EXTRA: At town hall meeting, Kachikwu administers ‘oath of loyalty to change’

Ibe Kachikwu, minister of state for petroleum resources, on Monday led Nigerians to what looked like an oath-taking ceremony – a commitment that they would henceforth become “instruments of change”.

At the town hall meeting, which held in Lagos and was attended by a number of ministers, Kachikwu had delivered a thoughtful analysis on the state of the oil industry, listing a series of initiatives that government was putting into ending the lingering fuel scarcity.

He had ended his speech by revealing how some of those efforts were being sabotaged by private interests, and urging the audience to continue supporting the federal government.

Then he pulled off a surprise: he asked everyone in the audience to rise and repeat after him:

I’m a Nigerian

There’s a reason why God made me a Nigerian.

I have a stake in this country.

I have the skills and determination, the focus and belief in my capacity, to be the best in what I do, and to help this country change and make progress.

Today

This day

This moment

I commence to be an instrument of change and to work hard with my brothers and sisters to move this country forward

So help me God

Thank you.

Although a lawyer – a first-class graduate of Law from the University of Nigeria (UNN), Nsukka, Enugu state – by discipline, Kachikwu is not new to the literary world.

He has published several magazine titles, including Hints, which was a household name in the 90s. He has also authored three published law books in investment law and contracts.

In March, while speaking at the sixth African Petroleum Congress in Abuja, Kachikwu had rendered a poem on oil, expressing confidence that its prices would rise again.

“I was asked by an ephemeral subject being whose name is oil to say a few words on its behalf,” Kachikwu said before the rendition.

“My name is oil, the very kind people who are kind to me call me black gold. The ones who hate me call me crude.

“I worry for my future; everyone now talks down on me. Even farmers who trembled at the sight of my name are now strategizing against me.

“And all my beneficiaries, me have they abandoned. All because the producers have lost their tracks. But I would rise again, and when I do, I will take no prisoners.

“I would new technologies control, I will new technologies control. I will my supremacy confirm. I will my respect regain.

“And my pricing, not to low, not to high, but I would not allow prices to humiliate me. All of you in OPEC, APPA, GCEF and all such bodies who have shown me no respect recently, soon, you’ll eat your words.”