled and clicked, but he spoke to no journalist who wanted a good quote for a sensational story. They would have to wait.

This was after all, his moment. He’s been dying to see the president like forever. And here he was, on the corridors of Aso Rock. No State House correspondent was going to ruin his day.

“I would have wanted to come personally after receiving you at the airport to felicitate with you and discuss matters herein contained, however I have been unable to secure an appointment to see you despite very many attempts”, Kachikwu wrote in that confidential memo to Buhari—a memo which ended up getting leaked and which went viral the very moment it hit the internet.

In the memo, he complained bitterly about the grating work style of NNPC GMD, Maikanti Baru.

Baru, Kachikwu said, has left a $25B hole in the NNPC. A grave allegation by any stretch of the imagination.

Kachikwu also accused Baru of insubordination, hiring people without recourse to due process and not carrying him along.

It was easy to know where Kachikwu was coming from. The NNPC is the country’s cash cow. Everyone should be interested in what happens in the NNPC. And when you are a Minister of the oil sector, you should know how the NNPC runs. The man who loves his designer suits and glamour, says he didn’t. Baru runs the place like a one man show, he lamented.

So he wrote a memo expressing how much of a humiliating phase he was passing through at the hands of Baru. He poured out all of his frustration on pieces of paper after stringing them into sentences. He wanted the president to share in his agony. He wanted a shoulder to lean on in his moment of agony.

Baru hasn’t said a word in response since that leaked letter made the rounds across all media outlets in the land. He shouldn’t. Better to let this all blow over and try to paper over apparent cracks

Kachikwu’s meeting with the president lasted some 1 hour, 20 minutes.

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When he emerged from the president’s office, he muttered the famous “no comment” words to all the journalists who had kept vigil behind the walls. To hell with their further attempts to make this about them. This was about him. This is his cross; his alone to carry.

Kachikwu has four options before himat this point. He should weigh them carefully.

It's a tough time to be Ibe Kachikwu, 'slay overlord' or not.