Kachikwu: A Militant Threatened Me On Phone

[caption id="attachment_8178" align="alignnone" width="600"]STOCK PHOTOMinister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu[/caption]

Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, has revealed that he was threatened on phone by a militant that planned to blow up oil pipelines.

Speaking at a town hall meeting which had some ministers in attendance on Tuesday in Kaduna state, Kachikwu lamented that attacks on oil installations was a drain on the country’s resources, assuring that the government was on top of the situation.

“Last week, my phone number was published in Sahara Reporters and then I began to get millions of phone calls.

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“One of the first phone calls I took not knowing who was calling me was from a militant somewhere and when I picked up the phone, he said ‘Are you the minister of petroleum’, I said yes.

“He said, ‘I dey go blow pipeline tomorrow,’ and I said, ‘why would you do that my brother if you love Nigerians? He said, ‘are you sure you are the minister’, I said yes.

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“Then he said for being so humble, I will drop the plan. That’s the kind of environment under which we operate.”

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While appealing to Nigerians not to be discouraged by the current challenges facing the country, he expressed the hope that the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration is capable of turning the situation around for the better.

“The reality of our situation is that wherever I turn when I was appointed, I had problems. If I turn to the refineries when I joined in October, they were not working. If I turned to the pipelines, they were non-existent.

“But I wasn’t discouraged, because if I had problems, what will I say of a man who at his age took over the mantle of this country? His Excellency, the president so that gave me a lot of encouragement,” the minister said.

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