Category: Jide Oluwajuyitan

Flying Nigerian Airways either on domestic or international route in the early seventies to early eighties was always with a sense of national pride. We paid in our in local currency, the crews were all Nigerian and so were the food and the music.

With a fleet of about 33 aircraft in 1979 when General Olusegun Obasanjo was handing over to President Shehu Shagari, Nigerian Airways could be rated a thriving business and a successful brand in the league of British Airways, KLM or Lufthansa. The credit for the healthy status  of Nigerian Airways must go to our 1960 patriotic new inheritors of power and others who had faith in our nation and were on hand to pilot the affairs of the country during  the early years of military misadventure into politics resulting in social dislocation and civil war.

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But with the dictatorship of the likes of Babangida and Abacha and their “army of anything is possible” from 1985 to 1998 and with retired Generals and their military-baked new-breed politicians that bred only corruption, in power from 1999, the fate of Nigerian Airways along other public enterprises valued at about $100b but sold off for a paltry $1.5b, was sealed.

Having a national carrier for those who have faith in their country is something of national pride. For those who understand President Buhari’s commitment to our nation, his endeavour to bequeath a befitting national carrier on the nation before he left office did not come as a surprise. And this perhaps explains why at the close of the Ministers Retreat on October 2022, he confidently directed relevant officials to ensure the proposed national carrier starts operating by December 2022. This was after two earlier derailed take-off dates viz December 19, 2018 and November 2021.

But the forces of retired Generals and their new breed politicians that killed and replaced Nigerian Airways with their domestic airlines, represented today by Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) was prepared to derail and scuttle his efforts. The secretary general, Aviation Round Table Initiative (ARTI), Capt. John Ojikutu (rtd), had declared “the national carrier is a still-born project that won’t see the light of the day, to talk less of being profitable”.

And while  appearing before the House of Representatives Committee on Aviation on in October 2022, part of their self-serving criticism were as follows:  the decision of the government to allow Ethiopian Airlines to own 49 per cent of the stake in the company would hurt the local airlines; for Roland Iyayi of AON, “Ethiopian Airlines would do a fare-cutting strategy for market penetration”; For AON vice chairman , Allen Onyema,  “Ethiopian Airlines poses existential threats to the local airline operators.” For Kashim Shettima of Skyjet Aviation: “Nigeria Air will poach the human capital of the domestic airlines”.

It was all about them and not about us, Nigerians. They refused to be persuaded by the Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika’s explanation that the Nigerian government ‘has no funds to invest in the establishment of the airline hence the decision to go into Public Private Partnership’; that five per cent stake is in kind while local investors are going to take the 46 per cent stake and that “We  have also given every single Nigerian the opportunity especially those in the sector to participate in this airline so that we create an airline that is proper, well set up and stands the test of time and dynamics.”

Their blackmail: government should give them same opportunity as was being given to Ethiopian Airlines.

But what are the facts of history?

We remember President Obasanjo sold 51% of the carcass of what was left of Nigerian Airways to Richard Branson and his Virgin Atlantic and 49% to institutional investors to form Nigeria Air. We remember billionaire Jimoh Ibrahim bought Nigeria Air.

 We remember the N300 billion intervention fund which was sequel to the Amos Akpan, then MD of Capital Airline’s 2013 testimony before Senate Committee on Aviation on behalf of 16 domestic airlines to the effect that “the money made by Nigerian airlines was not enough to take care of their operations and service their debts to Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCCA), Nigeria Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) and the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN)”.

We remember Jimoh Ibrahim’s Nigeria Air received N35.5 billion out of the N300b intervention fund. We also remember the amount like those of other beneficiaries was allegedly diverted.  And because “Air Nigeria did not have the funds for normal maintenance, routine checks and servicing of its fleet of 11 planes, with 10 operational, the airline frequently flew those mass coffins as airworthy aircraft”, according to an estranged former executive of Nigeria Air. But what became apparent was that government later suspended Air Nigeria’s domestic operations on bankruptcy allegation while Ibrahim later shut down operations of Nigeria Air sacking all the staff.

We also remember that Nigerian airspace became littered with crashes. Under Babalola Aborisade, there were five crashes with about 413 deaths. On June 22, 2012, Kabo Air crashed in Kotoka International Airport Ghana killing many motorists after overrunning the runway.  On June 3, 2012 DANA air crashed killing 163 people. On October 3, 2013, there was also the Associated Airlines crash which killed 13. On October 4, 2013, Saudi Arabia bound airline with 400 passengers crashed in Lagos after losing two tyres

 Instead of addressing corruption, greed and internal mismanagement or come together like some international airlines for economy of scale, the domestic airlines found a scapegoat in foreign airlines. For instance, the Bilateral Air Services Agreement is based on reciprocity. But Nigerian carriers blamed others for their failure to exercise their privileges according to the BASA. Their stakeholders report accused foreign airlines of swindling Nigeria of about N3.7b annually in addition to violation of Nigeria Nigeria’s aviation laws. They similarly ignored market forces and blamed foreign airlines for astronomical prices of tickets.

 Instead of clamping down on ministers, governors and lawmakers who scrambled for few available first class seats in foreign airlines, they specifically accused British Airways of non-competitive fair of $10,070 for first class return ticket to Abuja to London while the same facility cost $4,943 from Accra. Stella Oduah, then minister, wanted parity and gave ultimatum to the foreign airlines. When she was ignored, she undertook a foreign tour in search of foreign investors.

The outcome was the Chinese N500b loan. Both the CBN and the Bank of Industry said the money was not to re-fleet but the minister through Yakubu Dati, FAAN spokesperson insisted “government had concluded arrangement to purchase 30 brand new aircraft for airlines to boost their operations”. Not much was heard of the N500b Chinese loan or the brand new aircraft beyond recent declaration by an expert that the new terminal building that came out of the loan was dysfunctional because of its location.

Oduah, before departing office in controversial circumstances however started the quest for a new national carrier ostensibly to be supervised by the same NCAA, NAMA and FAAN that traded Nigeria Airways for domestic airlines.

 But Nigerians love travelling. Punch newspaper in its special report on aviation, only last Monday reported that travellers spent about $4.66bn on foreign air travels in 15 months. This was in spite of the fact they are often short-changed by foreign airlines. Lagos-London fares are for instance 49% higher than Accra-London and 162% higher than Cotonou-London. It is the same experience with other international airlines. But Nigerians are not deterred.

Those who therefore derailed Buhari’s eight year heroic efforts to give us a national carrier using their mainstream media and social media terrorists as weapons are not fighting President Buhari or former aviation minister they freely slander but Nigerians. The irony is that evil forces that have by their chequered antecedent demonstrated their lack of abiding faith in our nation today swear by their patriotism.

Professor Bolaji Akinyemi is always a delight to listen to  whether as a professor of Political Science in our International Relations graduate class in the early eighties, as Director General, Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA) engaged in intellectual debates during seminars and symposia with his colleagues, or as Foreign Affairs Minister explaining his ‘audacious ideas about a strong and resurgent Africa’  and even as public intellectual taking the uninitiated through the labyrinth of diplomatic chess game. He was as usual at his best last Monday on Arise Television programme. And for little distraction by those self-proclaiming patriots who have no regard for Alexander Pope’s admonition that ‘only fools rush in where angels fear to tread’, Prof Akinyemi, our own inimitable Henry Kissinger had a simple advice “Don’t miss ingredients for making pepper soup with that needed for making egusi soup”.

Prof Akinyemi has never lost faith in Nigeria in spite of his over 40 years efforts to let our ill-trained and badly-recruited leaders understand that strong and vibrant external relations determine how the external world rates our domestic policies. He has in fact always believed Nigerian should play the role of Africa super power. It was for this reason he, among other audacious policies, initiated the Technical Aids Corps scheme that today thrives in other African and Caribbean countries and the concept of medium power to mediate if possible among warring rival super powers. It was during his period that ‘Africa as the centre piece of Nigerian foreign policy’ acquired real meaning as we led the apartheid war against hypocritical Britain and USA.

 It was therefore not a surprise that in the wake of recent Nigerien coup, he insisted Nigeria must take the initiative in the planned battle against the military adventurers whose forceful entry into politics did not seem to be an outcome of the usual manipulation of electoral process by greedy elected West African political leaders. It similarly did not fall into the category of conspiracy theories that often link military coups in Guinea, Sudan, Mali and Chad and elsewhere in the Sahel region to French colonial and post-colonial policies that only impoverish former colonies.

Akinyemi also believes attempt by AU-led South Africa to give an ultimatum to the coup planners, was an attempt at undermining Tinubu’s leadership as ECOWAS chairman since by convention, it is the responsibility of ECOWAS leadership to first interfere in crisis afflicting the West African sub-region.

Predictably, he has hailed the decision of ECOWAS under the leadership of Tinubu to give the coup plotters a one-week ultimatum to hand over power to President Mohammed Bazoum  who remains the legitimately elected president and head of state of the Republic of Niger as recognized by ECOWAS, AU and the international community. The body has also threatened to ‘take all measures necessary’ ‘including the use of force’, to restore constitutional order in the Republic of Niger, in the event the regional body’s demands are not met within one week”. In this regard, ECOWAS has the backing of US and France.

Professor Akinyemi believes there is always a cost to leadership especially for a country like Nigeria that claims to be the giant of Africa. For him therefore, Nigeria has no choice but to lead the crusade, citing the case of Kenya, small players in the international arena that recently deployed Kenya soldiers to her troubled neighbours and Kenya police to Cuba, currently experiencing civil disorder in far-away South America.

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President Tinubu however claims he is leading the crusade because of his commitment to democracy and freedom which he says are needed for development.  I want to believe the president understands democracy whether the variant we practice or those in vogue in western societies including America has never led to development. The wealth of Europe and America came from slavery and exploitation of resources of colonized nations. But there is no doubt that crusade for democracy, the new gods the West insists we must worship is imperative. I am sure, Prof Akinyemi is also aware no nation resists the new god without consequences.

In those days, talk of alternative to democracy and lusting after other world views apart from capitalism often attracted a death sentence. We saw it in Latin America where elected leaders were routinely toppled or assassinated.  In Africa we remembered how Nkrumah lost power. In Nigeria we witnessed how Murtala Muhammed, for declaring that Africa had come of age and should be allowed to take their destinies in their own hands, was brutally assassinated by Dimka. We saw how Buhari, for rejecting IMF loan and its ‘conditionalities’ which included the liberalization of our economy to allow free inflow of labour from western societies, was replaced by Babangida. We were recently told by Museveni of Uganda how six African Heads of state inside an aircraft going to mediate between Gadhafi and the West that was in breach of UN resolutions later bombed Libya where Gadhafi was killed like a criminal, were ordered by NATO to return to their states.

President Tinubu in his new role must learn how to walk the tight rope. The crusade must be about ridding Africa of its own demons including corrupt civilians autocrats. Coup planners are often aided by the West while those who do not have their backings have been likened by Professor Akinyemi to someone riding in the back of a tiger.

The West has never seen Africa beyond object of exploitation, From August 8, 1444 when Portugal through Lancarote de Feitas landed the first group of 235 slaves seized from modern day northern Mauritania in Lagos, Lisbon, the British and French and other European powers until 1870, about 426 years later exported slaves from the Gold Coast, Badagry and other parts of West Africa.

As colonized nations, African countries were repeatedly raped by the metropolitan power in order to resolve social conflicts and dislocations in the metropolitan states. At independence in 1960 after centuries of Belgium’s brutal reign, Congo had only about five graduates and about 600 Roman Catholic priests. Lumumba the elected Prime Minister later murdered by Belgian troops had only six years of schooling  while Mobutu, his successor who aided the West’s exploitation of Congo for another 30 years enlisted in the Congo Army as a cook.

While 80% of Nigeriens have no access to electricity, one third of electricity in France is said to come from Nigerien uranium. For this reason, many have argued that American and French military bases in Niger were to aid continued exploitation just as many others have also pointed out that ISIS and Al-Qaeda terrorists, purportedly being fought, were unleashed on the Sahel Region following the invasion of Iraq and Libya by the West in breach of international law.

Under neo-colonialism, which Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah said was the last stage of imperialism, African nations were further short-changed as they had no one to turn to for redress since the multinationals who inherited the new post-colonial states were driven only by profit motives. With globalization, African youths because of hostile environment created by IMF and World Bank are dying in the desert and drowning in the Atlantic Ocean to return to second slavery in Europe. From slavery to globalization therefore, what we have is but a change in paradigm. Nothing has changed.

 This is why President Tinubu’s crusade must  be about the above enduring African challenges and not about democracy, the new god which  different nations including  China, Russia and even some military juntas today claim to worship.

After playing the ostrich for so many years, it has now become apparent that state police is inevitable. The call by Lagos State speaker, Mudashiru Obasa during the House of Assembly’s first plenary on July 11, on lawmakers of the Senate and the House of Representatives to “begin an amendment of the constitution to contain the creation of the alternative policing” should therefore only serve as a sad reminder of our past folly.

 For close to 50 years, the south and other well informed Nigerians have called for the establishment of state police on the premise that ‘local problems require local solutions’. The hegemonic powers who wish to preside over an empire of slaves rejected such a call because of selfish political considerations.

More tragic, our military, a creation of the colonial powers, share the same mind-set with their creator and role model. Subsequently, when our military leaders including Obasanjo through Babangida and Buhari, men who were never trained to manage the affairs of society, fortuitously found themselves in power, they, like the departed occupying powers, arrogantly equated their periodic brain-wave to a viable policy alternative for a conquered territory.

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First was the delusion that 36 federating states and 774 LGAs created and funded from Abuja without objective criteria was best for a multicultural, multi-ethnic and heterogeneous society where groups were at different levels of cultural development. Their own selfish desire to maintain a strangle-hold on the people aligned with the northern leaders’ opposition to state police that could threaten their monopoly of power through control of law and order over their empire of slaves.

The revolt of the poor, uneducated and marginalized who have no say in how they were being governed bred terrorists, jihadists, bandits, kidnappers and armed herdsmen, that took refuge inside North’s huge ungoverned forests from where they visited violence on the people.

Nigerians had looked up to President Buhari, the man they massively voted into power because of his pan-Nigeria outlook, to end their nightmare. Buhari and his ‘loyal gatekeepers’ ignored the cry of Northern Elders Forum, the July 2021demand by northeast governors of Adamawa, Taraba, Bauchi, Gombe, Yobe and Borno for state and community police just as they did to that of September 2022, northern governors and northern traditional rulers councils’ call for the establishment of state police to tackle security challenges in their region.

 But while anarchy reigned supreme in the north, President Buhari’s “loyal gate keepers” appeared to be more interested in replicating the northern tragedy in the south. Or what other explanation can one give for relentless war waged by Shehu Garba (Buhari’s senior media adviser and Abubakar Malami (his Minister of Justice) against Governor Rotimi Akeredolu’s efforts to eject killer herdsmen illegally occupying reserved forests in his state, and Southwest Governors Forum’s efforts to set up Amotekun local security outfit to tackle kidnappings and killings by those believed to be invading immigrant herdsmen?

Buhari and his men continued to dig deeper into the hole even as his federal government which the northern hegemonic power depended on to maintain law and order was unable to perform. In the face of an impending anarchy, his vice president, Yemi Osinbajo admitted to their government’s heroic failure to end the nation’s nightmare.  While admitting “Every Nigerian, is entitled to adequate security from the government for their livelihoods”, he confessed that their   “Government fails in that responsibility” because “For a country of our size to meet the ‘one policeman to 400 persons’ prescribed by the United Nations would require triple our current police force; far more funding of the police force and far more funding of our military and other security agencies.”

But betrayed by Buhari’s government of hope, the nation continued to pay huge price for the folly of self-serving political leaders who insisted on imposing their world-view no matter how depraved and irrational on how Nigeria is governed despite admonitions and warnings by other Nigerian stakeholders.

For instance The Punch in an editorial had raised an alarm that “With 371,000 officers, the Nigeria Police Force are overwhelmed, and many parts of the country lack any permanent police presence. Insurgents of different stripes taking advantage of this have seized control of some hinterland territories, imposing brutal, bloody rule over the locals”. (Punch July 21)

Vanguard newspapers on its part has also argued that “federal-controlled police force in a diverse, complicated federation with an exploding population of over 200 million people, policed by 371,800 personnel, with up to a third of them attached to VIPs”, is not only injurious to the health of the nation, maintaining the military command structure in our federal system is undemocratic, anti-people and does not promote good and accountable governance.”

Our leaders continued to play the ostrich even with the periodic harvest of deaths in the north-central states of Benue, Plateau and southern Zaria where armed immigrant herdsmen in aid of settlers who lust over their host’s land, had embarked on inter-communal killings of poor subsistence farmers whose land is confiscated with survivors reduced to inmates of IDP camps. Peace has continued to elude the northeast and Buhari’s northwest region after his eight years of heroic failure. And of course the southeast remains restive with the ongoing intra-communal bestial and brutish killings which the perpetrators blame on federal government and its agents. 

Now that we have seen the folly in the continuing objection to the establishment of state police, there can be no better period to allow the people take control over their own security through state and community policing than now.

It is a relief that we have a new sheriff in town that is answerable to neither ethnic,   religious group, nor godfathers and owners of Nigeria. He has promised embark on what he believes to be best for our country. No one, including the leading lights of his party can therefore hold him to ransom or derail this noble endeavour

And it was just as well that it was his immediate constituency, Lagos State that reminded him two weeks back that his success or failure will be determined not by building roads and bridges like his predecessor or turning the economic fortune of the nation around but by his efforts at liberating individuals and groups from the tyranny of the state through devolution of powers.

People want to take control of their own security, decide education and the moral values to be imbibed by their children in addition to the water they drink, the air they breathe and the God or gods they worship without interference from dysfunctional Abuja. And since we operate a federal system, what federalism sets out to achieve is individual and group rights which can be defined in form of language, culture, and religion or socio economic status.

The president is not being asked to invent the wheel. He can easily borrow from the experiences of India, a more heterogeneous and populous nation and Canada, the first federation to adopt multi-culturalism as a policy that has shown how a plural society can manage its group differences.

He must start in earnest the mobilization of National Assembly members for the constitutional amendment required to institutionalize state and community policing.  This will allow each of the country’s six geo-political zones protect its territory and its citizens from armed gangs from neighbouring federating states or from the Sahel region of the north and central Africa. There is no better evidence of anarchy than when a Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi will without restraints, declare Fulani from any part of Africa a Nigerian.

IPOB’s ‘sit-at home order on Mondays’ has been in force since 2021. It has been largely successful with most Igbos including Peter Obi, of the Labour Party who refused to campaign on Mondays during last February election, obeying the order. David Umahi who as chairman of southeast governors’ forum tried to assure us of Igbo’s choice of Nigeria over IPOB’s dream-Biafra was reminded by the non-state actors ‘that neither Igbo’s elected governors nor Igbo elite can decide the fate of Igbo’.

As if to prove who truly wields power in the south-eastern states, Owerri metropolis  was shut down just this last Monday 12 July 12 with  markets, banks, schools and supermarkets  closed as residents continued to observe the seven days sit-at-home directive by a separatist leader and Finland-based Simon Ekpa.

Finally, the chicken has come home to roost. Igbo political class has used IPOB for political bargaining just as they have done with their poor including their urban immigrants since independence.

 An interrogation of demands of IPOB and Igbo political elite will easily show it is a case of ‘voice of Jacob, hands of Esau’. First, IPOB which resented being branded terrorists in the words of Chilota Duru, one of its chieftains, was “borne out of the desire to address marginalisation of southeast people in the country”. According to him, “ it is unfair that we are the least in terms of states in Nigeria; that successive administrations have continued to make appointments without regard to the federal character; that allocation of projects are not even, and that we also have right to aspire to the highest office in the land, among others”.

These demands are not different from Igbo political elite’s quest for “inclusiveness, equity and justice”. During the Enugu 2017 economic summit attended by governors, academics, traditional and religious leaders, businessmen and women etc., the economic stagnation and development economic and development  was linked to ‘allocation of political offices and citing of industries’. At the summit, former Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, Chief Emeka Anyaoku recommended restructuring for economic stability and unity of the country.

Ike Ekweremadu, three times deputy senate president in the fourth republic, speaking in Abuja in 2021 at the public presentation of the book “The Audacity of Power and the Nigeria Project: Exclusion of the South East in Nigeria’s Power Politics and the Spectre of Biafra”, authored by Godwin Udibe and Law Mefor had said:  “But the worst disadvantages suffered by Ndigbo are not just those imposed by structural imbalances, but by “political representation, federal employments and political appointments, arising from the imbalances and wilful injustice.”

Although at another forum, Ekweremadu spoke of the ‘discarding of true federalism put in place by the founding fathers of Nigeria”, the real issue is that Igbo elite want to be part of any government. The Igbo don’t believe in federal arrangement. They only mouth it when they are out of government.

It is instructive that when Igbo political elite had an opportunity to consolidate federalism during their January 1966 short-lived victory over their rivals, they misled Ironsi to promulgating Decree 34 which turned the country into a unitary state after eliminating military and political leadership of their Hausa Fulani rival. Is it also instructive that Nigeria was not regarded as a zoo run by Fulani and supported by their Yoruba stooges when the Igbo political elite took total control of the Obasanjo and Jonathan administrations from 1999-2015?

 IPOB that has been waging Igbo political elite’s war is a creation of southeast politicians just as Fulani terrorists and bandits are creations of Fulani ruling hegemony in the north. Incidentally, these two ethnic groups shared common world view of how Nigeria should be run. From the onset, one preferred a unitary system where the potential of their highly mobile urban immigrants can easily be harnessed for political gains while the other wanted a confederacy where there would be no restraint on how they treat subjects of their empire of slaves. The latter with the assurance of the British colonial power was eventually persuaded to key into a federal arrangement they would always control by virtue of their population.

It is on record that their rivalry led to the collapse of the first republic and the ensuing civil war. The victor and vanquished, driven by selfish interest as against a desire to serve the people regrouped in the second republic with their alliance of convenience collapsing under the weight of massive corruption and electoral fraud in 1983. And when they again regrouped between 1999 -2015, their ‘family quarrel’ over sharing of political offices, proceeds of fuel subsidy scam and our national patrimony in the name of privatization and monetization policies threw them asunder.

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The Fulani for the greater part of our recent history control the economic and political power in the north. Their strength, they often claim is their high population whose only say in how they are governed is four year-periodic participation in elections which never change the objective relationship between the oppressed and their oppressors.

Igbo political elite control commerce. A recent Daily Trust newspaper survey showed that Igbo control commerce in 31 of the nation’s 36 states. Ike Ekweremadu has also told IPOB members that Igbo control of commerce in the country is one major reason Biafra is not a viable option for the Igbo.

The question however is at what cost is importation of labour of other societies to Nigeria? Manufactured products, many of them substandard or faked, are shipped to Nigeria while uneducated Igbo youths are lured to Nigeria’s major cities as urban immigrants to hawk such goods with a promise some of them could become Cosmas Maduka (Coscharis) who started from the streets.

More tragic for the Igbo states ravaged by violence is that proceeds of importation of labour of other societies are not repatriated back home to create employment for the restive youths. Instead of ploughing back their huge profits to develop Igbo land, they are busy buying off Lagos Island, Banana Island and Atlantic City  while demonizing other Nigerians as enemies of ‘industrious’ Igbo.

But it is not lost on informed Nigerians that when Igbo controlled the centre during the first republic, some of them only built ‘palaces of the people’ in the midst of their people’s squalor while between 1999-2015, Igbo political office holders with access to state funds rather than invest in the east, were building private estates in Abuja, private palaces in Lagos or acquiring a $12m brazier.

IPOB like Fulani terrorist and bandits are symptoms of greater malaise that threaten the very survival of our nation. Our enemies are the greedy politicians who created an environment for IPOB, Fulani terrorists and bandits to thrive.

President Tinubu already has his job well cut out. We must replace the current superstructure with a federal constitution that will liberate groups and individuals from the tyranny of the state.  Beyond what may appear as ethnic profiling despite the fact that this is our true story, we must be ready to tell ourselves the truth.  As frustrated Awolowo declared at the 1957 London Constitutional Conference after failing to secure freedom for those under oppression in their own land including today’s besieged Middle-Belt states, “no one is free until we are all free”.

That there is always a raging battle between the governed and government is understandable. The former, made up of fortune-seekers, experiencing varying degrees of insanity, are often not conscious of the sources of their nightmare. The latter, in power at the behest of the rich owners of society understands very clearly that their mandate is to maintain a delicate balance between the masses and their oppressors whose only desire is to preside over an empire of slaves. However, because of few evil men and women in government, the masses as Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, then Minister of Finance, found out during the 2012 fuel subsidy debacle, are often “cynical and distrustful of government”.

Unfortunately, journalists who as students of society understand that it is the governed that needs the government more are the same people that often portray government as Leviathan, a fearful sea monster that must be brought down. Government job is not made any easier by the fact that it is almost impossible to serve as an impartial umpire in the battle between the parasitic owners of society and the masses on whose blood they feed.

A quick journey through memory will show how demonization of government by the media in recent years has only prolonged our   nightmare.

Between 1979 and 1983, Adisa Akinloye, Shehu Shagari and their National Party of Nigeria (NPN), despite warning by Chief Obafemi Awolowo that the ship of state was heading for the rock, crashed the economy through massive consumption of imported branded Champagne, rice and other manufactured goods from Europe. And fearing the loss of the 1983 election, they adopted Walter Ofonagoro’s dubious theory of “landslide and seaslide victory’ in opposition strong holds, to steal the 1983 presidential election.

Then their nemesis came in the person of Muhammadu Buhari. Although burning with a patriotic zeal to serve, he was ill-trained in the art of managing society. He betrayed his incompetence when he threw all politicians irrespective of the level of the guilt into detention without following due judicial process. Ill-advised, he dared the West by rejecting unsolicited IMF loan. He then challenged Nigerian consumers of foreign goods to produce their own wheat if they wanted bread or starve if they could not plant their own rice. I think Nehru, who insisted Indians should go naked if they could not make their own clothes was his role model.  He took the battle to nosey journalists, jailing reporters for reporting the truth and executing drug pushers with a decree with a retroactive power.

Buhari is unhinged, so declared Nigerian journalists. To show the pen is mightier than the sword, journalists mobilized human rights lawyers and civil society groups to wage a vicious war with Buhari. Why would he not provide palliatives before asking us to plant our own wheat; we demanded. We played into the hands of America, who working hand in gloves with greedy Nigerian importers of labour of other nations, sponsored Bababngida’s palace coup.

For betraying Buhari and the Nigerian masses, some leading light of our profession such as Chief Duro Onabule (editor of National Concord) became Babangida’s Chief Press Secretary while Tony Momoh, a celebrated editor of the Daily Times became Minister for Information. Babangida despite opposition of Nigerians, took the IMF loan, and in the name of Structural Adjustment Programme, opened our country to importation of goods from all over the world.

Our budding industries, textile, pharmaceuticals, electronics, car and truck assembly plants collapsed. Our naira that was in 1983 stronger than the dollar exchanged for $1 to N6 by 1986. The JAPA syndrome started with our university lecturers and experienced doctors migrating to Europe and Canada.

But it was a payback for the media. While Buhari only jailed journalists for reporting the truth, Babangida according to Gani Fawehinmi, parcel-bombed Dele Giwa in his study. Journalists went Afghanistan or underground. His henchmen, Uche Chuwumerije and Walter Ofonagoro closed down all private newspapers throwing all journalists into the labour market. Babangida and Abacha waged war against Nigeria until 1998.

In 2012, we once again betrayed Nigeria. In 2009, a sub-committee on fuel subsidy regime headed by Isa Yuguda, a former managing director of NAL, a former governor of Bauchi and a former minister of state, aviation, had confirmed the fuel subsidy program was a scam. A similar probe by the National Assembly in 2011 also confirmed that against NNPC 59m litres per day claim, the nation was consuming only 35litres, resulting in the theft of some N667billion daily by some Nigerians. In 2012, President Jonathan’s Imoukhuede Committee on Fuel Subsidy indicted 21 firms and directed recovery of N382 billion. President Jonathan decided to end the fuel subsidy scam.

Again it was the media, the self-declared hero of the masses that led the war against President Jonathan. Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN) organized a town hall meeting to provide a platform for self-serving human rights lawyers and civil society groups, NLC and NUT to blackmail Jonathan.

Okonjo-Iweala, the Minister for Finance said ‘removal of fuel subsidy will free N500b as intervention fund and another N500m for infrastructure”. Her argument was rejected because of what she described as “cynicism and mistrust of government”.

Sanusi the CBN governor’s argument that to “continue borrowing and subsidising fuel consumption is to saddle the next government with a heavy sovereign debt crisis”; and that spending N13 trillion on fuel subsidy, will not allow us to “build up our reserve, stabilise our exchange rate, maintain stable rate of inflation and sustainable debt’ fell on deaf ears.

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The Nigerian Labour Congress NLC, Trade Union Congress (TUC) mobilized “the fit, sick, rich or poor, young or old, artisan and professional, religious leaders’ across the nation for mass protest. Octogenarians including Tunji Braithwaite, Kalu Idika Kalu and Ben Nwabueze were not left out in all-out war against Jonathan. The Convener of Save Nigeria Group (SNG) Pastor Tunde Bakare anchored the protest”.

In 2012, inflation projection was 14%; today it is 24%; the nation’s debt profile has moved from N7,564.4  billion to N49.85 trillion; fuel subsidy expenditure has  also moved from N1,23 trillion  to N400b monthly. Today, “the smuggling of subsidized petrol”, according to President Tinubu “depletes Nigeria’s economy by as much as N4.88 trillion yearly”. That only confirmed his unassailable position that fuel subsidy scam must go on the first day of his presidency.

Dear compatriots, even with all the facts before Nigerians, labour, promoted by segment of the media is still threatening to go on strike except palliative is first provided as we did back in the eighties. Those who think we can continue to do the same thing and expect different result are supporters of our enemies, the parasitic rent seekers and evil men in government including the one from whose house EFCC allegedly found about 40 state-of-the-art cars and tons of naira equivalent of about N70b last week.

Yuguda, asked by Channels Television what he thought emboldened Tinubu to do what Presidents Jonathan and Buhari could not do, spoke of political will and fear of owners of society. But if you ask me, I will say courage failed them because they were betrayed by the media. The difference today is that, those who engage in balance of terror through misinformation, mischief and blackmail and falsely swear in the name of the masses even as they serve the owners of society as slaves, understand that with President Tinubu, it is now going to be a balance of intellectual engagement.

Truths, as the Austrian-born philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein, once pointed out, are facts that have no spatial locations”.  That perhaps explains why after 25 years of false narrative, June 12, 1993 came back in 2018 to haunt Babangida, Obasanjo, Abacha, Nzeribe, Uche Chukwumerije and Walter Ofonagoro. The recent celebration of June 12 as ‘Democracy Day”, once again provides an opportunity to reflect on irrational behaviour of some June 1993 actors to see if anything has changed.

But first, for the sake of our youths who were not born 30 years ago and who have been so far denied an opportunity to learn history, let us take a brief journey through memory.

Ibrahim Babangida, the self-styled ‘evil genius’, in 1985  toppled Buhari in a palace coup, destroyed our political parties and political socialisation process by proscribing political parties and banning old politicians thereby cutting off the umbilical cord between mother and baby.  Humouring himself by pretending he had something on party formation to offer Nigerians that first formed political party in 1923, he decreed his own two parties, the National Republican Council (NRC) and the Social Democratic Party (SDP).

After banning and unbanning of old politicians and experimenting with his ‘new breed politicians’ during his eight years transition without end, he fixed June12, 1993 for a presidential election.

On June 11, Arthur Nzeribe and his proscribed Association for Better Nigeria, (ABN), which had earlier unsuccessfully campaigned for “four more years for Babangida” as military president, secured a 4pm interlocutory injunction from Justice Bassey Ikpeme’s Abuja High Court to stop the election.

Of course, Humphrey Nwosu, chairman of National Electoral Commission, NEC, backed by Decree 13 of 1993 that established the electoral commission  which stated very clearly in 19 (1) that “no court of law had the power to dictate to NEC as to date or time of election” went ahead with the exercise.

Babangida promulgated another decree on June 23, annulling the election and fixing August 12 as new date for a new election in which MKO Abiola and his counterpart Bashir Tofa would be free to participate. He then foisted on the country, an illegal contraption called Interim National Government which was dismissed by Abacha on November 19, 1993.

Following Abiola’s June 11, 1994 Epetedo self-declaration as president-elect, Abacha clamped him into prison, declared war on his supporters, assassinated Alfred Rewane, Kudirat Abiola, among many others, and hounded NADECO opposition members into exile.

But before Babangida was disgraced out of office and Abacha died a miserable death inside Aso Rock seat of power he immorally usurped, one man that fought their battle like a slave was Walter Ofonagoro.

He was “one of those men who would rather rule in hell than serve in heaven and was prepared to rewrite history, turn facts on their head and make untruth and propaganda something close to a direct principle of state policy”. Louisa Ayonote: “There was never June 12” (Tell, August19, 1996)

Intoxicated by power like Abacha his new master, Ofonagoro as Director General Nigerian Television Authority, (NTA), became a terror and a threat to all. “All the media houses under his supervision – NTA, Daily Times, New Nigerian and Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria” came to grief while privately-owned media houses with Ofonagoro’s draconian newspaper registration decree were in ruins. He saw nothing wrong with disappearances of journalists from the streets, their persecution and imprisonment.

 For Ofonagoro, “there was never June 12”. If ever there was a June 12, it was just another day in the calendar or “a day the nation held an illegal election”.

Despite Babangida’s public admission that he annulled the election for reasons ranging from restiveness in the military, to alleged rejection of Abiola by northern hegemonic power, Ofonagoro insisted Babangida annulled only “cases pending in court” because of his concern for the health of our judiciary”.

To Ofonagoro, Abiola’s outright rejection of Babangida’s proposed new election on the ground that “a man does not re-sit an examination he had already passed”, was an art of ingratitude to a benevolent leader; those sanctioning Nigeria without condemning Abiola’s self-declaration at Epetedo, “are enthroning lawlessness in Nigeria” while NADECO which eventually saw the end of Abacha did not exist because police had issued statement saying ‘that “anything called NADECO, is an illegal body”.

Read Also: June 12: Radda pushes for strong institutions

No one escaped Ofonagoro’s caustic tongue. Wole Soyinka, generally regarded as the conscience of the nation, “was being used by Western world who know he is out of his limits beyond his turf.” He took solace in the fact that “Soyinka, by training, is a dramatist and he is doing an excellent job of dramatizing falsehood abroad”.

For joining NADECO’s struggle against military dictatorship and going abroad to campaign against Abacha’s war against the nation, Chief Enahoro one of the heroes of Nigerian independence struggle, “was at 72 causing trouble for his grandchildren”. Ofonagoro’s consolation however was that “each time he causes trouble here and runs to England, he is often extradited by the white man”. And throwing the final jibe, he declared: “Irresponsible politics is not the hallmark of a statesman”

Even as Abacha‘s goons killed  protesting youths  on the streets of Lagos and NADECO members in their homes, Ofonagoro dared America and Canada saying: “Nigeria is  a respecter of rule of law” and “in case the western world has forgotten the rule of law, Nigeria was prepared to teach them”.

Irrational behaviour is often the result of complex social and political issues man has had to cope with. Ofonagoro revealed the demon tormenting him towards the end of the Louisa Ayonote’s interview when he declared he was “not afraid to take a stand and say what we are fighting is tribal hegemonism”.

This is a demon in man that social theorists from Plato Rousseau and Sigmund Freud have discovered could not be tamed even with education. As if to validate their thesis, Ofonagoro’s “I left Canada in 1966 with BA first class. I am a minister with a Ph.D. I am a former professor from Columbia and a former member of Academic staff of University of Lagos” could not tame his irrational, aggressive and destructive tendencies because they are facts of human relation.

To tame man’s hegemonic struggle, the western world  realised after two devastating tribal wars, called ‘world wars’, that man’s love is first to his family, his group, society and finally the state. They therefore came up with a federal arrangement where groups that share identical values, cultures and worldview within multi-ethnic societies come together in pursuit of common goal. Empirical studies have shown that while this may not totally eliminate irrational, aggressive and destructive facts of human relations, it has the tendency of promoting national cohesion.

The Middle Belt region of Nigeria in spite of intra and inter- ethnic rivalries that have come to define the area can become the food basket of Nigeria if the people are allowed to manage their own affairs through local and state policing. Similarly, without the tyranny of the state, the Southeast can become the industrial hub of Nigerian manufacturing.

From Sigmund Fraud’s ‘Civilization and its discontents”, we now know that subconsciously, we all harbour Ofonagoro’s demon, which finds expression in the struggle for cultural predominance of one group over the other.

Today, the evidence of Ofonagoro’s absence was the presence of a new set of ethnic irredentists ready to continue from where he stopped 1993.

I think it is time to stop playing the ostrich and restructure the country if only to liberate groups and individuals from the tyranny of the state.

On Democracy Day, last Monday June 12, President Tinubu paid glowing tributes to Chief MKO Abiola, a martyr who stood for “principles that are far more valuable than life itself”, and his wife, who had declared from the trenches shortly before her assassination by agents of the state that “June 12 is worth defending with our lives, otherwise, our children will continue to be slaves in their own fatherland”.

 The president also paid tributes to others who “gave their yesterday for the liberty that is ours today,” such as Pa Alfred Rewane, the chief financier of NADECO, assassinated in his Ikeja home and others, including Pa Ajasin, Adesanya, Enahoro, Rear Admiral Ndubuisi Kanu, Dr. Beko Ransome-Kuti, Col. Tanko Umar, Balarabe Musa, Lt.-Gen. Alani Akinrinade, Dr. Kayode John Fayemi of ‘Radio Kudirat’ etc.

For the records, we must also not forget the anti-June 1993 villains. Topping the list is the evil genius himself, Ibrahim Babangida, who annulled the most credible election in our nation’s history. His accomplices include Olusegun Obasanjo, Sani Abacha, Francis Arthur Nzeribe, Clement Akpamgbo – then Attorney-General of the Federation, Justice Bassey Ikpeme, Walter Ofonagoro, Uche Chukwumerije and Odumegwu Ojukwu who served as Abacha’s ambassador to Europe to de-market Abiola.

 President Muhammad Buhari in 2018 became an unexpected hero of democracy when he conferred the nation’s highest honour, Grand Commander of Federal Republic of Nigeria on Abiola and declared June 12 Nigeria’s Democracy Day. This was after Obasanjo, the major beneficiary of Abiola’s sacrifice had for eight years danced on Abiola’s grave without acknowledging Abiola’s heroic sacrifice, 

Read Also: Accord Party urges Tinubu to declare late MKO Abiola President-elect

But the late Balarabe Musa, Nigerian elder-statesman and the conscience of the north had wanted Buhari to “complete the task he started by investigating the circumstances that led to annulment of June 12, (fish out) those responsible for the annulment and punish them effectively so that it will not happen again.”  For Balarabe Musa, impunity of those who betrayed Nigeria has only brought the past to pain.

For instance, in 1999, Obasanjo literally climbed the palm tree from the top by becoming elected president without a political base having being roundly rejected by his Yoruba people only to vindictively rig out all southwest governors except Lagos in the 2003. He went on to inflict more injuries on our nation in 2007 when he presided over the most scandalous election in the nation’s history, denounced by the chief beneficiary of the electoral heist, Umaru Yar’Adua who promptly set up the Uwais electoral Review Commission to ensure such calamity never befalls our nation again.

Nigerians paid for the perfidy of Obasanjo and his other anti-June 12 1993 elements. First, they confiscated 25% of the national budget, institutionalised the fuel subsidy regime to fleece Nigeria of billions of naira and sold to themselves Nigeria’s total investments of over $100b for a paltry $1.5b through ill-implemented privatization. They had no qualms converting into personal use, properties dating back to the pre-colonial period kept in their custody for future generation, in the name of a dubious commercialisation policy.

Fast-track to 2023; it will appear the anti-June 12 enemies of democracy have regrouped under Obasanjo. Taking a leaf from their 1993 playbook, Obasanjo and Charles Oputa had planned massive protests against the February 2023 election. Obasanjo followed up with an open letter to Buhari and a press conference calling for the abortion of announcement of the result alleging fraud without proof. Then, the ‘Obidients’ demanded for an Interim National Government or outright military take-over. The only difference: unlike duplicitous Babangida who violated his own electoral decree, Buhari remained faithful to the constitution.

As it was in 1993, prominent Igbo leaders, including elder-statesman Chukwuemeka Ezeife, threatened to make the country ungovernable if the then president-elect was sworn in. Pat Utomi was on various platforms alleging fraud without proof. Olisa Agbakoba (SAN) publicly declared his lack of confidence in the judiciary. The ‘Obi-media’, like 1993 pro-Babangida section of the media, was on hand to manipulate public opinion through misinformation.

The 2023 election in which stalwarts of the ruling party, including the president, the party chairmen, the presidential candidate and many governors, lost their political strongholds because of APC’s eight years of mismanagement of our crisis of nation-building  was perhaps  the most credible elections after the 1993 as a result of application of technology. But as it was in 1993, for Obasanjo and his fellow 2023 election deniers, their only reality is the picture in their heads.

Tinubu’s 2023 historic victory was a defeat of Obi’s appeal to regionalism, ethnic particularism, and sectarianism. But just as in 1993 when Igbo elite withdrew support for Abiola, alleging ethnicisation of his struggle by his Yoruba people, todays efforts by Yoruba to prevent the replication of Anambra tragedy in Lagos has been seen as attempt to des-enfranchise Igbos in Lagos.

In 1999, godfather Sir Emeka Offor, installed Mbadinuju as governor of Anambra State. Dividends on his investments were in form of direct monthly deductions from Anambra federal allocations. The burden soon became too much for Mbadinuju and Anambra that salaries of Anambra civil servants could not be paid while schools in the state had to be closed for a year.

In 2003, Andy Uba, publicly admitted rigging Chris Ngige into office, following an oath-taking before the Okija shrine. Uba was also said to be responsible for the appointment of all Ngige’s commissioners. Then, Ngige was kidnapped and locked up like a common criminal for refusing to sign a prepared document authorizing direct monthly deduction of N10b for some 89 months. Embattled Ngige said he had only 48 months as governor. Audu Ogbe’s appeal as chairman of PDP to Obasanjo “to act now and bring any and all criminals, even treasonable activities, to a halt” only earned him a sack after sharing a lunch of pounded yam with President Obasanjo, Uba’s godfather.

Ojukwu installed Peter Obi before moving from APGA to join PDP, following the death of his godfather. Obi also installed Willie Obiano.

The only legacy of 24 years reign of anti-democracy traders in Anambra is a daily harvest of deaths visited by Igbo on Igbo according to Governor Charles Soludo.

Lagos on the hand was taken over by Bola Tinubu, one of the heroes of today’s democracy in 1999. He laid the foundation for the rapid transformation of Lagos from one of the dirtiest states to a modern city now rated as the sixth economy in Africa. Fashola the self- proclaiming ‘actualiser’ followed Tinubu’s masterplan. So was Ambode except for a moment of absent-mindedness when he temporarily abandoned the masterplan. Sanwo-Olu has today completed some of the legacy projects including the metro-line, the new Lekki airport and Lekki deep sea.

It is doubtful if Igbo 2023 election deniers who want to make an Anambra of Lagos by foisting a Rhodes-Vivor with no cognate experience on Lagos see any difference between Anambra and Lagos. They also want us to believe Obi who exploited the sentiments of his people at home and support of Igbo urban immigrants to secure 25% in 16 states below the 25 constitutional thresholds, defeated Tinubu who secured 25%in 30 states scoring as many votes among Christians as among Muslims across the nation.

2023 like 1993 is an attempt to play the ostrich by those bent on imposing their own world view no matter how depraved on others. President Tinubu may not be able to change the past; he must however understand even from his recent travails, that our problem is not economics but politics. Restructuring, to borrow Bode Thomas phrase, ‘is the only way to prevent being ruled by one-eyed king’.

With the torture Nigerians experienced as a result of artificial fuel scarcity and Emefiele’s wicked conspiracy against Nigerians with his politically-motivated currency swap on the eve of an election, 2023 has been a hell on earth for many Nigerians. They could not wait for tired President Muhammadu Buhari to depart Aso rock villa seat of government. Slamming the same Nigerians struggling to survive with an increase of 160% from (N189 to over N500) in fuel pump price due to what President Tinubu described as a force majeure since the immediate past government did not make budgetary provision for subsidy beyond June, must be a bitter pill to swallow by Nigerians.  One can therefore understand NLC’s righteous indignation against government.

Although removal of fuel subsidy which many Nigerians including President Buhari consider a scam was part of Tinubu’s campaign promises. It is equally true state governors as members of the National Executive Council, had met and agreed before the election that the PMS subsidy was harmful while the National Assembly went a step further to pass a law affirming removal of subsidy. To ensure the decision was irreversible, no budgetary provision was made by the immediate past government. Unfortunately, those facts will not assuage the raw feelings of suffering and impoverished Nigerians.

But many believe that declaring an indefinite strike three days after inauguration of a new government with students of secondary schools nationwide, writing WAEC exams and university students who have only just resumed after eight months-long ASUU strike seems to have been borrowed from IPOB play book which celebrates biting one’s nose in order to spite one’s face.

It is just as well that after a marathon meeting between a government team and leaders of the Trade Union Congress (TUC) and Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) late on Monday night, the planned indefinite strike over the removal of petrol was put off.  NLC’s hand was further tied by Justice Olufunke Anuwe, who in her ruling, agreed that ‘the proposed strike action is capable of disrupting economic activities, the health and the educational sectors’.

The tragedy is that, IPMAN, NLC, NNPC have for years waged a vicious war against Nigeria.  For instance, why should President Tinubu’s announcement that the fuel subsidy is gone for good’, which was an affirmation of what has become a force majeure lead to a knee-jerk reaction from IPMAN who despite the fact that their current stock was procured on old rate, created artificial scarcity forcing Nigerians to buy fuel at amount ranging between N500 to N800?

With the end of fuel subsidy regime, the chickens have finally come home to roost.  NNPC, IPMAN and NLC that have remained the nations scourge are now coming out to show how much they love us.

First to demonstrate its love for us was the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) that has since 1999 actively participated in prolonging Nigeria’s nightmare.  Its heartache last week was that Tinubu may not get “the N13 trillion saving being bandied around by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), as the amount to be saved from the removal of the subsidy apparently based on its projection of 60 million litres per day. 

But that was not original to IPMAN. Hameed Ali, the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) Customs comptroller-general, was the first to query NNPC Ltd’s 60m litres consumption claim during a session with the House of Representatives’ Committee on Finance in September 2022 when he said: “So, how did you get to 60 million litres per day? “If you release 98 million litres in actuality and 60 million litres are used, the balance should be 38 million litres. How many trucks will carry 38 million litres every day? Which road are they following and where are they carrying this thing to?”

If indeed we have been swindled, it must be with active connivance of IPMAN since with vandalization of federal government fuel dumps across the country, all purported imported fuel ends up in their members’ fuel dumps. It will also appear that NLC that is set to pull down Tinubu’s three-day administration with three days’ notice for an indefinite strike love none but their members. There have been many missed opportunities to demonstrate their love for Nigeria.

Read Also: Subsidy: Nigeria not consuming 60ml/ day, says IPMAN

During the Obasanjo administration, the National Assembly increased number of fuel importers from the four multinationals to over a hundred. Under Jonathan administration, with Bukola Saraki serving as whistle-blower, it was discovered through a House probe that children of PDP stalwarts forged documents to defraud Nigeria of about N1.7trillion ‘without importing a pint of fuel” while NLC did nothing.

NLC members were also active in Nigerian Ports Authority, (NPA), the custodians of all the records of the ships that purportedly brought in the consignments of fuel; same with the global body of shippers, the Lloyd’s with their register just as the Central Bank of Nigeria has the records of all claims processed for payment.

President Obasanjo, frustrated by dubious Nigerians after sinking huge amount of funds into turn around maintenance with little relief to Nigerians decided to sell the moribund refineries to Dangote and Otedola. Yar’Adua succumbed to NLC threat to make Nigerian ungovernable if the sales were not reversed.

 As for NNPC, details showed that Kaduna refinery spent N24 billion in direct costs to record zero revenue and an operating loss of N64 billion for 2018. A breakdown of the direct costs and administrative expenses showed that it incurred N447.7 million in training expenses, security expenses of N230 million, communication expenses of N37.3 million, and consultancy fees of N843 million.

Similarly, a breakdown of the payments made to directors showed that total employee cost was put at N23 billion in 2018. These payments include salaries and wages, death benefit, administrative expenses, etc. The financial statement showed that Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company Limited (KRPC) generated no revenue in 2018, but incurred an operating loss of N64.5 billion.

For the Warri Refining Company, the audited financial statement showed that the company earned N1.98 billion as revenue while it incurred N12.74 billion as cost of sales, resulting in a gross loss of N10.57 billion and an operating loss of N45.39 billion. The Port Harcourt Refining Company recorded total revenue of N1.45 billion in 2018 with expenses of N24.04 billion, resulting in a gross loss of N22.58 billion.

NLC is tarred with the same brush with IPMAN and NNPC. It is their members that sabotaged the refineries after each turnaround repair; it is they that vandalise federal government depots forcing NNPC to rely on private depots for imported petroleum products. It is their members that ferry tankers across the borders to Benin Republic, Togo, Niger and Sudan. It is they that vandalised the 4,500 kilometres of fuel pipeline put in place by Obasnjo in 1979, to pave the way for some individuals who today boast of as many as ten thousand trucks.

Between 2013 and 2015, NNPC expended about $396m on Turn-Around Maintenance of refineries in the country. Under Buhari N7.9trn was spent on   petrol subsidy while another N4.15trn went for maintaining and rehabilitating the three refineries since 2015. Altogether, the nation may have spent about $25bn on the refineries in 25 years, according to a report in BusinessDay.

It is instructive that the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) and its president, Joe Ajaero, that now threaten to topple a three-day government, harbours some unscrupulous individuals that manipulated the subsidy fraud for their own personal gains, saw nothing, heard nothing and did nothing in the last eight years.