The secretary-general of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Mr. Muhammad Barkindo, died yesterday few hours after meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the state house in Abuja.
His second term at OPEC ends on July 31, 2022.
The group managing director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, Mr. Mele Kyari, announced Barkindo’s passing in a tweet posted on his verified Twitter handle, @MKKyari, in the early hours of today (Wednesday).
“We lost our esteemed Dr Muhammad Sanusi Barkindo. He died at about 11pm yesterday 5th July 2022.
Certainly a great loss to his immediate family, the NNPC, our country Nigeria, the OPEC and the global energy community. Burial arrangements will be announced shortly.
“Burial arrangements will be announced shortly,” he wrote.
Barkindo, who died at 63, was earlier in the evening celebrated by Muhammadu Buhari.
Buhari who received the deceased at the state house had described him as a worthy ambassador of the country.
“Barkindo’s six-year tenure were challenging brought about by challenges that were crippling the oil market and COVID-19 pandemic that sent crude prices spiralling down at an alarming rate,” he said.
Nevertheless, the president said posterity will remember Barkindo for demonstrating leadership which helped to rally industry players and pushed through the turbulent times.
He added that posterity will celebrate him kindly for making the nation and himself proud during his six years of meritorious service at the helm of affairs as the 4th OPEC secretary general from Nigeria.
Barkindo had also delivered a long speech at the ongoing Nigeria Oil and Gas conference in Abuja on Tuesday.
Reacting to the death, a former senator in the eighth assembly, Mr. Shehu Sani, tweeted: “Muhammad Sanusi Barkindo, former GMD NNPC and until recently, @OPECSecretariat scribe, was honoured yesterday. He died 11pm yesternight. May Allah grant him Aljanna firdausi. Amin. That is the ephemerality and transience of life.”
Barkindo is the third ex-NNPC group general manager to have died in two years — Maikanti Baru died in May 2020 and Joseph Dawha in August 2020.
