TheCable

Femi Adesina, presidential spokesperson, says the appointment of Margery Okadigbo as the chairperson of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited is President Muhammadu Buhari’s way of “repaying kindness”.

Buhari had dropped Ifeanyi Araraume, who was appointed last September as board chair of the NNPC Limited, replacing him with Margery, who is the wife of the late Chuba Okadigbo.

In an article published on Thursday and titled ‘PMB: Kind to the Living and the Dead’, Adesina said Buhari remembers people who have been kind to him.

“The Board of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited was inaugurated last week. Two names were very prominent in the assemblage: Margery Chuba Okadigbo, the Chairman, and Constance Harry Marshall,” Adesina wrote.

“The presence of the personalities gives more than an inkling into the character of our President. It confirms what some of us had always known. Muhammadu Buhari never forgets a good turn. He repays every kindness, every justice done to him, as much as it lies in his power.

“When you show kindness to the living, it is a good thing, something to applaud. But when you go further to do the same to the dead, it is something that places you on a very high pedestal; a man to be emulated, acclaimed, a blessed of the Lord.

“In his first outing in 2003, Buhari ran with the former Senate President, Dr Chuba Okadigbo, as vice-presidential candidate. They both challenged the result of the election, and were determined to get justice. But in September of that year, Okadigbo died. Very painful.

“Now, 19 years later, who has Buhari made Chairman of the NNPC Ltd Board? Margery, Okadigbo’s widow.”