Editorial
Who will save Nigeria from NNPC?
On August 18, 2013, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), as he then was, gave a very pungent treatise to a group of Nigerian youths, in Abuja. He was the guest speaker at another edition of TEDx Youth, a grassroots initiative that encourages young people to harvest, grow and nurture new ideas.
It was while engaging those youths through a speech he entitled Overcoming the Fear of Vested Interests that he delved into an issue that is as germane as it is critical to the development of Nigeria or lack of it for many decades now – oil. The black gold has remained a source of huge blessings to many other countries across the globe where it was ever struck.
Sanusi, now the 16th Emir of Kano, spoke about the evil of the massive corruption in the system and how the vice grip of the perpetrators, whom he aptly described as vested interests, through their manipulative hands, have mindlessly, but persistently squeezed the very life out of the country and the people.
Hear him: “We talk about fuel subsidy. In 2009, this country paid N291billion as subsidy for petroleum products. By 2011, this number had jumped to N2.7trillion. Did we start consuming 10 times as much petrol? Did we have 10 times as many cars? Did the population of Nigeria multiply 10 times? I did not believe those numbers. I screamed against those numbers, a number of people screamed and of course we tried to remove subsidy, and there was Occupy Nigeria (protest).
“There had been investigations and what did we discover? That a lot of that money never went to fuel subsidies that were consumed by Nigerians. There were people in this country that produced pieces of paper and brought to the PPRA and somebody stamped those pieces of papers and said that they brought in petroleum products and paid them subsidy. Those pieces of paper said I brought 30,000 metric tonnes on so, so ship and we discovered that that ship was nowhere near the coast of Nigeria on that date. We had seen vessels that did not exist or were retired on bills laden and money had been paid. And you know what, as I speak to you, none of them has gone to jail.
“This is the only country in the world where you have something called oil theft, where vessels come and take crude oil and literally drive out of the country. You see the numbers everyday – 100,000, 200,000, 400,000 barrels a day. Nobody even knows – N7.3billion! How does anybody take oil in a vessel and leave the country? We’ve got the Navy, we’ve got NIMASA, we’ve got security services, we’ve got oil companies themselves and everyday, we complain about development. We don’t have development, because vested interests continue to rape and take the money out.”
Now, that was in 2013 – some 11 years ago. Ask what the situation today? Simple! Those vested interests have since upped the ante. In 2023, the same subsidy climbed to between N3.7trillion to about N4trillion under President Muhammadu Buhari. Instructively, this was the selfsame Buhari, who prior to his assumption of power in 2015, had declared that there was nothing called subsidy.
In recent days, Nigeria has again been beset with another round of long queues at petrol stations due to scarcity. This is despite the last ditch effort to end it by the Nigerian government. On May, 29, 2023, President Bola Tinubu, in his infamous statement – subsidy is gone – announced to the whole world the end of the subsidy regime in Nigeria. This was before the ink with which he signed his inauguration papers as the new helmsman of Nigeria got dry. It was said to be a move to end the decades-old orgy and introduce a new lease of life to the Nigerian economy and to the people.
Pray, how far did that abrupt, and as many had also argued, hasty declaration take the country or redeem the parlous situation? Part of the answer lies in a memo by Wale Edun, Minister of Finance, suggesting that Federal Government could spend as much as N5.4trillion for the same purpose in 2024. Edun’s memo, tagged: Accelerated Stabilisation and Advancement Plan, which broke into the public domain on June 5, 2023, not only confirmed what Nigerians had believed that subsidy was not gone as Tinubu declared but, had in fact, worsened.
As it is wont for the government, always pushing back against issues, including those that are obvious to the goat and hen, the Presidency, through Bayo Onanuga, Tinubu’s spokesman, in a frenzied reaction denied the development, insisting that Nigeria had indeed, ended the subsidy regime.
But a recourse to Edun, would clearly contradict the assertion and strengthen the basis for not only the continuation of the subsidy, but the huge figure attached to it, as he explained that it was one of the bold steps to up the purchasing power of Nigerians and to tackle inflation.
“Fuel subsidy: At current rates, expenditure on fuel subsidy is projected to reach N5.4 trillion by the end of 2024, This compares unfavourably with N3.6tn in 2023 and N2.0tn in 2022. The amount represents an average of N450bn monthly subsidy bill,” the memo, specifically said.
But why subsidy? The answer is not farfetched. Nigeria has continued to import petroleum products, despite being a major crude oil producer and having four mega refineries, which put in operation anyday, would end the parlous story. The next natural question, would then be, why are the refineries not working? That is where Nigerians and the entire sane global audience remain lost.
However, all fingers are pointing in one direction as the main culprit – the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL). That this entity, is aptly dubbed as the warehouse of corruption in Nigeria, is not out of conjecture or empty talk. Picture this. A peep into the books of the body, before it transmuted from a government entity to a public firm, showed that the Kaduna, Port-Harcourt and Warri refinery companies spent the sum of N127.326 billion on salaries, wages and employees benefits between 2020 and 2021, without a drop of petroleum products coming out of their pipes.
In which other country of the world could such a sordid and utterly outlandish tale be told apart from Nigeria? Of course, discerning people ought to believe that things would change with the new status of the entity. Nada! Between then and now, nothing else has been said about the situation. Workers in the refineries have continued to draw their salaries, have continued to travel abroad at dollar expenses for “training,” as well as enjoying other mouth-watering allowances.
Were that to be the end of the ugly tale, there would have been less tears in the country. Instead the sad narrative lies more in the outright plundering, mindless stealing and the brazen nature of it all. Each day, as they up the ante, the obtuse tales coming from within seem to widen, the impunity seems to grow and the audacity ostensibly develops fresh impetus, all geared towards one direction – money and more money.
Hear the song of lamentations from Nnaemeka Obiaraeri, renowned Development Economist and investment expert as he tries to captures the the picture, recently: “NNPC is alleged to be owing $6billion unpaid bills on PMS importation to the suppliers of the products. This is very shocking. In January, February, there was a report allegedly credited to NNPC, which claimed that they spent $2.1billion importing 2.7 million tonnes of PMS, which is 3.78billion litres for 69 days consumption, which simply means we consume 61 million litres a day in Nigeria.
“We know that this is not true. Empirical records disprove this. It is a very funny place. This country seems to be at a place where we can call it irredeemable because those who purport to lead us from Aso Rock to the 36 states to the National Assembly, deliberately, for whatever reason, don’t care, no empathy, no compassion – they are so brazen about their insensitivity to the plights of Nigerians.
“Between 1999 and 2007 under (Olusegun) Obasanjo, when we had a massive middle class population of four million people who were earning between $30,000 to $170,000 a year, at a time when we had high purchasing power, when we had GDP per capita of $2,600, Nigeria was not consuming more than 28 million litres of PMS a day. This madness started under Diezani and Jonathan and under Buhari, it snowballed at such atrocious, monstrous proportion.
“The DPR, this is under the current NMDPRA, in February 2022, told us that what we consume is actually 38 million litres, which some us argue is still very high, because there is no way anybody can convince me based on empirical evidences that Nigeria consumes more than 32-33 million litres of PMS everyday. But here we are, in 59 days, the guys at NNPC are telling us that we consume 69 million litres, when they told us in July, August, 2023 when Mr. President announced the removal of fuel subsidy that consumption has come down to 40 million litres.
“Yet, nobody is asking them questions. No forensic investigation is conducted. The level of level of corruption, the level of sleaze, the level of opacity, the level of brazenness and impunity at the commanding height of our oil and gas industry leadership position is something that defies explanation. It defies logic. In 2021, the current GMD told us that they are going to spend $1.5billion to fix Port Harcourt Refinery and another something billion to fix Warri and they said by June 2023, it would be commissioned. By December 2022, they told us it was technically completed. June 2023 came and passed, nothing. They shifted it to December 2023, it came, nothing. They moved it to March 2024, March 2024 came, still nothing. Now, they’ve kicked the can down the road and people are still keeping their jobs.
“Yet, we have a President and Commander-in-Chief! This is madness! Now we’re being told that they’re owing $6billion. Crude oil output, we budgeted 1.8 million barrels per day, today, we’re not doing up to 2.4-2.3 million and people are still keeping their jobs. A the NNPC, at the NMDPRA, people are still keeping their jobs.
“Nobody has been sacked, nobody has been queried, nobody has been interrogated. Our crude oil is being looted like sweet. Inefficiency is everywhere, corruption is walking on four legs. “I feel sorry for Nigerians. We have been totally captured, totally emasculated. I’ve never seen this kind of thing before. Is it a spell?”
What Obiaraeri’s bewailing did not capture, was the latest drama involving Dangote Refineries that every Nigerian had hoped would come to the rescue. The 650,000 barrel a day capacity facility is now crying and running from pillar to post, because it cannot get crude from Nigeria and has to resort to importation. Guess the culprit? NNPC of course!
Yes, the selfsame entity has become the dog in the manger, which will neither eat nor allow other dogs the chance to eat. Again, even an imbecile could guess the reason for this. The same vested interests, who are at work, to ensure that the government refineries which have been comatose for decades despite the huge amounts continuously sunk to revive them, have also turned their attention to the private initiative.
Why? Why not? The coming of Dangote is an effective way of seizing their feeding bottle and ending their daily pillaging of the commonwealth through all manners of wacky stories. Recall how Aliko Dangote, President of the conglomerate, told the world that a global cabal had made it impossible for any African country to build a refinery in the last 35 years. Of course, he sees the same hand in the current woes besetting his own project.
Now, is it not strange that Tinubu, who was quick to announce the removal of subsidy, resulting in the massive socio-economic crisis in the country, seems to have gone mute on the Dangote case? Who knows why? The answer may not be far from the same monsters. Maybe they have found a way to convince him that it is better to keep importing than engaging in local production. After all were they not able to convince Buhari, who was once a Petroleum Minister and Chairman of the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF), that ought to made less than a passenger in the industry?
Interestingly, Ali Ndume, Senator, representing Borno South, while appearing as a guest on Prime Time, a current affairs programme of Arise News Network, has now introduced a new dimension. On Thursday, July 11, he had told his host that Male Kyari the NNPC GMD had actually informed him that the company was using the money saved from the subsidy removal to pay old debts and that remittances could only come to Nigeria, when those debts were fully defrayed.
Yet, this is the same company is being linked to a fresh debt of $6billion. Now, giving this fresh, but disturbing angle, does anyone need be told from the foregoing that NNPC has become a drain pipe – a bottomless pit and an irredeemably bad case? Does anyone need to be told that with the way the company is carrying on with its bazaar on corruption, and with concomitant effects of the endless sleaze that continues to see to the rise of fuel prices, Nigeria is fast approaching the edge of the precipice.
Why is Tinubu not taking action to prevent this doomsday? Before Thursday’s TV outing, Ndume had warned Nigeria that the President is caged inside the Aso Rock Villa. If so, who will save Nigeria from NNPC?
It began less than 10 minutes after taking the oath of office. In his address to the nation, he uttered those three-letter words – subsidy is gone. The ink with which he signed the documents declaring him President was yet to dry.
That was it. From that moment, Nigerians have known nothing but poverty, tears and death. It was a declaration that came out of impulse rather than articulacy. It was not even contained in his original speech prepared for the occasion. But it sprouted out – from a rash, unthinking and impetuous mental construct.
But the effect was instant, the impact direct. From that moment, Nigerians have never known peace. Every thing took a cue. Minutes after, the news broke that the price of Premium Motor Spirit, otherwise known as petrol had jumped from N189 to N550. It was that instant. Today, it hovers around N1,500.
The effect: Within minutes, transportation cost quadrupled. So too, commodity prices. Caught unawares, marketers, who had earlier thought it was a day of the rains as customers rushed to their shops, soon became suspicious and then got wiser – these were not ordinary customers but smart alecs playing a fast one on them.
They stopped selling, retrieved the items they could from those who had not disappeared with their goods and closed shop to study the situation properly. Hours after, they responded. A plate of eba and soup, went up from N200 to N1,000. Prices hit the rooftops.
In fact, the vehicle transporting what used to be Nigeria, which had been moving at a horse and buggy pace in the days of Muhammadu Buhari, stopped abruptly, engaged the reverse gear and began galloping backwards. That has remained the ugly, parlous tale of the Tinubu days, since May 29, 2023.
Now, the expectation would be that the President and his government that wrought such a horrendous punishment on the polity, would themselves take some blows. But nada! Instead, the opposite was the case. Within months of plunging the citizens into the untold hardship Tinubu went on a binge, spending money – in the words of Olusegun Obasanjo, former President – like a drunken sailor.
Few weeks after, as Nigerians were reeling and gasping in pain from the impact of their new situation, 469 newly-minted Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs), rolled out from factories in Japan, where they were produced into the premises of the National Assembly for the just inaugurated members.
Put the cost at N100billion – that is N160million for each unit, plus other charges. Reason: The lawmakers needed the vehicles because of their good suspension system, to navigate the so many bad roads in Nigeria. Yes, you heard right. How could they think well and make good laws after the hassles of the bad roads? Tinubu saw reasons, acquiesced and voila!
But it did not end there. Tinubu suddenly realised that Kashim Shettima, his deputy, needed a new home “befitting” his new office. Pronto! A voucher of N21billion was raised and he had it. Till date a haze still hovers over the project.
The last news that was heard was that Number Two refused to take residence because the entire environment, including the toilets was wired to the teeth to monitor him. And Number Two needed privacy.
Again, in the same weeks, Oga Patapata, also realised that Madam needed to transport more comfortably. Pronto! It was arranged. Another voucher was raised for cars for the Office of the First Lady. Cost N1.2billion. Of course, madam needed the comfort for peace at home.
Naturally, since transportation is not done by land alone, he also took care of that. For the sea, a yacht was procured. Cost N5billion. Because the birds in the presidential fleet were not good enough, Tinubu did the needful.
He enriched the fleet with the one befitting of his status and had it transformed to mimic the US Air Force One. To complete the status symbol project, he also added a replica of The Beast, the US presidential automobile.
Ironically, the funds used in procuring these luxury lifestyle, came, not out of productive ventures of Nigeria, but through borrowing. Today, Tinubu has practically borrowed Nigeria blind, doubling or even tripling that of his predecessors.
Meanwhile Nigerians had upped the ante from mere groaning and skreiching. Citizens, unable to take it anymore, now stop their hitherto sleek vehicles on the Third Mainland Bridge and plunge into the Lagos lagoon to end it all. The option is now more rampant than remote and occasional.
Many others, taking the Socrates option, now drink hemlock and many more simply sleep off without any intention of waking up. That is where we are. That is the new Nigeria – the Tinubu Nigeria. But there is more.
Terrorists and the landlords of the forest, having now discovered that the Commander-in-Chief has other fancies than security and welfare of the people – the constitutionally-declared primary purpose of government and scant regard for the citizens, have practically gone haywire. They have taken over and established their authority.
Presently, outside those wantonly slaughtered or butchered in their homes like animals at the abattoir, incinerated alive while sleeping on their beds, among other forms of decimation, many more citizens are now spending months, going to years as victims of captivity with them in various forests in Nigeria.
In their rampage, the terrorists have since broken all barriers considered out of place hitherto. One of their escapades is the present videos of the school children and teachers taken from Oyo State. The gory imagery captures the current Nigerian story.
For instance, on Thursday, just as the sound of heavy celebration was going on in neighbouring Ogun State as the world marked the Ojude Oba yearly carnival, two of the victims, one of them with a toddler on her back, were pleading for their lives, as others went through various forms of torture, including heavy whipping like beasts.
Don’t forget that the terrorists had earlier slaughtered one of their colleagues. In the new video, the totally terrified women, informed that they had chosen another victim to be similarly eliminated. Yet, no word about rescue! Terrible!
Interestingly, if not painfully, Tinubu’s response, in the few cases he bothered, was to see the crisis through the politics lens. His most recent reaction was to tell the world that the harvest of attacks and carnages ravaging the country, were sponsored by his political enemies, intent on shoving him out of power. That to him was all that mattered.
Now, where are your powers as C-in-C? They are mostly found in the most disgraceful economic and political acts of impunity. Nigerians now waking up to hear of the award of brain-dazing contracts such as the N15trillion Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway and Badagry-Maiduguri Highway – with scant regard for official regulations, is now becoming more common than rare.
Few days after one of the teachers was beheaded and the video of the hideous act made to circulate on the social media, the President and his All Progressives Congress (APC), party, rolled out the drums of his winning the party’s ticket to contest the 2027 presidential election.
To say that it has been three years of weeping, wailing, mourning and gnashing of the teeth, is a clear euphemism. There is no starker way of putting it than calamity – pure, unmitigated catastrophe – disaster.
Then comes the big question. Nigeria is already breasting the tape of these ruinous years of the first term. Suppose Tinubu succeeds in renewing his tenure by January next year? Will Nigeria survive five more years of a life like the last three? What will be left of Nigeria? Is there a way out, outside shouting – God forbid!?
Now that Nyesom Wike, Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) has fully executed his plot against Siminalayi Fubara, Governor of Rivers State, where would it be placed in terms of identity, nuances, ethos and history? Where would it be placed in democratic arrangement and value? In other word, by what name would it be called?
So, this is what President Bola Tinubu’s much-advertised democratic credentials is all about? This is what being listed among the arrowheads in the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), the body that fought relentlessly against the late Sani Abacha and his henchmen has finally come to?
Is this where “The Last Man Standing” – apologies Tony Elumelu – has ended up? So, after wedging an epic battle for and through Lagos State, against then President Obasanjo and practically defeating him, even if perceptibly, in all the struggles – such as running government without federal allocation for years and surviving the political onslaught that took away other South West states like a tsunami, it has come to this?
Don’t forget that it was this selfsame Tinubu that served as the bastion of opposition in Nigerian politics from when he was Governor of Lagos State, not only standing up against Obasanjo, but undertaking the relentless battles that led to the All Progressives Congress (APC), winning the war eventually in 2015.
So, this is what all the struggles, the speeches, the colloquia, the meetings and the strategies have come to – the end result? So, the definition of democracy, to Tinubu, is selling the dog to buy a monkey – replacing democratic bad-behaviour with democratic-heist? So, this is it?!
Make no mistake about it. What you saw play out in Rivers is nothing but Tinubu at work. It is all about him, it is for him. Never make the mistake of adorning Wike in the toga of a powerful man. That would be a fatal error of judgement. Every power he exercises, real, imagined, inferred or contingent belong to and are exclusive to Tinubu.
Take away the President and Wike would turn to a political meek-lamb or a jellyfish. Fubara would have eaten him for lunch a long time ago. So, Tinubu it is – the reason the klieglights must be beamed on him. That is why he must carry the can in this odious construct in Rivers in particular and the entire Nigerian political scenario in general.
With the picture that assaulted Nigeria regarding the APC primaries that have just held, what is different from the edition we saw in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of old? Is it not worse or the worst in real and imagined terms? What then has Tinubu been fighting all these years?
Incidentally, where we have Wike today, we had Lamidi Adedibu, the Amala Politics exponent, Tony Aneni of the Mr. Fix-it fame and the Uba brothers in Anambra to whom the political firmament in Nigeria once bowed, among many plethora of examples.
So, there is nothing really new about the development, but for the fresh dimension that has been introduced into the narrative by the Wike phenomenon, which is totally novel. Before now it was a case of one behemoth in a political party rampaging the system.
But today, it has gone beyond that. Wike has developed the penchant for taking no prisoners. In his own strange construct, he has now coalesced the entire APC and PDP structure into his shoulder basket, from where he dispenses favours.
Imagine Kingsley Chinda, purchasing APC governorship election form, as a PDP federal lawmaker without first resigning from his original party. That is how wacky it has become. Wackier still is that nobody – not even the APC apparatchik has been able to raise a finger. Why? Obvious answer – the Tinubu factor.
Now, here is the danger. By the heist in Port Harcourt adding to the sequence of political oddities and absurdities since the Tinubu years, it has become obvious that Nigeria is headed towards a Paul Biya’s Cameroun, a Yoweri Musaveni’s Uganda and Zimbabwe under the late Robert Mugabe.
Tinubu, has shown obvious incapacity to tackle the parlous economic crisis in the country with 150 million Nigerians plunged into multidimensional poverty and many more growing the list daily, while also displaying uncommon powerlessness towards addressing the debilitating state of insecurity.
Under his nose citizens are daily being forced from their homes into the forests by terrorists, with some of them taken from their crutching positions, positioned before the camera and slaughtered – heads cut off like animals at an abattoir and video images freely displayed on social media.
Yet, by what has now happened in Rivers State, it has become obvious that Nigerians are not being factored into the whole equation and if they were, scant regard is paid to their opinion, ending in their powerlessness to change the situation. That is the tragedy!
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