‘Seun Ibukun-Oni, Abuja

 

Daily Courier – The Secretary-General of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Muhammad Barkindo, is dead.

Barkindo died late Tuesday hours after a presidential reception in his honour at the state house by president Muhammadu Buhari describing him as a worthy ambassador of Nigeria.

The Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Mele Kyari, announced Barkindo’s death in a tweeted posted to his verified Twitter handle, @MKKyari, in the early hours of 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,” Kyari tweeted.

Reacting to Barkindo’s death, a former lawmaker in the eighth Assembly, Senator Shehu Sani, tweeted to his Twitter page, “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.”

A Nigerian reacting to the sad news wrote: “The outgoing OPEC Secretary General Muhammad Sanusi Barkindo was honored by the President, PMB yesterday, but by 11pm last night he died. Only God actually knows our last minute on this earth. Lets be sincere in our dealings with people.”