No Big Deal Meeting With Petroleum Minister – Abubakar

Former head of state, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, has refuted insinuations making the rounds that his meeting with the minister of petroleum resources, Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke, had something to do with the lobby for him to intercede on her behalf.

Some online media have been carrying reports suggesting that the meeting between Abubakar and Diezani was part of moves by the minister to get some key northerners to prevail on the president-elect, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, not to probe the activities of the Petroleum Ministry under her watch.


But Abubakar who is the chairman of National Peace Committee explained that by virtue of his responsibility, he had been meeting with several people recently, including President Goodluck Jonathan and some of his key ministers.

Speaking to journalists after meeting with the president at the Presidential Villa, Abubakar who wondered why his meeting with the petroleum minister should generate any controversy described such insinuation as mischievous.

He said, “I think people are just trying to be mischievous. I have been meeting with a lot of people and a lot of ministers in the course of this transition. So, there is nothing strange in me meeting with anybody.

“Go through your records to see the number of meetings I have been engaging in; I don’t know why the last one would be a subject of media chat.

“This is not the first time I have been meeting her and a number of ministers so I don’t see what the whole hullabaloo is all about. People are just being mischievious”.

But incidentally, the petroleum minister drove into the Presidential Villa and went straight into the President’s Office minutes after Abubakar arrived for a meeting with the president.

The former head of state added that his frequent meeting with Jonathan and Buhari bordered on ensuring peaceful and smooth transition.

He denied serving as an emissary between Jonathan and Buhari, even as he commended the roles of the two leaders that had brought about peace in the country.

He said, “As the chairman of the peace committee, there is always interaction between the incoming president and President Jonathan in order to ensure peace. We have been able to get it sustained. So, naturally I’m here to touch base with him and also to give him a report of what the committee has been doing.

“I’m not serving as intermediary. I told you I’m coming here as the chairman, Peace Committee and naturally, we have to interact; I went to see Gen. Buhari and I also saw the president all in an effort to make sure that this transition goes on smoothly and we maintain the peace”.