The second term-minister, Mrs Diezani Alison-Madu-eke, whose re-appoint-ment as Petroleum Minister generated a lot of negative and unsub-stantiated allegations of ineptitude and gross official misconduct during her first term as minister, returned to the office last year to face fresh hurdles.

It is to her credit that several enlightenment programmes were put in place to sensitise the nation on the economic imperatives of the removal of fuel subsidy.

However, the removal of subsidy by the Federal Government in January, 2012, subjected her to another round of criticism when the public demanded the probe of the importers of refined petroleum products otherwise referred to as ‘subsidy cabal.’ This was coming after her seamless efforts to ensure transparency in the downstream sub-sector and improved management of the nation’s oil and gas sector.

On assumption of office last year April, she championed the reason to deregulate the downstream sub-sector, and if her move had been successful, there would not have been any reason for the recent discoveries of whooping mismanagement of over N2 trillion subsidy fund by the House of Representative Ad Hoc Committee probing the subsidy management.

Moreover, while res-ponding to public criti-cism of her stewardship and the mismanagement of the sector, she quickly set up various commit-tees headed by respec-ted private sector indivi-duals to make recom-mendations on the restructuring of the petroleum industry. These include Special Task-force on the Pass-age of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) led by Senator Udoma Udo Udoma; a Special Task Force on Governance and Controls at Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), headed by Mr Dotun Sulaiman; the Petroleum Revenue Special Task-force, headed by Mallam Nuhu Ribadu; and Na-tional Refineries Special Task-force, headed by former Minister of Finance, Dr Kalu Idika Kalu, with former Managing Director of Unipetrol, Mallam Yusuf Alli, as its alternate chairman.

Besides, the Petro-leum Revenue Special Task-force may have unraveled huge debts owed in the sector, while putting in place the technology for crude oil monitoring. The draft PIB is in final stages, while a sweeping governance structure for NNPC and the industry is being finalised.

Meanwhile, the refineries’ task force is moving to curb waste and promote the privati-sation of the refineries.

Another efforts by the Minister to sanitise the oil importation regime was the appointment of a new executive secretary for PPPRA, Mr Reginald Stanley, who has streamlined and drastically reduced the quarterly allocations for the importation of petroleum products. This  ensured that there was availability of petrol nationwide. Alison-Madueke also compel-led the NNPC to streamline the crude oil lifting guidelines for the year to enable more local companies participate in the scheme.

Also, after several months of discord with ExxonMobil, the minis-ter, in conjunction with NNPC, was able to conclude negotiations with ExxonMobil on the renewal of its oil leases for another 20 years. She has announced that expired leases held by Shell and Chevron will be renewed by June this year.

Under the gas-to-power programme to facilitate the availability of gas under new fiscal terms to thermal power stations in the country, the minister announced a 12-month emergency plan and appointed Mr Kunle Allen, who will report directly to her, to head the Gas Aggrega-tion Company of Nigeria Limited. The 12-month emergency programme is aimed at fast-tracking the construction of pipelines and gas meter-ing facilities for the thermal power stations and the exploration and production of gas development projects by oil companies in the Niger Delta for the domestic market.