In the morning of the new year of 2012, Nigerians woke up to the announcement of hike in the pump price of petrol (PMS) from N65/litre to N141/litre. The country was in turmoil as protests against the hike of petrol price broke out and spread all over the nation. Tribalists were quick to declare protests against the hike in petrol price as anti-Ijaw because President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan is from that ethnic group. As subsequent committee of enquiries set up, by the House of representatives and another two by President Ebele Jonathan himself revealed, fuel subsidy bonanza cut across ethnic and religious affiliation of those who fraudulently claimed subsidy for volumes of unimported fuel from the Federal Government. Historically, Nigeria has never stood still but constantly, has been moved retrogressively. Nigeria is like a cursed (lunatic) bird flying backwards with the face forward. Therefore, history continues to repeat itself, politically and economically in the country even when the actors change. During his inauguration as President of Nigeria on May 29, 2023, Bola Ahmed Tinubu drew the attention of Nigerians to the fact that fuel subsidy had been abrogated in the 2023 budget appropriation he inherited from the outgoing president since it did not contain fuel subsidy payment beyond the end of May 2023. The Petroleum Industry Act 2021 and the 2023 Fiscal Framework and Appropriation Act signed into law by the former President, Muhammadu Buhari, had limited fuel subsidy payment to the end of May, 2023. Yet, brain-lazy and woe-forecasting intellectuals were quick at accusing the new President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, for inflicting pains on Nigerians because of cessation of fuel subsidy bonanza.
As if we are a people beset with brain darker than unrefined crude oil we Nigerians never asked why crude oil exporting Nigeria should depend on imported petrol (PMS) for domestic needs. For the sake of the loud-mouthed and bitumen-tarred-brain Nigerians holding President Bola Ahmed Tinubu responsible for fuel subsidy abrogation, application of factual detergents to their brains will remind them that Nigeria has four crude oil refineries with a combined total installed capacity to refine 445,000 barrels of crude oil per day. Specifically, the old Port Harcourt refinery with installed capacity to refine 60,000 barrel of crude oil per day was built in 1965; the new Port Harcourt Refinery and Petrochemical Company with installed capacity of refining 150,000 b/d of crude oil became operational in 1989 and the old and the new Port Harcourt Refineries jointly have installed capacity to refine 210,000 barrels of crude oil per day. Warri Refinery and Petrochemical company came into operation in 1978 with installed capacity to refine 125,000 barrels of crude oil per day; and Kaduna Refinery and Petrochemical Company with installed capacity to refine 110,000 barrels of crude oil per day became operational in 1980. By 1989, when the new Port Harcourt came into production, total crude oil consumption before refining in Nigeria was less than 200,000 barrel per day. Port Harcourt, Kaduna and Warri refineries were established to produce and supply : Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG), Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) otherwise called Petrol, Dual Purpose Kerosine (DPK), Automotive Gas Oil (AGO), Low Pour Fuel Oil (LPFO), High Power Fuel Oil (HPFO) and Aviation Turbine Kerosine (ATK), for local consumption and Exports. Thus, if all the refineries have been functioning as they should, there would not have been need for importation of petrol and the accompanying fuel subsidy frauds. Why are Nigerian crude oil refineries not functioning despite being managed by heavily paid Nigerian Directors with right academic titles, as well as, approved religious and ethnic affiliation?
In the 1980's, criminals dressed up in armed forces uniforms with various kinds of epaulettes attached, imposed themselves as rulers of Nigeria and by 1990's the refineries were in need of repairs and renovation. General Sani Abacha was the one that awarded, what was called Turn Around Maintenance (TAM), contract to Mr. Emeka Offor for Warri Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemical Company (WPRC). The name of Emeka Offor's Company which was awarded TAM contract for WPRC by Abacha was Anchoff Strongholds Ltd. The Chairman of all Emeka Offor's Companies then, including Anchoff Strongholds Ltd., was Permanent Secretary of Ministry of Petroleum, Gidado Idris. $98 million was said to have been paid upfront to Emeka Offor's company for the TAM of WPRC but no maintenance was ever carried out. Subsequent enquiries led to the dismissal of the then Managing Director of Warri Refinery and Petrochemical Company, identified only as Dr Owokalu who fled from Nigeria when the scandal became public. Anchoff Strongholds Ltd., was blacklisted from ever doing any business with the NNPC. Emeka Offor simply formed a new company named Chrome and by then, Gidado Idris had moved from Ministry of Petroleum to become Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) under General Sani Abacha. Since Gidado Idris was the Chairman of Chrome company Limited and at the same time the SGF that had the ears of Abacha tight to his mouth, Emeka Offor's Chrome Company won another TAM contract of $118 million for Port Harcourt Refinery and Petrochemical company. It is noteworthy that Chief Emeka Offor was not an Engineer and knew nothing about Chemistry of Petroleum. By June 8, 1998, when General Sani Abacha returned to the mother earth, he had expended a total sum of $216 million (US dollars) on Turn Around Maintenance of refineries in Warri and Port Harcourt that remained dormant.
General Abdulsalami Abubakar succeeded the late General Sani Abacha as the military ruler of Nigeria and promised to hand over power to a democratically elected government the following year, 1999. However, he wanted to complete Abacha's Turn-Around-Maintenance of the nation's crude oil refineries. Therefore, he awarded a TAM contract of $92 million to awaken the nation's refineries from comatose. Despite paying $92 million for TAM of the refineries, they were all refining zero crude oil by the time General Abubakar handed over to former military ruler, then turned a civilian democrat, Olusegun Obasanjo. Between 1999 and 2007 when Obasanjo was President of Nigeria, he dispensed $1.746 billion on Turn-Around-Maintenace of the Nigerian Crude Oil Refineries with zero results and towards the end of his tenure, he made plans to sell the refineries to Dangote and Otedola which his successor, President Umaru Musa Yar 'Adua, cancelled. Health challenge prevented Yar 'Adua from taking any action on the unproductive refineries under the operational supervision of Nigerian Managing Directors until he died in May 2010, when his Deputy, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, became substantive President.
Since the Nigerian refineries were dysfunctional, Obasanjo's government granted license and gave forex to a few individuals, named fuel importers or fuel marketers, to import fuel into the country. In 2006, fuel importers were five (5); in 2007 when Obasanjo's tenure ended, they were ten (10); in 2008, they were nineteen (19); and in 2011, they were one-hundred and forty (140). The Petroleum Products and Price Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) granted license to fuel importers and the Federal Ministry of Finance granted forex to fuel importers. Although about N245 billion was appropriated in the 2011 budget for fuel subsidy, according to the report of the probe by the House of Representative on the management of fuel subsidy, the budget was exceeded by 900 per cent to reach N2.6 trillion as at December 2011. At that stage, President Jonathan decided to hike the pump price of petrol (PMS) from N65/litre to N141/litre, even though he did not present any calculation to show that every litre of fuel consumed in Nigeria was subsidised with N76. Just like now, bitumen-tarred-brain Nigerians protesting against the so-called removal of fuel subsidy by President Jonathan were incapable of asking why Nigeria's four refineries were not refining any crude oil despite being allocated 445,000 barrels of crude oil per day to refine. The thriftless Nigerian government, exports crude oil at a price it does not determine and import refine crude oil products, through internally licensed two-footed leeches called oil marketers, at a price determined by exporters of refined crude oil products to Nigeria. How much was the real daily consumption of petrol in Nigeria?
That question was posed by the House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee, investigating fuel subsidy payments, to Nigerian officials responsible for approvals and payments of subsidy for imported fuel into Nigeria. In 2012, the Minister of Petroleum then, Diezani Alison-Madueke, told the Committee that Nigerians consumed 52 million Litres daily; the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) then, Austin Oniwon, gave 35 million litres as Nigeria's daily consumption; the Managing Director of Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) then, Mr. Osten Olorunsola, said it was 43 million litres; the Executive Secretary of the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) then, Reginald Stanley, claimed it was 24 million litres; and the Economic co-ordinator and Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala claimed 40 million litres as daily consumption in Nigeria. On the question of how much was the total amount paid for subsidy as at the end of December 2011, Okonjo-Iweala said N1.3 trillion; Diezani Alison-Madueke said N1.4 trillion; and the Central Bank of Nigeria claimed N1.7 trillion. The House of Reps Ad-Hoc Committee then moved on to ask for accurate capacity utilization of Nigeria's refineries that had been receiving allocations of 445,000 barrels of crude oil per day for refinery. The NNPC said it was 60 percent of installed capacities; the Petroleum Minister said it was 30 percent; while the Department of Petroleum Resources said 15 percent. Assuming that Nigerian refineries ever refined any crude oil (60%, 30% or 15%), the Ad-Hoc Committee asked, "Does, Nigeria pay subsidy on locally refined crude oil?" The petroleum Minister said it depended on how one looked at it; the NNPC Group Managing Director said, "the layman cannot understand how it is done." While the Executive Secretary of the PPPRA answered 'yes' to the same question, the DPR answered 'No,' emphatically. The Ad-Hoc Committee asked about the status of the subsidy accounts and Diezani said the account was a virtual one; the NNPC said there was no account in existence as the layman would look at it; while the PPPRA claimed, "the account is a technical one." The CBN said, "there is no account with us for subsidy," while the Finance Minister posited that "the account exists but not with a bank." In a saner clime, the Minister of Finance and Nigeria's oil industry executives would have either resigned voluntarily or been sacked.
When the Chairman of the House of representatives Ad-Hoc Committee, Farouk Lawan, made public its report on investigation of fuel subsidy in April 2012, it showed that 3 billion, 171 million, 644 thousand and 336 (3, 171, 644,336) litres of subsidized petrol never got into Nigeria's market. 71 suppliers of ghost petrol received from the federal government subsidy payments totalling 1 trillion, 67 billion, 40 million, 456 thousand- and 171-naira, 31 kobo (N 1,067,040,456,171.31). With Farouk's Lawal report on fuel subsidy, he nearly wrote his name in gold in the history of Nigeria but the Nigerian syndrome of getting rich without work brought him down. In May 2012, a video clip showed Farouk Lawan stuffing dollars inside his cap and Babanriga inside the House of Femi Otedola, the owner of Zenon Petroleum and Gas Limited, as well as, Synopsis Enterprise Ltd. Femi Otedola was said to have collected in 2010 and 2011, $51,449,997.07 and $232,975,385.13 subsidy respectively, for unimported fuel from the federal government. It has never been clear who amongst the two initiated contact but Lawan was at the house of Otedola to collect $620,000 upfront with the promise to be paid $2,380,000 as a balance later. Before his arrival, Otedola had contacted DSS who had installed security cameras in Otedola's living room. After Farouk Lawan and his aide, Boniface Emenalo, had received $620,000 bribe out of $3 million demanded, they delisted Femi Otedola's companies from the list of fuel subsidy fraudsters on 21 April 2012. Farouk Lawan admitted later to collecting $500,000 bribe from Mr. Otedola but claimed that he handed over the whole $500,000 to the Chairman, House of Representatives on Narcotics and Financial Crimes, Adams Jagaba, representing Kachia/Kagarko Federal Constituency of Kaduna State, who denied receiving the DSS marked dollar notes and which were nowhere to be found till date. Farouk's aide in the Ad-Hoc Committee, Boniface Emenalo, received $120,000 which also disappeared. The lawmakers suspended Farouk Lawan from the House and at an emergency meeting of the House of Representatives on Friday, 15 June 2012, a resolution to re-enlist Mr. Odutola's Zenon Oil and Gas Ltd and Synopsis Enterprise Ltd on the list of Companies that fraudulently obtained subsidy money from the federal government was adopted.
Parallel to the House of Reps investigation on Fuel subsidy payments, President Goodluck Jonathan constituted a 17-member National Task Force on Petroleum Revenue, on February 7, 2012, with Mallam Nuhu Ribadu as Chairman. Notably among members of the Petroleum Revenue Special Task Force was the late Abba Kyari who later became President Buhari's Chief of Staff in 2015, even though he refused to be a member of Buhari's presidential campaign committee in 2011 when he contested on the platform of CPC.
However, while submitting his report on 24 May 2012, the Chaiman of the National Task Force on Petroleum, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu said, "Nigeria is losing about 200,000 barrels of crude oil per day to theft. It has been difficult knowing how much crude was produced daily by 33 oil companies. According to an Assistant Director of the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), Mr. A.O. Ohiani, 31 of the 33 oil companies have been provided with production metres but only five are using the metres." Ribadu said, "A new standardised metering system would soon be in place to determine how much crude oil is being produced and sold daily." Six years earlier, Obasanjo's Minister of Education and Solid Materials who happened to be the then Chairwoman of Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), Dr Obiageli Ezekwesili had on page 3 of THISDAY newspaper of Friday, December 22, 2006, clamoured over the obvious inaccuracy of the archaic method of determining the quantity of oil loaded in every tanker exiting Nigeria.
Since Farouk Lawan had bungled the investigation of the House of Reps Ad-Hoc Committee on fuel subsidy by delisting Femi Otedola's companies from the list of fuel subsidy thieves, after receiving bribe, President Goodluck Jonathan on Thursday, 5 July 2012 constituted a 15-man Presidential Committee on Verification of Fuel Subsidy Payments, headed by the Group Managing Director of Access Bank Plc, Mr. Aigboje Imuokhede. Special Adviser to President Jonathan, Dr Reuben Abati, listed the terms of reference of the Committee as follows: to further verify and reconcile all claims made in the report of the Technical Committee on Fuel Subsidy Payments; to properly identify all cases of overpayment and/or irregular payment; to accurately identify all likely fraudulent cases for criminal investigation; and to review any other pertinent issues that may arise from its work and make appropriate recommendations. The President asked the Committee to complete its assignment by Friday, July 13, 2012. Monday, 2 July 2012, before President Jonathan set up his 15-man committee, Dr Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the Honourable Federal Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy stated at a Senate hearing that, "a total of N2.19 trillion was paid as fuel subsidy for the year 2011. The breakdown is as follows: at the end of 2011, N1.7 trillion was paid and the arrears from 2011 paid in 2012 was N490 billion." Answering to Senators' question about what Nigeria is likely to pay as subsidy in 2012 in view of her access to past records, Dr Okonjo-Iweala replied, "I don't know." She added, "I believe that the Federal Government (in which she was a major component) must as a matter of expediency work out a formula whereby the Ministry of Finance would know exactly the amount of subsidy to be paid at any particular time." Extra-budgetary expenditure is criminalised in Section 162 of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria but when Nigeria's World Bank expert and Minister of Finance presided over extra-budgetary expenditure of fuel subsidy payments by nine-hundred percent there was no consequence. Nowhere in the democratic world could appropriated budget be exceeded without prior approval by the Parliament as it happened in Nigeria. Thus, when her mother was kidnapped in December 2012, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala quickly attributed it to oil marketers she had refused to pay in order to divert attention from her failure to handle fuel subsidy swindle and to attract undue sympathy to her self. The kidnap of Dr Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala's mother had nothing to do with oil cartels or fuel subsidy thieves as proven by the arrest in Lagos of 8 out of the 13 kidnappers who abducted her mother for ransom and nothing more. The kidnappers demanded N200 million ransom but were given N13 million whereby the mother of Okonjo-Iweala was released. However, disputes over sharing of the ransom among the kidnappers resulted in their arrest in Lagos. One of the kidnappers, Chiejina Victor Onochie (32yrs.) was from Ogbeofuu Village in Ogwashi-Uku, Delta State, where he worked as a security guard before venturing into kidnapping business and he was even said to be a relative of Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. It was insiders' criminal enterprise by performed by a group of jobless graduates containing all major ethnicities of Nigeria.
Democratic prebendary as practised in Nigeria is government in which the political class, civil servants, armed forces and judicial officers merely use their offices to share power and national patrimony among themselves to the exclusion of the masses. The 15-man Presidential Committee on Verification of Fuel Subsidy Payments did not only confirm the list of fuel subsidy fraudsters exposed by both Farouk Lawan and Nuhu Ribadu but expanded the list when it submitted its report on July 24, 2012. In other climes the report should have led to national uproar if not revolution but not in Nigeria where literate oafs posing as intellectuals were not aware of the massive theft of Nigerian collective patrimony. Of about 90 fuel subsidy fraudsters indicted in 2012 I will endeavour to mention few of the fraudsters to illustrate that there is no ethnic or religious divide among Nigerian swindlers while stealing from the common patrimony of the nation, in the name of tribe and religion, even though the stolen wealth by individual is always kept within the family of the individual thief and not delivered to the thief's tribe. Chief Emeka Wogu was President Jonathan's Minister of Labour and Productivity who President Jonathan's 15-man Presidential Committee on Verification and Reconciliation of Fuel Subsidy Payments exposed as a major owner of Pinnacle Contractors Ltd., with 750,000 shares. The rest shares were owned by Mrs. Oyebabefe Wogu and Mr. Enyinnaya Wogu with 150,000 and 100,000 shares respectively. On two occasions in 2011, Pinnacle Contractors Limited claimed N1.2 billion and N1.5 billion respectively as fuel subsidy from the federal government. The Committee found out that the name of the vessels claimed by Pinnacle Contractors Limited to have delivered fuel in Nigeria could not be located in any Nigerian Port or in any part of the world. They were ghost vessels that delivered ghost fuel that Wogu's Pinnacle Contractors got paid N2.7 billion for. Pinnacle Contractors Ltd., was not even qualified to get license to import fuel in 2011 because it was not registered, as required by law, with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) until Friday, 30 November 2012.
Senator Ahmadu Ali, former National Chairman of People's Democratic Party, was the Chairman of Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency between 2009 & 2011. His son, Mamman Nasir Ali together with one Christian Taylor owned Nasaman Oil Services Limited. When a father, like Ahmadu Ali, was in control of the orange tree, it was clear his son will be among the first to suck ripe oranges. The PPPRA of which Ahmadu Ali was the Chairman granted his son, Mamman Nasir Ali and associates license to import fuel and they fraudulently received N4.5 billion for purported importation of 30.5 million litres of Premium Motor Spirit (petrol) into Nigeria.
Abdulsalami Abubakar was former military head of state with fabulous pension benefits from the Federal Government of Nigeria. However, he incorporated, in 2003, a company named Maizube Petroleum Limited in which he had 600,000 controlling shares while his sons, Isa A. Abubakar and Aminu A. Abubakar held 200,000 shares each. The Presidential Committee on Verification and Reconciliation of Fuel Subsidy Payments disclosed that the retired Army General was not tired of money as his and son's company, Maizube Petroleum Company, fraudulently collected 5 billion, 509 million, 407 thousand and 903 naira (N5, 509,407,903.00) as fuel subsidy for importing 63, 474,066 litres of petrol.
Stella Ada Oduah was President Jonathan's Minister of Aviation in 2011 but she was also a major shareholder and a Director in the Sea Petroleum and Gas Limited. She owned 1,999,000,000 shares out of N2billion shares, the remaining were shared between other directors identified as Elisabeth Stewart, Josephine Oduah and Erotomi Buwa. The Aviation Minister and her company was found to have fraudulently collected N1,019,571,609.00 from the federal government for unsupplied/unimported fuel. I mentioned earlier that Femi Otedola's companies, Zenon Oil and Gas Limited as well as Synopsis Enterprise Ltd., were delisted from the list of fuel subsidy fraudsters after an advance payment of $620,000 out of $3,000,000 bribery demanded by Farouk Lawan and Boniface Emenalo, chairman and secretary, respectively, of House of Reps Ad-Hoc Investigating Committee on fuel subsidy payments. On Friday, 15 June 2012, the House of Representatives at an emergency meeting adopted a resolution reenlisting Mr. Otedola's Zenon Oil and Gas Ltd., as well as Synopsis Enterprise Ltd., for fraudulent claims of fuel subsidy payment of $51,449,997.47, in 2010, for the latter company, while in 2011, the former company received $232,975,385.13. Also, Con Oil Plc owned by Mike Adenuga was exposed for receiving N3,027,526,589 fuel subsidy payment from the federal government for importing and supplying ghost petrol. One of several cases of fuel subsidy frauds exposure involved Master Energy Oil and Gas Ltd., and Caades Oil and Gas Ltd., that had Dr Uche Ogah as Group Managing Director. On October 19, 2011, a vessel named M T Zhen Star was said to have docked on Nigerian waters with 58,000 metric tonnes of petrol imported by the Companies under the directorship of Dr Ogah. Master Energy Oil and affiliates claimed it discharged 58,000 metric tonnes of petrol from the vessel MT Zhen Star in the presence of officials of the PPPRA, DPR, Navy, Customs and others. In reality, MT Zhen Star was not registered anywhere in the world as a vessel and no such vessel was ever recorded as having docked in Nigeria waters, implying ghost vessel discharging 58,000 ghost metric tonnes of petrol and with the fraudsters collecting N2.9 billion as fuel subsidy payment.
Although the Executive Secretary of the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA), Reginald Stanley, openly stated that Nigeria's consumption of petrol was 35 million litres per day but was paying for 59 million litres per day, it was observed by other experts that Nigeria's daily fuel storage depot was under 30 million litres per day. Nigeria, being a country where rogues hold sway and criminals walk with the swagger of impunity none of the fuel subsidy fraudsters was prosecuted. The Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Mohammed Bello Adoke, in a letter dated July 3, 2012 had directed that none of the fuel subsidy swindlers should be prosecuted. Then came President Muhammadu Buhari whose emergence to power was based mainly on fighting national robbers and insurgents. For good eight years, President Muhammadu Buhari sat in office tooth-picking and abandoned governance to his trusted appointees whom he believed were experts. Buhari was personally honest but he lacked the (mental) prowess to assess the ability of his appointees and the quality of their advices. After 2015 and 2019 presidential elections, Buhari alienated strong members of the APC and the party had zero input in his government. The greatest Nigeria's First Lady, Aisha Buhari, lamented in October 2016, over the takeover of her husband's government by non-APC members lacking knowledge of APC manifesto, what APC campaigned for and promised Nigerians to win the Presidential election in 2015.
The unelected president of Nigeria, from 2015 to 17 April 2020 when he died, was Abba Kyari, an appointee of Buhari as his Chief of Staff. Although he was a tail in the government, he turned out miraculously to be wagging the head. As I stated earlier, he was one of the 17-members national task force on petroleum revenue headed by Nuhu Ribadu which was set up by President Jonathan on February 7, 2012. That gave him the opportunity to know and interact with the oil marketers of which he became friends to many. In mind and behaviour, he was ideologically an unrepentant PDP. Another appointee of Buhari who grew up to be unelected Vice President was Abubakar Malami who was an obscured charge and bail lawyer, with quota-SAN title, before President Buhari selected him as Attorney General and Federal Minister of Justice. For instance, when the real elected Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, in his capacity as Acting President of Nigeria told Nigerians that Ibrahim Magu was the choice of the regime as the substantive chairman of the EFCC, Malami the unelected countered him and proclaimed that Osinbajo was on his own on Magu issue. Abba Kyari and Abubakar Malami saw to it that most of the corruption cases inherited by Buhari's government never saw the light of the day. Abba Kyari appointed himself without the knowledge of Buhari, the President, as a board member of the NNPC even though he, as many members of Nigeria's oil establishment, did not know what chemical formula for ordinary pure water is, not to talk of complicated chemistry of oil. President Muhammadu Buhari was substantive Minister of Petroleum in his eight years tenure but he could not perceive leakages and theft of billions of barrels of oil gushing out on right in front of his eyes.
Nigeria is the largest producer of crude oil in Africa and the 13th largest producer in the world. Ironically, Nigeria is the only member of OPEC that imports refined crude oil products. In September 2017, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) announced that the rehabilitation of the country's refineries in Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna would be financed by private investors and companies. The online Nigerian Punch of 21 September 2019 stated, "Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) announced on Saturday night that the nation's refineries located in Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna will refine crude oil at optimum capacity come 2022." On June 6, 2021, nearly a year and nine months after announcing the rehabilitation of the nation's refineries that would be refining at optimum capacity, it was announced that the Port Harcourt refinery revamp project would kick off at a cost of $1.5 billion, while that of Warri and Kaduna would kick off on August 5, 2021 at a cost of $1.40 billion and $1.48 billion respectively. By the time Buhari exited the presidency on May 29, 2023, all the oil refineries that were supposed to be refining crude oil at optimum capacity come 2022 were still dormant. In the 2023 Budget Appropriation signed into law by President Buhari, did not include fuel subsidy beyond May 2023, and when the incoming President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu drew the attention of Nigerians to the contents of the budget he inherited during his inauguration, hell broke loose. Cray-fish-headed intellectuals accused him of inflicting pains on Nigerians even though he was not the one that submitted the 2023 budget to the national assembly for approval. Nobody asked why Nigeria's crude oil refineries are dysfunctional despite billions of dollars spent on them under different names, TAM, Rehab or revamp. Turn Around Maintenace (TAM) had become a slogan known as Take Away Money for Nigerian swindlers called oil marketers. It is amazing that large-mouthed Nigerian intellectuals will rather approve massive export of yams only to volte-face and claim that government is inflicting starvation on the citizens for not subsidising imported pounded yam!!
History, actually, designed greatness for all past leaders of government of Nigeria but all them, except Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and General Murtala Mohammed, chose the path of disaster and failure. With the exception of Balewa and Mohammed all leaders of past Nigerian governments were visionless and thoughtless. Bola Ahmed Tinubu now has the opportunity to make a difference but he has to be very thoughtful. Drawing inferences from the consequences of thoughtlessness the Yoruba people say, is what causes the neck and legs of giraffe to be longer than its body; is what causes the horn of the bull to be bigger than its head; is what makes the trunk of the elephant to resemble the filaments of the snail; and is what makes spider to spin and weave all its life without being able to produce, not even, a piece of cloth. In his Democracy day address to the nation on June 12, 2023, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu said partly in reference to M.K.O. Abiola in paragraph 17 thus, "Thirty years ago, he (Abiola) Christened his campaign manifesto, 'Fairwell to Poverty' because he was convinced that there is nothing divine about poverty. It is a man-made problem that can be eliminated with clearly thought out social and economic policies." Those who make Nigeria's refineries not to work are the so-called oil marketers just as those sabotaging the electricity generation and distribution in Nigeria are importers of household generators. At the level of our nation's development our collective patrimony must be used for importation of mass transit buses for public transport and not importation of personal cars for private individuals. Fuel scarcity, lack of electricity and poverty in general in Nigeria are man-made and since Bola Ahmed Tinubu is aware of the cause(s) he should be able to proffer solution now that he is on the saddle of power.
S. Kadiri
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