The exit of Mele kyari as the helmsman of the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL, as usual, has been greeted with mix reactions.

While many hail the geologist for laying the foundations for the reformations in the downstream sector of the petroleum industry and paving the way for the stabilization of the Nigerian economy under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, there have been a few misrepresentations that tend to underplay or undermine the scope of what was attained between 2019 and 2025 when Kyari held sway as the chief executive of the NNPCL.

Few recall that Kyari was the only key figure in the economy that preceded the Tinubu but continued seamlessly into the current administration with the full compliments of an expert who not only understood the vision of the new administration but is willing to play a critical role in implementing the agenda.

From day one, no chief executive of any federal agency had been under immense pressure like Kyari because since the proclamation by the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on the day of his inauguration that subsidy is gone, the entire responsibility of managing the economy to ensure it doesn’t collapse and to avoid a cataclysmic reaction from the populace fell on Kyari’s shoulders.

At a time when the country had no minister and the CBN governor was removed, Kyari remained the central figure that held the economy for Tinubu until new appointments were made to support the administration.

Using his experience in the field, the reaction of the populace to the new regime of price hike was tempered and the government went head and managed the administration of subsidy removal and was able to stamp out the corruption in the system, block all smuggling channels and ensuring availability of products like never experienced before .

All these were happening even before the administration was yet to settle down and appoint key drivers in its economy like CBN governor, ministers of finance and petroleum etc.

The lot fell in on the NNPC and its management which despite the challenges of a new policy direction did not falter in managing the economy till things stabilized.

These tasks did not come easily as there were agitations by labour and other interest groups to mobilise against the government.

Kyari, using his experience in the sector knew that supply was key and that thought the exchange rate has gone up in favour of the dollar, efforts must be doubled to make products available and the only way to achieve that without further increasing the pump price was to revive the existing refineries.

In no time, both the Warri and Port-Hacourt refineries which were lying fallow started production and contributing to the domestic supply of petrol.

Kyari was equally helpful in reviewing the production capacity of oil blocs to enable the government know what is due on guide it in the process.
With that, the process has been sanitised and Nigeria tends to benefit a lot from the review as it can monitor every barrel to determine the rate of production.

The coming on stream of the Dangote refinery which construction started in 2013 but the production could not commence till 2024 was equally due to Kyari’s ingenuity and support for the deregulation of the downstream sector.

Though there were disagreements along the way on the supply of crude and deregulation of the pump price, the coming on stream of the refinery in addition to the ones supplied by the NNPC helped stabilised the sector.

NNPC’ s compliance to sell crude oil to Dangote and other local refineries in naira and not in the United States’ greenback also encouraged stabilised the naira and encourage local production.

With these foundations laid by Kyari Nigeria is now looking at a target of 3,000,000 barrels per day by the year 2030 and stability at 2,000,000 per day before 2027 While gas production should reach 10 billion cubic meters between now and 2030.

While new blood is essential to add new ideas to sectorial growth, the foundations laid by Kyari in the downstream sector of the petroleum industry cannot be discountenanced.

It is therefore surprising how some are finding it convenient to push back the enormous contribution of Kyari to the stability of the current administration of Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Sunday Attah is a public affairs analyst and writes from Garki Abuja.