Category: Editorial

• Increase in major oil marketers alone cannot guarantee stable fuel supply

In what has been described by industry watchers as the first move of its kind in the last 25 years, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) has raised the number of major oil marketers in the country from seven to 27. The upgrading of 20 new oil firms to major oil marketers’ status is partly informed by the desire to find a lasting solution to the persisting fuel scarcity that has hit large swathes of the country in recent months. This led to long queues at filling stations that have the commodity in major cities as well as arbitrary hike in prices. The black market in the sale of Premium Motor Spirit (petrol) has been booming with the attendant rise in transportation and energy costs as well as the spillover effect on food prices.

Consequently, the economic situation has worsened for the majority of citizens with many more people caught deeper in the poverty trap. It was so serious that the Department of State Services (DSS), which apparently suspected sabotage, directed that the fuel scarcity be brought to an end immediately.

Before the new initiative, the only seven major marketers in the country were TotalEnergies, OVH Energy (Oando), MRS, Conoil PLC, Ardova PLC, 11 PLC and NNPC Retail Limited. But will the quantum leap in the number of major oil marketers finally resolve the perennial problem of fuel scarcity? Not a few operators and experts in the industry have expressed doubts that this will be the case. For one, there is the widespread perception that despite the coming on stream of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) and the new status of the NNPCL as a private company, not much has changed in concrete terms as regards the structure of the industry and the fundamental sources of its multiple inefficiencies remain unaddressed. Despite its change in nomenclature, the oil behemoth is still seen as operating as a monopoly with a strangulating hold on the efficient functioning of the industry.

For instance, some have questioned the criteria for the upgrading of the new major oil marketers and if the entire process was transparent and driven by merit. According to an investigative report by The Punch newspaper, industry insiders claim that some of the upgraded companies had been accorded the status of major oil marketers by the NNPCL long before now and enjoyed priority allocations without all their stations still having petroleum products readily available. Again, some argue that one of the criteria for the firms elevated to the new status was that they must have branches across the country in addition to owning depots; but not all met this yardstick.

It is expected that the newly upgraded major marketers will now be supplied products directly from the NNPCL at the controlled price of N148 per litre, with the mandate that they sell products to consumers at between N170 and N190 per litre, determined by the location of sale. The view has been expressed that NNPCL still operates like a monopoly with an overbearing influence on the process at a time when emphasis should be on a systematically enhanced liberalisation of the market. While the company has over the last four years been the sole importer of petrol into Nigeria, with other marketers being forced to stop importation due to insufficient foreign exchange allocation for the purpose, the NNPCL’s distribution channels and depots across the country have virtually collapsed.

For instance, industry operatives told The Punch that all the NNPCL’s about 21 depots meant for the storage of petroleum products are reportedly non-functional just as the four refineries under the company’s management have been redundant for years. Furthermore, the pipelines constructed for evacuation of products to the depots have been paralysed by vandalism and lack of upgrading and proper maintenance, with the NNPCL having to contract these responsibilities to private depot owners. Despite these inefficiencies, the NNPCL continues to play a central role in the process, with negative implications for the industry’s importation and distribution chain.

Experts contend that even when there is sufficient availability of products in the country, efficient distribution of these is hampered by lack of adequate investment in the maintenance, renewal and sustained growth of such infrastructural facilities as refineries, pipelines, depots and modern filling stations. It is not surprising that oil marketers have been consistently critical of the import monopoly enjoyed by the NNPCL, saying it is unhealthy for the petrol market. They have advocated for the Federal Government to allow healthy competition by granting licenses and access to foreign exchange by marketers willing to engage in petroleum products importation.

Indeed, as the General Manager, Operations, of TotalEnergies Marketing Nigeria Limited, Abdulmutalib Rabiu, argued at a recent workshop, “But so long as NNPCL remains the sole importer of products, the amount spent on importation should be published for everyone to see because it is public funds that the company is using to bring in the products”. It is difficult to lightly dismiss such sentiments because, for as long as the NNPCL continues to operate in an opaque manner, its supposed restructuring and commercialisation as a private company cannot achieve the desired objectives.

Beyond this, we find it incongruous that the NNPCL, which is itself a player and operator in the market, also continues to act as a regulator contrary to the letter and spirit of the PIA. The Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) should be the regulatory authority in the industry responsible for registering and monitoring different categories of marketers and other operators, including the NNPCL. But although the letter approving the upgrading of the 20 new major marketers was signed by the Chief Executive of the NMDPRA, Mr. Farouk Ahmed, it was reportedly written on the official letterhead of the NNPCL. This is improper and suggestive of the subordination of the former under the latter when it should be an autonomous regulator.

In all, it is not the number of major and other oil marketers that matters, but the availability of products. It is obvious that a fundamental cause of the present problem is the continued importation of petroleum products due to non-functional local refineries and the attendant pressure on scarce foreign exchange. This is why the coming on stream of local refining capacity must continue to be the most urgent priority of the authorities.

Politicians buying up PVCs have evil agenda beyond BVAS

Politicians are on the prowl buying up Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) of prospective voters ahead of the 2023 general election, according to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The malpractice, which is recurrent in Nigerian electoral culture, is apparently aimed at crookedly influencing the outcomes of the imminent poll comprising the national elections into the Presidency and National Assembly seats on February 25, 2023, and state elections into the governorships and house of assembly seats on March 11. Although the electoral body reassures the undertaking is futile, a safer bet would be to earnestly tackle down the perpetrators and stop them from carrying on with their evil merchandising.

Acting Chairman of INEC and National Commissioner overseeing the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nasarawa, Kaduna and Plateau states, Mallam Mohammed Haruna, raised the alarm early last week that some politicians have been buying up PVCs by financially inducing unsuspecting voters. Speaking on Monday at the launch of #YourVoteMatters project by an election observer group, NESSACTION, in Abuja, Haruna stated: “We are aware some politicians are more or less buying PVCs.” He warned voters involved in such transaction they are personally liable, saying: “If you collect PVC and then sell it out or allow someone else to have it, you are aiding illegal possession of the PVC, which is an offence in our Electoral Act. Some of you are aware that only recently, INEC managed to convict two people found guilty of illegal possession of PVCs in Kano and Sokoto. So, I urge people to collect their PVC, keep it safe and make sure that on election day, you go out there and cast your vote because, of course, without your PVC you cannot vote.”

The INEC chief spoke against the backdrop of express provisions of the legal framework which outlaw illicit dealing with the PVC, among them Section 117 of the Electoral (Amendment) Act 2020 prohibiting improper use of voter cards. Subsection (d) of that section stipulates that: “Any person who buys, sells, procures or deals with a voter card otherwise than as provided in this Act commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a maximum fine of N1,000,000 or imprisonment for a term of 12 months or both.”

The electoral commission vowed to track down and prosecute anyone who buys or sells PVCs, while allaying fears such abuse could be of any consequence to the forthcoming poll. Chief Press Secretary to INEC Chairman Professor Mahmud Yakubu, Rotimi Oyekanmi, was reported saying the introduction of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) had become a gamechanger in political actors’ attempts to put PVCs to fraudulent use. “Recall that for the 2015 and 2019 general elections, the commission used the Smart Card Reader (SCR) to authenticate the PVC and accredit the voter on election day via his or her fingerprint and allowed the use of the Incident Form. Unfortunately, some politicians took advantage of this waiver, bought PVCs, gave them out to their acquired voters and sent them to polling units to vote, using the Incident Form. This was one of the reasons why the commission introduced the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System for the 2023 general election,” he was quoted saying by The PUNCH, adding: “The BVAS has one significant advantage over the SCR: it accredits through fingerprint and facial recognition. So, if your fingerprint fails, certainly your face will not fail. However, if the BVAS rejects your face, it means you are not an authentic voter and will not be allowed to vote. You will be asked to leave the polling station immediately. You could also be arrested for impersonation.”

For its part, the Nigeria Police has ramped up collaboration with other security agencies in furtherance of plans to ensure free, fair, and credible elections in 2023. On Tuesday, last week, the Inspector-General of Police, Usman Baba, held a strategic meeting with all heads of operations of national security agencies in the country. Force Public Relations Officer Olumuyiwa Adejobi also said the security service would work closely with INEC to apprehend PVC merchandisers.

It will be helpful for the electoral process if INEC and the police make good their word to tackle down PVC buyers and sellers. No doubt it is a tough call stopping a prospective voter from selling his/her voter card, especially if there are motivating factors like economic inducement he/she considers sufficiently compelling. INEC can only intensify voter education to dissuade people from pawning their PVC, no matter the inducement. Another approach, though, could be to track down PVC buyers, and from stockpiles found with them, to fish out some designated holders and call them to account for how their PVCs got into wrong hands. Where satisfactory explanation can’t be provided, such designated holders should be prosecuted along with the buyers, so that they would serve as deterrence to others.

Political actors have always been mutually suspicious of how fraudulently acquired PVCs could be used to falsify election results, and they are always quick to point accusing fingers at others than themselves. They didn’t fail to live up to that billing following INEC’s latest alarm. But the fact is: the malpractice cuts across because many political actors haven’t imbibed the ethic of good sportsmanship. They look for ways of cornering power by hook or crook, including by shortchanging competitors of legitimate political support. In actual fact, the confidence of INEC that buying up voter cards would be futile on election day may be presumptuous. Politicians no longer buy PVCs to put to use on election day, knowing the formidability of technology now being deployed for polls; rather, they buy voters cards in perceived strongholds of opponents to deflate the support for such opponents. That is the reason it isn’t enough to rest assured they can’t get through BVAS. They have to be stopped from perpetrating preemptive rigging.

• Why would NCS procure armoured vehicles and won’t use them in eight years? 

It is incredible that a high-risk establishment like the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) would acquire armoured personnel carriers (APC) and not put them to use for eight years. The APCs were procured in 2014 apparently by the NCS to boost anti-smuggling operations in Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, and Osun states but have never been used. That is the takeaway from the story published by Leadership Newspaper on December 9, headlined “Multimillion Naira Customs armoured vehicles rot away”. What makes the story particularly depressing is that the customs service has continued to lose its officers and men to smugglers who would stop at nothing to pursue their illegal activities. They had abducted several customs men, engaged them in fierce gun battles, sometimes with heavy casualties on both sides, and killed not a few of them in active service in the most gory manner.

Nigerians at the border towns and those who have witnessed the exchange of gunfire between customs men and smugglers would testify to the determination and uncommon audacity of the criminals to uproot any obstacle that may want to stand between them and their contraband. Such confrontations cannot pass for tea party because some witnesses to them did not live to tell the story. The smugglers drive recklessly without consideration for other road users. In fact, they are ‘kings of the road’ whenever they decide to move, usually in convoys. Their drivers are some of the worst hit-and-run drivers that one can think of. In their desperate effort to escape arrest, they have killed many people, including customs officers.

In April 2018, a Customs officer, Rasheed Abdulsalam, of the Federal Operations Unit (FOU), Zone A, Lagos, was kidnapped after a fierce battle with smugglers, with some of his colleagues also sustaining various degrees of injuries in the face-off that occurred in the night around Gateway Hotel, Ota, Ogun State. It is feared that he would have been killed by the smugglers who kidnapped him because he has not been seen or heard from since then. Smugglers killed another customs officer, Hamisu Sani, and injured an inspector, Tijani Michael, during an ambush at Asero community in Abeokuta, Ogun State, in January 2019.

According to Leadership, about 10 operatives of the FOU, Zone A, Lagos, have been killed while about 20 have been injured by the smugglers in the last four years. The list of the officers and men that were usually ambushed by the criminals is too long to recall.

Many of these casualties would have been alive to continue to render invaluable services to the country if the APCs had been put into operation. There is a limit to how far customs officers can go in pursuit of smugglers in the Hilux vehicles that form the bulk of their operational vehicles. Guns can easily penetrate these vehicles. Granted that the customs personnel cannot be moving around in APCs all the time, at least they would be in a position to assess the operations that the armoured vehicles would better serve their purpose, with minimal risks to their lives and limbs.

A question that readily comes into mind when a story like this is in the news is ‘why are we like this’? In 2018, we were told that about 693 containers of power equipment meant to boost power supply worth billions of Naira were abandoned at the ports for 15  years! These were vital equipment purchased with public funds to provide electricity to power-hungry Nigerians. As a matter of fact, some of them had been auctioned by the NCS before the government recovered them. We can go on and on listing such abandoned government property that no one cares to know what is happening to them.

As a clearing agent, Sylvester Nnamdi, operating at Apapa port said,  ”The customs CG should be asked why the APCs are not being put into use. Was it due to maintenance or logistics issues?” As far as we are concerned, however, no excuse is good enough to explain the abandonment of the APCs. These are tools that would not only boost the operational efficiency of the customs but also do that with less risk to their lives.

We therefore, call on the comptroller-general of the NCS to investigate why these vehicles are not being used. Is he even aware of their existence? Whatever it is, the customs boss must do the rightful, with a view to putting the APCs to use. No one puts a lit candle under the table. Abandoning the APCs to rot away is tantamount to the NCS hiding a lit candle under the table. It is like a soldier who had an armour but chose to receive bullets with his bare chest. That is demonstrating valour in reverse.

• Uzodinma tells politicians how to play the game

It sounded strange when Imo State Governor Hope Uzodinma, last week, not only approved Labour Party’s application to use the Admiral Ndubuisi Kanu Square, Owerri, for campaign, but announced that any political party would be availed the use of any public facilities henceforth.  The last person anyone would expect to make such announcement is the governor.

The state has been a theatre of war, with security men regularly engaged in gun duel with men suspected to be operatives of the proscribed Independent People of Biafra (IPOB) and its more militant arm, Eastern Security Network (ESN). The governor had always been quick to blame all forms of insecurity in the state on the opposition. So, when he obliged the Obi-Datti campaign use of the square, it came as a surprise. We hope that the state government would walk its talk by ensuring that it adheres fully to tenets of democracy which is the only panacea to the perennial abductions and senseless murders that have characterised the state for some time.

During this campaign period, all participants should be assured that access to state-owned public communication outfits, participation in engagements with the public would be made open to all citizens, irrespective of their political affiliation.

This is the global standard practice and should apply in all states of the federation. It is really not something we should be applauding in 21st Century Nigeria, but for the tendency of some governors to act as medieval emperors. The Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike, had to announce that he would make available logistics support for the presidential candidates of the Labour Party and New Nigeria People’s Party. In an environment where all breathe the air of freedom, the declaration would have been needless since it’s not a privilege. All a party participating in the election need do is follow laid down guidelines.

In Edo State, the governor, Godwin Obaseki, still plays adversarial politics. He makes the public space unavailable to opposition parties despite the governorship election in the state not due until 2024, by which time he will no longer be eligible to seek the office.

The future of Nigeria is bright if we can all play according to the rules of the game, that is, abide by the constitution, the electoral act, and guidelines by the Independent National Electoral Commission  (INEC) and the political parties. Democracy thrives and spurs development when the Rule of Law prevails at all times and circumstances.

The onus is on INEC and the security agencies, especially the police, to perform their roles impartially. It is unfortunate that more than six decades after independence,  we are yet unable to conduct free, fair and credible elections. The closest to that was the 1993 presidential election of Chief M.K.O. Abiola that was cruelly annulled by the Babangida administration. Every other election had been dogged by violence, corruption, controversy and dissension.

It’s time Nigeria as the most populous country on the African continent braced up to play a leading role by shining the light that could liberate the region and thus win respect of other countries. Political intolerance led to the collapse of our first and second republics. The operation wet-e that pulled down the first attempt at a republic was  as a result of thuggery arising from unwillingness of politicians to abide by the rules prior to and after the 1964 federal and 1965 western parliamentary elections. 1983 was even worse.

We ought to have learnt lessons from the horrendous outcomes of those elections that led to avoidable loss of lives and properties.

Governor Uzodinma has acted well in this instance. But he has to follow up by ensuring that  people’s confidence in the process is rekindled so that he can be regarded as a true beacon of hope.

•Getting National Assembly’s approval is a step in the right direction

Faced with the country’s increasing socio-economic challenges, the Federal Government needs all the money it can get to deal with the situation, and cannot afford to continue losing substantial tax revenue through waivers.

Senator Yahaya Abubakar Abdullahi (PDP, Kebbi North), the sponsor of a bill to amend the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) Act, gave an insight into the losses due to tax waivers.  He said during the debate on the bill in the Senate: “In early 2020, the FIRS reported a loss of N1.3 trillion to tax waivers, in five years. And this was in just three sectors of the economy. Similarly, in October 2021, losses were put at $2.9 billion yearly, in tax waivers to multinationals.”

He also observed that “there are several other similar cases; and all this is happening in the face of increasing government difficulties to fund its various development projects and welfare commitments across the country.”

It is difficult to fault the rationale for the bill which, after the second reading, was sent to the Senate Committee on Trade and Investment for further input.

The proposed law seeks to regulate the processes of granting corporate tax holidays, import duty waivers and investment incentives to investors and businesses in Nigeria. Consequently, it would reduce the power of the executive branch of the government to unilaterally grant tax holidays and incentives to businesses.

Under a proposed new Section (9) in the FIRS Act, the agency will require approval of the National Assembly in granting of new or renewal of corporate tax incentives and waivers for purposes of transparency, efficiency, effective monitoring and fair play.

In addition, requests and applications for legislative approval “shall stipulate clear conditions and justification for granting tax waivers and investment incentives.”  Also, any other related law that conflicts with the provision of the proposed act, shall be deemed, not applicable.

Essentially, the move aims to check possible abuse of power regarding such waivers and concessions, especially by officials in the executive arm of the government. There are allegations that the processes are characterised by favouritism, subjectivity and corruption.

Indeed, the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, in October, during the 2023 budget presentation, had advised the President Muhammadu Buhari administration to “review the waivers and concessions government has granted to the tune of six trillion Naira,” adding that “in a difficult time like this, some of the waivers may no longer be justified.”  Figures from the Debt Management Office (DMO) on dwindling government revenue underline the necessity for such a review.  In 2020, targeted revenue was N5.4 trillion but actual revenue was N3.9 trillion. In 2021, the target was N6.4 trillion but N4.64 trillion was received. This year, targeted revenue was N5.82 trillion but the government got N3.66 trillion.

There is a critical need for increased revenue, and reviewing tax administration may well be part of the solution. Leakages and loopholes in tax collection and remittances to the government along with revenue shortfall and high debt profile have not helped matters.  Senator Abdullahi said “even while the government explores other means of increasing its revenue streams and improving collecting capacity, the National Assembly must act with firmness and determination to ensure that we initiate and pass laws that regulate revenue streams collection and remittance.”

However, passing laws is not enough. It is important to stress that new laws will not necessarily produce the desired increase in revenue if they are poorly implemented. In particular, the review of waivers and concessions, and the replacement of the old system must be guided by a sense of propriety. In addition, the authorities must ensure that the old dysfunction is not replaced with a new one.

•New curriculum is good, but is it enough to save embattled university system?

University education in Nigeria should soon become more suited to market needs, courtesy of a new curriculum unveiled by the National Universities Commission (NUC). The Core Curriculum and Minimum Academic Standards (CCMAS), which replaces the Benchmark Minimum Academic Standard (BMAS) currently in use, addresses knowledge and skills gaps as relates to the economy and compares favourably in content to curricula of the best university systems in the world, while retaining relevance to Nigeria’s socio-cultural context, according to the NUC.

The CCMAS was presented in Abuja early last week as part of activities marking the 60thanniversary of the universities regulator. Speaking ahead of the unveiling, NUC Executive Secretary Professor Abubakar Rasheed said government, through his commission, embarked on radical re-engineering of Nigerian universities’ curricula to meet global standards, towards preparing Nigerian graduates for relevance in the world economy and equipping them with skills needed for the future. “The CCMAS…provides 70 percent of what should be taught along with expected outcomes, while universities will provide 30 percent based on their contextual peculiarities and characteristics,” he stated. The NUC had in 2021 empanelled experts drawn from various disciplines across Nigerian universities to design the new core curriculum and minimum academic standards.

Giving further insight at its presentation last week, former NUC Executive Secretary Professor Peter Okebukola explained that the new curriculum allows universities to customise what they teach by adding 30 percent of courses to reflect their uniqueness, mission and peculiarities. “It places assent on 100 percent entrepreneurship, practical rather than theoretical knowledge and skills, and cultivation of 21st Century skills in line with contemporary global best practices,” he said inter alia. According to him, the new curriculum should stimulate greater learning as it is strategically configured to produce future fit graduates, provide essential foundation for lifelong learning, nurture deep thinkers and problem solvers as well as graduates highly skilled in their respective profession and discipline, while also encouraging interdependency of disciplines.

Under the new curriculum, Mass Communication has been unbundled into Advertising, Broadcasting, Development Communication Studies, Film and Multimedia, Information and Media Studies, Journalism and Media Studies, Mass Communication, Public Relations and Strategic Communication. Also, Agriculture is unbundled into component fields like B.Sc. Agricultural Economics, B.Sc. Animal Science, B.Sc. Crop Science and B.Sc. Soil Science. Other changes include in Architecture, which now has component fields like Landscape Architecture, Architectural Technology, Interior Architecture Design and Naval Architecture; as well as the split in Basic Medical Sciences discipline into Basic Medical Sciences and Allied Health Sciences.

Also speaking at the unveiling, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, who was represented by Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) Boss Mustapha, applauded the new curriculum for taking account of the need to allow autonomy of universities regarding some percentage of course contents. He said the recent industrial action by university-based unions had necessitated a revisit of the issue and scope of university autonomy by government. “This will lead to a review of the university autonomy laws to appropriately address funding, including staff remuneration, institutional governance and administration, as well as issues relating to internally generated revenue,” he stated, stressing that government alone could not fund education in the country and canvassing that “a sustainable model of funding university education” be developed.

Other things being equal, the new curriculum is a good thing for the Nigerian university system whose products are not only increasingly unemployed, but deemed unemployable owing to lack of basic competencies required by employers. It will surely help the system if skills and knowledge imparted to undergraduates are tailor-fitted to market needs, and with standards strictly safeguarded. After all, it is because of fallen standards that most Nigerians have lost faith in the local education system and many who could afford it are sending their wards abroad for foreign education. One challenge that lies ahead is how faithfully this new curriculum gets implemented to achieve radical boost in value and standard of the Nigerian university education.

Recurrence of industrial unrest in the local university system is a major contributing factor to poor standards, and it is good that government is considering tweaking the laws to address funding and governance issues. The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), at its latest National Executive Council meeting in Calabar accused government of gradually disengaging from funding public universities across the country. But it is high time all stakeholders, including ASUU, began thinking outside the box on how varsities can be better funded on a sustainable basis, and if reviewing autonomy laws would facilitate that end, so be it.

• If 25 million Nigerians are hungry, then we are sitting on a keg of gunpowder

For a country that is poor at gathering data, the citizens would continually be in some dire straits. Data assists governments in both policy formulation and execution. Lack of data makes service delivery by government and its agencies from being of optimal value to the people. The fact that Nigeria’s population is till date a subject of estimates, not based on valid and acceptable census, seems to be an eloquent testimony of the lack of diligence in national planning strategies.

The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) recently raised the alarm that 17 million Nigerians are already facing food crisis and most of them are Internally Displaced Persons’ (IDPs) returnees in about 26 states, including the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The report indicates that about three million of that number are in Adamawa, , Borno and Yobe states, due to insurgency.

According to the report, about 25.3m Nigerians would be at the risk of severe food crisis by the middle of 2023. The FAO reports that Norway has renewed its agricultural funding with the agency in order to help the most vulnerable in the affected states.

We commend the FAO for this very crucial intervention. We are however wondering what the ministries of national planning and agriculture have been doing to assist the vulnerable states and their citizens. With the long effects of insurgency, banditry, kidnappings and disruption of farming by terrorists, we had expected that federal agencies would have been the ones supplying the data and providing palliatives to the affected people in the states.

The report of the FAO might be alarming but there might still be errors that Nigerian agencies are in a better position to correct in terms of the numbers. The federal ministries of agriculture and environment ought to have had some useful statistics, especially after the floods. The National Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) and the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs ought to be working with statistics but they probably assume that their job is just to distribute food items and home utensils. Data collection ought to be a necessary component of their jobs for now and the future.

Even governors of the affected states must accept  their own failure in helping their people. We find it curious that politicians easily go to the nooks and crannies of the country to campaign and solicit for votes but hardly remember to reach out to the people in dire need of their assistance. If governments exist to cater to the security and welfare of the people, all tiers of governments seem to have failed a great number of Nigerians.

The economy is in the woods and we are concerned about the impact of inflation and the effects of food insecurity, given the devastating effects of terrorists who have scared off most farmers from their farms and have even acquired some arable lands in parts of Kaduna State. In Zamfara State, for instance, some farmers are being forced to pay to bandits to have access to their farms.

With the chaos the country is experiencing with foreign exchange and the dearth of some foreign grants and aides, our governments must brace up to solve the food crisis in the country.  We fear to imagine the food insecurity that awaits Nigeria in days and months to come. The governments must, beyond the present efforts to dislodge the bandits, think of ways to rehabilitate the farmers who have lost not just their physical possessions but are equally psychologically traumatised and seem unwilling to go back to their farms. They need therapy.

The government must, as a matter of urgency, address the issue of food insecurity. In emergency cases like this, it would not be out of place to make contingency plans to import food, even if from fellow African countries, to fill the gap. The chain impact of food insecurity has dire national consequences. If they say that “a healthy nation is a wealthy nation”, then it means that the basic nutrition must  be provided for the population, especially the under-fives that can be at the risk of child malnutrition and stunted growth. If the children are the future, then the country must nourish its children to be assured of its future. Nigeria must not depend on the UN and other agencies to feed its citizens when the resources to do that are available locally.

• Fed. Govt must work toward realisation of the Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline Project

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) is making incremental progress towards delivering the Nigeria-Morocco Gas pipeline. Last week, it signed another batch of Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the national oil companies of Ghana, The Gambia, Guinea, Guinea Bissau and Sierra Leone, in furtherance of the project. On September 15, 2022, the NNPCL and the Moroccan National Oil Company signed similar MoU with the ECOWAS Commission, while it earlier signed agreements with Petrosen of Senegal and SMH of Mauritania.

The gas pipeline will cover a stretch of 7,000 kilometres with about 13 compressor stations in Nigeria and other various points. It will be a 48-inch 5,300 kilometre pipeline starting offshore from Brass Island in Nigeria to Dakhla, Morocco, and 56-inch 1,700 kilometre version continuing to the northern part of Morocco, to connect to the Maghreb European Pipeline (MEP) which feeds the European market through Spain. The $25 billion gas pipeline started in 2017 will be delivered over the next 25 years, precisely by 2046.

There are enormous benefits to be derived from the project for Nigeria and all the nations of Africa concerned. According to the Group Chief Executive Officer of the NNPCL, Mele Kyari: “Natural gas must play a crucial role, as a transition fuel, on our path to net-zero. Gas will support the establishment of base load energy capacity, stabilisation of the grid to allow for integration of renewables at scale and addressing our clean cooking fuel deficit in the form of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG).”

Mr Kyari also noted that there are other benefits for the countries, as well as the African continent. These include creation of wealth and improvement in standard of living for the citizens of the various countries, increased cooperation among the countries, and the mitigation of desertification and the challenges of carbon emission across the countries. No doubt, Nigeria and the entire African continent stand to benefit immensely from the wealth and clean energy that the commercialisation of the rich gas resources of Nigeria portends.

Also, the European market which has suffered significant backlash in the supply of gas from Russia, arising from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, will benefit. The Russian gas pipeline into Europe through Germany, carries up to 170 million cubic metres of gas, but Russia has used the pretext of repairs to intermittently shut the pipeline for days. Reacting to the latest shutdown, the EU Council President Charles Michel vowed that the “Use of gas as a weapon will not change the resolve of the EU. We will accelerate our path towards energy independence. Our duty is to protect our citizens and support the freedom of Ukraine.”

Of note, Nigeria has been described as more of a gas-endowed country than crude oil. According to the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) website, Nigeria has proven crude oil reserves of 37,050 (million barrels) while the proven gas reserves is 5,848 (billion cu. m.). It is estimated that Nigeria has proven reserves equivalent to 306.3 times its annual consumption, that is about 306 years of gas to be tapped; and there are unproven reserves. And just recently, oil and gas reserves at commercial quantity has been discovered in the Gongola basin of the country.

We commend the President Muhammadu Buhari administration for the giant strides in further commercialising the enormous gas resources of the country, and King Mohammed VI of Morocco, for the partnership. The move would yield tremendous foreign direct investments for both countries. It would also lead to elimination of gas flaring and the consequent environmental degradation. We hope NNPCL has taken patriotic steps to ensure Nigeria reaps maximum benefits from the project, devoid of personal interests of government officials.