Ecobank Transnational Incorporated, parent company
of the Ecobank Group, has announced the
appointment of Ade Ayeyemi as its new Group Chief
Executive Officer with effect from September 1.
According to a statement from the pan-African bank,
Ayeyemi, 52, would replace Albert Essien, who would
be retiring on June 30, after 25 years of service with
the Group.
It said an interim arrangement would be made by the Ecobank Board for the management of the Group during the period, July 1 through August 31, pending the resumption of the new GCEO. The bank described Ayeyemi, a Nigerian, as a highly experienced banker who has had a long and successful career with Citigroup. He is currently Chief Executive Officer of Citigroup’s sub-Saharan Africa division, based in Johannesburg. The bank said, “He is an accounting graduate of the University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, South-west Nigeria, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree with First Class Honours. Ikazoboh said, “He also studied at the University of London and is an alumnus of Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Programme. “Ayeyemi is also a trained UNIX Administrator and Network Operating Systems Manager.” Ecobank Group Chairman, Emmanuel Ikazoboh, said after a thorough and extensive search throughout the African continent, they were able to secure such a person. “We are delighted to have secured Ayeyemi as the person to lead Ecobank through the next phase of its development and beyond as a world-class pan-African bank. “Ayeyemi is a truly outstanding individual with deep knowledge of banking across Africa, and we welcome him to the Board. “At the same time, I should like to thank Albert Essien for his 25-year career at Ecobank and for his stellar service as Group Chief Executive Officer over the past year. “We wish him well in his retirement.”

Senate Joint Committee on Petroleum Resources ( Upstream and Downstream ), currently investigating the lingering fuel scarcity in the country, has directed the Department of Petroleum Resources to seal-off any filling station hoarding the product. Chairman of the committee, Mr. Magnus Abe, told journalists in Abuja on Thursday that the long queues at filling stations across the country would soon disappear. He said the committee had approached the Lagos State Government and and the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, to allow tanker drivers lift petroleum products in compliance with the resolutions agreed with the Senate joint committee and stakeholders in the oil industry. Abe added, “I have spoken with the Lagos State Commissioner for Transport and the chairman of NUPENG in Lagos and they’ve assured me that everybody is complying. “The situation will improve and it will continue to improve. There’s still a lot of panic buying going on but, as days go by, the queues would reduce.” The senator expressed satisfaction with the progress recorded since the truce was brokered among stakeholders in the oil sector by the committee. Abe said, “Nobody can say he’s satisfied with the present situation because as I would say, this is something that would happen again and again again except we have a drastic review and overhaul of the entire system and the entire scheme; this is not a permanent solution. “It’s a stop-gap measure to allow normalcy to return to the sector. It would be the responsibility of the incoming administration to look for a more permanent solution. “I’m very confident that normalcy will soon be restored and I urge Nigerians to give the system a chance to correct itself and those who have fuel do not necessarily need to do back to the filling stations to refill because there’s no scaring coming. “Those, who do not need to buy for their cars or jerry-cans to go and store at home because when you do that, you are contributing to the scarcity. “We have given very clear instructions to the DPR that anybody, who has stock and is not selling in the hours that we have agreed, should have their licences revoked and their facilities sealed-off. “I will get back to the DPR today to ensure that the nobody toys with that instruction. If anybody has information as to the contrary, that the filling stations are hoarding, they should contact DPR and they would be dealt with.”

There are indications that the current fuel scarcity may not abate unless the Federal Government pays the outstanding N200m reportedly being owed theOIL MARKETERS as subsidy claims.

TheOIL MARKETERS, who confirmed to our correspondent that they had stopped importation, said they could not continue with fuel importation as result of inadequate funds.

They spoke through the Executive Secretary, MajorOIL MARKETERS Association of Nigeria, Mr. Obafemi Olawore.

Olawore, along with the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, also denied the report that they were on strike.

He said they were still waiting for the Federal Government to call them to another roundtable on how to pay the N200bn fuel subsidy owed them.

Olawore said, “We are not on strike. People are just painting us the way they want. We are not importing because we don’t have the money to buy the products. The government has not invited us. The only thing we have heard is the resolution of the Senate on Thursday and I think that they are going to invite us soon.”

Out of N356.2bn subsidy the government reportedly owedOIL MARKETERS, the Ministry of Finance paid the sum of N156bn about two weeks ago.

With about five days to the handover of power to a new administration at the federal level, tanker drivers in the country have also stopped lifting fuel from the depots, leaving many filling stations without the product and others selling at exorbitant prices.

The General Secretary, NUPENG, Mr. Isaac Aberare, said tankers drivers would start lifting the product as soon as they received the directive to do so, insisting that they were not strike.

He said, “If there are products in the depots, we will go there and load. Remember that the Lagos State Government gave tankers drivers 48 hours to leave the road instead of clogging the whole road and making navigation difficult; we have complied with that instruction. Any time there are products, we will go and load.”

In its response to the lingering fuel scarcity in the country, the Senate on Thursday directed its Committee on Petroleum Resources (upstream and downstream) to commence a full investigation into the causes of the persistent fuel crisis.

The directive was made following a motion by the Deputy Senate Majority Leader, Senator Abdul Ningi.

Ningi said, “We need to know whether fuel scarcity has come to stay. We need to know whether it has become part of our lives. We need to plan.

“By planning and talking about it, we are now sensitising Nigerians to brace for the impending issue of fuel scarcity whether it is going to be here permanently or it is temporary.”