Friday, February 25, 2022

Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - TOXIC FUEL SAGA: THE ROAD NOT TAKEN

​Thank you Professor Jaiyeoba for your interrogations, which I will try to respond briefly to beneath.

​(1). There is relationship between the educated elites in Nigeria and the Nigerian society. Nigeria's educated elites are on the driver's seats but unfortunately, they have put the country's vehicles either stationary or on the reverse gear.

(2). The purpose of education in any country is to utilise it to organise and administer the society for the benefit of all citizens. Nigeria has Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) in abundance, copied from developed countries and established to solve both known and envisaged industrial and infrastructural problems of the nation. All the institutions are manned by Nigerians in possession of sophisticated academic qualifications which are many times superior to the industrial and infrastructural problems of Nigeria they are employed and over-remunerated (when compared to the nation's GDP) to solve. Educated Nigerians performing outstandingly in Europe or U.S., as implied by you, are not pioneers in the institutions where they are employed. The foundation of those institutions has already been laid by the educated class of those countries and Nigerians coming there to work are only free riders. Essentially, educated Nigerians are either lazy or incapable of creating in Nigeria the type of institutions in which they brilliantly work abroad. In Nigeria, the educated class has to build, for example, a factory from the scratch but in Europe or U.S., the factory is already built by the indigenous brains.

(3). The structure of the Nigerian society is entirely the creation of the educated class in Nigeria. Educated elites in Nigeria are in a better position to demonstrate their knowledge than their European counterparts who mostly depend on imported raw materials to feed and develop their industries. I am in possession of inaugural brochure of the Nigerian Council for Science and Technology, May 1970. The Federal Military Government promulgated a Decree establishing, as a statutory body, the Nigerian Council for Science and Technology on February 3, 1970. It was published in the Supplement to Official Gazette, No. 6, Vol. 57 of February 5, 1970, where the objectives, functions and composition of the Council were outlined. Among its objectives, according to item (c) is to ensure the application of the results of scientific activities to the development of agriculture, industry and social welfare in the Federation. Among its functions shall be (a) to consider and advise generally on all scientific activities, including (i) the application of the results of research, (ii) the transfer of technology into agriculture and industry. Members of the Council contained 11 Federal Permanent Secretaries in the Ministries, a Permanent Secretary each, from the 12 states then and 12 representatives of Scientific Disciplines in Agricultural Sciences, Experimental Sciences, Industrial Sciences, Medical Sciences, Social Sciences and Environmental Sciences.

Addressing Members of the Nigerian Council for Science and Technology on April 10, 1970, the then Head of the Federal Military Government, Major-General Yakubu Gowon, among other things said, "Gentlemen : ... It is my hope that today will similarly symbolize the beginning of a great future for the development of science and technology and their application to the constructive exploitation and utilization of our national resources. ...//... I am glad to note that the establishment of this Council has been acclaimed by all who appreciate the important role which science and technology can play in the promotion of the political, economic and social welfare of the people of this country." The budget of the Nigerian Council for Science and Technology at that time was said to be £20 million. If educated Nigerians had lived up to expectation in line with the 1970 aims of the Nigerian Council for Science and Technology, Nigeria would not, and should not, be importing adulterated petrol (PMS) in 2022. Let's take a look at the institutions created for effective management of Nigeria's crude oil, a major source of national income.

Nigeria has a Ministry of Petroleum resources headed by a substantive and a junior Minister under whom there is a Permanent Secretary and several departmental Directors on superscale salaries and allowances. Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) that recently chose to be known as Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited is, under the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, and is headed by a Group Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer. Until recently, Nigeria has had Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) headed by a Director; the Pipeline Products Marketing Company (PPMC) headed by a Managing Director;  National Petroleum Investment and Management Services (NAPIMS) headed by a Group General Manager (GGM);  Petrleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) headed by a Managing Director; and specifically the NNPC has had Chief Operating Officer, Refining and Petro-chemicals which should not be conflated with Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna refining and Petro-chemical Companies, each headed by a Managing Director; the nation has had Nigeria Gas and Power Investment Company Limited as well as Nigeria Gas Marketing Company, each with its Managing Director and Nigeria once had Petroleum Development Trust Fund (PDTF) and Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PDTF). All over Nigeria, institutions for socio-economic, technological and industrial developments are not working because the educated Nigerians appointed or employed to demostrate their expertise lack required knowledge. Mostly they are appointed or employed on ethnic and religious quota bases and as I have said elsewhere, for instance, crude oil cannot be refined by citing verses of Qu'ran or Bible or chanting ethnic incantation.
S. Kadiri 
   


From: 'Mr. E. B. Jaiyeoba' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Sent: 22 February 2022 20:24
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - TOXIC FUEL SAGA: THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
 
Alagba Kadiri Sir,

I have three questions.

Is there any relationship between the performance of educated people or as you describe them 'people with academic credentials' and the society in which they operate?

How come educated Nigerians are performing outstandingly in better-organised societies?

Are there relationships between the performance of educated people and the structure of society? For example, compare and contrast developing and developed societies.

Thank you.





Babatunde JAIYEOBA














Prof. E. Babatunde JAIYEOBA  PhD
Head, Department of Architecture
Faculty of Environmental Design and Management
Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria



On Sun, Feb 20, 2022 at 9:45 PM Salimonu Kadiri <ogunlakaiye@hotmail.com> wrote:
Well, Mr. Adepoju, the academic credentials of the people presiding over e.g., GENCO and DISCO are so strong that constant electric lights all over Nigeria should not be a problem; the academic qualifications of Nigerians at NNPC are far more superior to the technology of refining crude oil in Nigeria, but there you are, your overeducated Nigerians at NNPC are only good at importing counterfeit petrol from Belgium. Belgium that has no single litre of crude oil has functioning refineries but Nigeria's four refineries are dormant under the watch of Nigeria's academic giants. The foreign eagles have conferred on Nigerian chickens the title of professors of flying, and Nigerians have seen the amplitude and altitude our professor chicken wings can fly. Nigerians wearing the garment of professors in the country's present level of industrial and economic development reminds me of the Yoruba aphorism that says, OLÓGÌNI LO GBÉ ÈWÙ EKÙN WÒ, ÀTI SÉ ODE BÍ EKÙN SÒRO. Roughly translated to : The home cat has worn the fur of tiger but it very difficult to prey like tiger. One cannot walk in Abuja or any MDA in Nigeria without stumbling on the feet of professors, yet crude oil they cannot refine; electricity they cannot generate and distribute; potable water they cannot pump; ranches they cannot build for animal husbandry; iron ore, they cannot mine and work into steel etc. It is just a simple application of common sense to conclude that an academic credential becomes useless when the possessor is employed but is incapable of producing what the academic credential is attested for to produce. So, I am not the one challenging the academic credentials of Nigeria's public holders, but the underdevelopment of Nigeria that they have been presiding over in the last sixty years speaks for itself.
S. Kadiri 

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovdepoju@gmail.com>
Sent: 20 February 2022 20:02
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - TOXIC FUEL SAGA: THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
 
Hold public officials accountable.

Well said.

What has that got to do with the academic credentials of public office holders, education you keep challenging in relation to Nigeria''s underdevelopment?

Thanks

Toyin

On Sun, Feb 20, 2022, 19:49 Salimonu Kadiri <ogunlakaiye@hotmail.com> wrote:
​Oluwatoyin Adepoju, 
Your question should have been : What should we, Nigerians, do after facing the truth? Including yourself in that question would enable you to engage in finding solutions to why Nigeria's public officials with big academic papers (certificates) are incapable of producing according to their attested qualifications upon which they were either elected or selected, appointed or employed into office.

If we ignore the ethnic origins and religious affiliations of the NNPC officials in this imported and adulterated fuel saga, the statements made by the Group Managing Director of NNPC, Mele Kyari, on February 9, 2022, should cause uproar throughout Nigeria. Just imagine what would have happened if Belgium should import cocoa beans from Nigeria for the benefit of their chocolate factories and on discharge at the Belgian port, responsible Belgian officials had certified that the sacks in the cargo ship from Nigeria contained only pure cocoa beans, but contrarily it was discovered later that each sack of imported cocoa beans contained 20% pebbles. Certainly, the certifying Belgium officials would be sacked immediately for dereliction of duty and lack of knowledge of what pure cocoa beans should be. Thereafter, Belgium will approach the European Union to freeze the account of Nigeria in Europe or world bank, until Nigeria has paid back to Belgium for the adulterated cocoa beans exported to her. You face the truth in Nigeria by holding public officials accountable for their actions in office.
S. Kadiri 


From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovdepoju@gmail.com>
Sent: 19 February 2022 21:14
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - TOXIC FUEL SAGA: THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
 
What should they do after facing this truth?

Thanks

Toyin

On Sat, Feb 19, 2022, 21:12 Salimonu Kadiri <ogunlakaiye@hotmail.com> wrote:
In this unhappy context, the toxic fuel saga presumably, but likely, not an accident has now dovetailed into full-blown fuel supply crisis whereby several cities are carrying on without supply while the black market is booming in view of an artificial price hike - Professor Ayo Olukotun.

Thanks to Professor Ayo Olukotun for shadow-boxing at the importation of adulterated fuel into Nigeria by our over-educated professionals at the NNPC. To begin with, all fossil energy are toxic and in use, just like pharmaceautical products, one has to consider the advantages and disadvantages of the the side effects. Since, globally, there is no better alternative to fossil fuel at present, Nigeria like most part of the world is still dependent on toxic fuel. What  occurred in the case of Nigeria was the intentionally added toxicity into the fuel imported by the NNPC and its agents.

Despite the fact that the Group Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the NNPC, Mr. Mele Kyari, claimed that the NNPC received a report from its quality inspector on January 20, 2022, that cargoes of PMS shipped to Nigeria from Antwerp in Belgium contained pollution, he did not tell the nation until 9 February 2022. Why? He told the nation that the NNPC quality inspectors conducted tests on the imported fuel before discharge at the Nigerian ports and certified that the gasoline met Nigerian specification. He disclosed further that the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), under the watch of the Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Farouk Ahmed, caused its appointed agents to inspect the imported PMS and certified them perfect. Excusing why the added toxin in the imported fuel was not detected by the quality inspectors, Mele Kyari said, "... the usual quality inspection protocol employed in both the load port in Belgium and our discharge ports in Nigeria do not include the test for percent methanol content and therefore the  was not detected by our quality inspectors." With Mele Kyari's statement, it means Nigeria must have been importing PMS saturated with high percentage of methanol without detection for many years. The big question is, what led to the detection this time around after the imported PMS had been certified pure at ports of discharge in Nigeria?

A major problem confronting Nigeria which her educated class is not willing to talk about is that election or selection, employment or appointment into any public office is never based on knowledge and merit but on ethnicity or religion (Christian or Muslim affiliation). Unfortunately, detection of impurities in imported PMS (petrol), as recently experienced, can never be achieved by reciting ethnic or religious incantations but with knowledge and appropriate instruments. Mele Kyari and his NNPC colleagues have not displayed any knowlege to merit their positions neither in this imported adulterated PMS nor in the dormant Nigerian oil refineries. That is the truth the tick tock, instagram, and facebook academic Nigerians must face so as not to be treated as illiterate breeds by the likes of Mele Kyari in the Nigerian public institutions.
S. Kadiri

From: 'Ayo Olukotun' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Sent: 17 February 2022 15:06
To: Prophet Paul Adebajo <adebajoprophetpaul@gmail.com>
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Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - TOXIC FUEL SAGA: THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
 

TOXIC FUEL SAGA: THE ROAD NOT TAKEN

Ayo Olukotun

"There are over 11 inspections between importation and fuel stations. These are at the importation level and when the product arrives in Nigeria. For this (the contaminated fuel importation scandal) to happen, it means the system is completely compromised."

    Hon. Aliyu Magaji (APC, Jigawa)

Thursday, February 10, 2022.

 

             Nigeria is a country trapped in disorder and dysfunction. It wobbles from one impasse to another without seemingly learning from any of them. Thanks to weak governance, the state has been turned to a resource on which rotating cliques of visionless power holders stage a never-ending feast at the nation's expense. In this unhappy context, the toxic fuel saga, presumably but likely not an accident, has now dovetailed into a full-blown fuel supply crisis whereby several cities are carrying on without supply while the black market is booming in view of an artificial price hike. No matter how you think of it, as some political scientists theorized, disorder has been instrumentalized to the extent that elite groups deliberately create crisis in order to feather their own nests, not giving a damn for the sufferings of the hapless majority.

Given that the fuel supply chain is central to economic activities, the minutest of disruption in that chain begets a multiplier effect leading to serial reactions with harmful consequences to a one-legged economy. In several other countries including the developed democracies, politicians and leaders who occasion "pain at the pump" are not normally allowed a second chance as they instantly drop in public esteem. But here, we hold the distinction of recycling, even extolling, politicians and technocrats who run the country aground and come back to ask for our votes and support.

The opening quote sourced from an outraged discussion at the House of Representatives last week says it all. It is hard to believe that contaminated fuel with high methanol content could escape the rigorous quality reassurance both at the source, in this case Belgium, and here in Nigeria where all the marketing companies reportedly have their own vetting mechanisms. The statement by the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Mele Kyari, naming four companies as the source of the problem read like an afterthought and lame justification in a context where the NNPC is the sole importer of petroleum, a fact pointed out to it by three of the companies named. The so-called explanation also begs several questions and issues especially the one concerning how Premium Motor Spirit that is so badly contaminated circumvented all the inspection procedures that are meant to discover and ferret out toxicity.

It is difficult to believe that what is playing out is not planned chaos to achieve some deliberate objectives such as ensuring that government backtracks on its policy of upholding fuel subsidy for 18 more months. That may not be the only reason but in some other climes, heads would have rolled at the NNPC with sanctions including blacklisting meted out to the companies concerned. In that wise, all the excuses and apologetics of the NNPC officials, including the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority would have been offered after they had been suspended from their positions. In like manner, such an action would have granted credibility to the so-called "major investigation" announced by the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources of Nigeria, Timipre Sylva in the wake of the embarrassing event.

In corporate cultures as well as enlightened governance settings, high level officials who lead their organizations and countries to disasters or breakdowns offer to resign in order to preserve the corporate ethos and to allow for unfettered investigations. It is unthinkable, to give an example, that a British minister who has presided over the kind of bedlam elicited by the fuel importation saga will remain in office offering one excuse after another to justify his conduct. It is the lack of ethical underpinning in our democratic system that sets us back so vividly in that there is a disconnect between misdemeanor, official negligence and sanctions. Indeed, it is bizarre that in what looks like an apology, a statement credited to the Presidency was issued a couple of days back saying that the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), had not instructed that anybody should be queried over the contaminated fuel imbroglio.

The way we carry on, sadly, suggests that those who goof are often given more leeway to make costlier mistakes and display more brazen incompetence, given that there are no value-setting procedures for sanitizing a thoroughly rotten polity. Nobody knows how long the current nightmare of fuel shortage and scarcity will persist since nobody up there has shown interest in the identity of the culprits beyond the assurance of a major investigation, whatever that means. For all you care to know, the so-called major investigation may be no more than a time-buying ploy to bury the matter in bureaucratic abracadabra. So, if you are still wondering why the nation does not improve, especially in governance matters, while other nations are galloping forward and occupying the cutting-edge, the answer is simple. Public officials are free to turn their offices into sites of dubious experiments and gaping incompetence, even turn the nation upside down because no one will call them to account. Of course, no corporate organization run this way ever stands the test of time, and it is a mystery as a former Head of State once said that given the comprehensive disorder prevalent, the country has not collapsed.

The government could have taken the initiative and seized the moment by relieving the errant or absentee officials of their positions. Having failed to do this is sad enough but it can, if it is willing to, pick up the ball by doing just that if only as remarked earlier, to avoid chasing shadows in the name of major investigation. Remarkably in the successive crises that have bedeviled the country, the legislature, especially the Lower House, has shown more sensitivity to the suffering of the people, often speaking forthrightly to the issue at hand. Unfortunately, its adroit interventions and many committees of inquiry have had so little effect because it cannot do the work of the executive whose business it is to implement suggestions and resolutions from the legislature.

Let it be known that the woes of Nigerians which include insecurity cascading upwards, abysmal shortage of electricity, scarily high inflation illustrated by the upward climbing of food prices, unemployment figures hitting the roof have been compounded by the current downturn in the oil supply chain. Days after the NNPC insisted that it had augmented fuel supply, the queues are lengthening improbably and the de facto pump price has trebled or at least doubled in some of our major cities.

Hopefully, this too will pass, even if for now uncertainty and confusion rule the roost. As the country inches forward to another major election, it should think soberly on ways of changing the governance culture so that a country so wonderfully resourced does not stay at the bottom league of achievement or be perpetually referred to as the sick man of Africa. Obviously, Nigeria can do much better if its leaders can muster the political will to reverse the squalid Unfortunately so far, this is the road not taken.

 

Professor Ayo Olukotun is a director at the Oba (Dr.) S. K. Adetona Institute for Governance Studies, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye.

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Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
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