Bala Zaka’s Misfire: Twisting Mele Kyari’s Legacy to Sell Ojulari’s Image?
Comrade Mohammed Nasir
By any fair reading, the August 11, 2025 Nairametrics article, “NNPCL, Ojulari and the Interloping Cabals”, is less analysis and more hit job. Its author, self-styled consultant Bala Zaka, hides behind lofty rhetoric to recast Mele Kyari as a villain—just so he can paint his subject, NNPCL’s new GCEO, Wale Ojulari, as a knight in shining armour.
This narrative collapses under the weight of facts. Under Kyari’s stewardship, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation shed decades of inefficiency to become a profitable, transparent enterprise. Month after month, it posted record profits—publicly—while weathering subsidy controversies, global oil market shocks, and crumbling infrastructure. When Kyari retired, he handed Ojulari not a crisis, but a reformed, revenue-generating institution.
Zaka’s piece ignores this. Instead, it spins a tale of “interloping cabals” and “dark forces” without offering data, context, or concrete examples. It is selective amnesia at best, deliberate distortion at worst—designed to inflate Ojulari’s nascent agenda by erasing the stability and operational discipline left by his predecessor.
Ojulari should tread carefully. The history of public leadership is littered with men who allowed “media consultants” to turn their tenure into a PR battlefield—only to find themselves dragged into needless controversies. If this is the communications template NNPCL is adopting, the danger is clear: the noise will soon drown out the results.
Promoting Ojulari’s $60 billion investment drive and refining overhaul targets should not require defaming the man who left him a strong foundation. Leadership transitions are built on continuity as much as ambition; undermine the past and you weaken the platform for the future.
The truth is simple: Mele Kyari didn’t retire under a cloud. He exited on a high—leaving a profit-making NNPCL that had, under his watch, finally begun to match performance with transparency. Turning that legacy into a caricature might sell column inches, but it won’t serve Nigeria’s oil industry.
If Zaka’s intent was to inform, he should have brought facts. If it was to spin fiction, he should have had the decency to admit it.
Comrade Nasir wrote from Kabara Quarters, Kano State.
