- A new dawn that Nigeria must celebrate, whatever happens
Until yesterday, I was not quite upbeat about Dangote Refinery’s (DR) resumption of supply of petrol for local consumption in the country today, as promised about two weeks ago. Ours is not like other countries where the leader’s word is like that of an oracle – final.
There are all manner of conflicting signals and interests — from reports about the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd (NNPCL) and DR not agreeing on the ‘modus operandi’ of the sale of petrol produced by the refinery, to the allegation by the refinery that only about three per cent of the marketers are ready to purchase their product despite the fact that it is cheaper. They never told us the price, though.
But in Nigeria, any or all of these should cause apprehension.
It was therefore prayer answered when this newspaper reported on its front page yesterday that: “Dangote Refinery begins distribution of PMS tomorrow (today) –Edun’. Coming from Olawale Edun, the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, made the report somewhat credible.
Edun, who spoke through the Executive Chairman, Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Dr Zacch Adedeji, at a news conference in Abuja, said that all agreements had been “completed and loading of the first batch of PMS from the Dangote Refinery will commence on Sunday, Sept. 15.”
He added: “From October 1, NNPC Ltd. will commence the supply of about 385kbpd of crude oil to the Dangote Refinery, to be paid for in Naira. In return, the Dangote Refinery will supply PMS and diesel of equivalent value to the domestic market, to be paid in Naira.
“Diesel will be sold in Naira by the Dangote Refinery to any interested off-taker. PMS will only be sold to NNPC, NNPC will then sell to various marketers for now,” he said.
This, however, is my worry. I am sure millions of Nigerians must also be wary of this role assigned this company whose incompetence should qualify it for a space in the ‘Guinness World Records’. A company that tells you good morning when in actual fact it should be good night. A company that says it has sufficient stock of petrol to last for ages even when fuel queues have blocked all major roads in the country! NNPCL! Ha!
How the company would be happy that a private concern succeeded in doing what it could not do in decades — ensure its refineries produce fuel for Nigerians, and then cooperate with that private concern — is yet to be seen. And, even if NNPCL must be involved, why under the same incompetent management? People who had spent billions of dollars turning around refineries that have refused to turn around? People who should ensure we refine petroleum products as a major crude producer but have found the job of importing the products more lucrative?
I said it several times in the Muhammadu Buhari era that most of his cabinet ministers got the original of whatever spell they used on their principal that made him retain them and their incompetence until the very end when they all fumbled and wobbled out of government.
If there is any such spell that Melee Kyari, the group managing director/chief executive officer of NNPCL and his team are using on the present government, I destroy it with Holy Ghost fire!
For me, Kyari has outlived his usefulness in that capacity and ought to have left that seat as early as yesterday. The Bola Tinubu government should do Nigerians the noble service of asking Kyari and his team to go home and rest.
Dangote said something about his refinery which should make those managing our oil industry to be ashamed of themselves. He said DR has the capacity to monitor trucks that load their products. For the over six decades that Nigeria has been into oil exploration, neither the NNPCL nor its precursor, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) can boast such vital tool. We do not even have an idea of the amount of petrol we consume daily. Nothing other than corruption could have accounted for this. With such a tool, we would’ve had a fair estimate of our daily fuel consumption, thus triggering alarm when the figures rise beyond reasonable limits. We would then be able to check subsidy thieves and smuggling to neighbouring countries, a very weak reason that successive administrations had always blown out of proportion to raise fuel prices.
A friend of mine usually tells us that somebody who eats stockfish and does not pick his teeth would never pay his debt. Something must be wrong with our oil industry managers, as exemplified by Kyari and the others, who don’t feel ashamed in the midst of their peers at international oil fora, that they are importing refined petroleum products despite being a major crude producer. With men like these, who feel comfortable in such company, we cannot make progress in that vital sector.
I congratulate Dangote for seeing this project through, in spite of very intimidating challenges from within and without. It was the late Bashorun M K.O. Abiola who said that publishing is sweet, but oil is sweeter, when he had an opportunity to join the league of the privileged Nigerians to seep from the oil wells. If Dangote had thought Dangote Sugar was sweet, he too would soon find out that petrol is sweeter!
But it was not an easy task. And, as Femi Otedola recalled: “You have not just built a refinery; you have liberated us from the chains of economic dependence that have held this nation back for far too long. The days of bowing to foreign powers for our fuel needs are over, thanks to your vision and determination.” It takes guts to start a project like this and complete it.
Indeed, DR has not only liberated us from the shackles of foreign powers, it has also broken the backbone of their local equivalents and or collaborators. Again, hear Otedola. “You have dealt a death blow to the so-called local cabals who have fattened themselves for years, feeding off our nation’s economic slavery. These cabals, who have grown rich by keeping Nigeria in a perpetual state of dependence, must now face the reality that their era of easy gains is coming to an end….. “
The only sad part of this aspect of the story is that these subsidy thieves are all over the place flaunting their ill-gotten wealth. We had the record of how much each of them allegedly stole, yet we lack the political will to pursue their matter to a logical conclusion. Rather, it is innocent Nigerians that are now vomiting what they ate.
But, the fact today is; love or hate
Dangote, he holds the aces. He is the man of the moment. If Nigeria decides not to cooperate with him for whatever reason at this point, it would be like the case of the man who wears his cap on his navel because he is quarrelling with his head.
This is why I am happy that President Tinubu was able to see through the
labyrinth of high wire politics and intrigues to get us to the point where Edun announced that Nigerians would start getting petrol from DR from today. The depot owners, as Otedola rightly said, should hurry to sell them before they become scraps.
It is for all these reasons that we should situate why many interest groups tried to stop DR from getting crude even when it was clear they had lost the battle as the refinery has already seen the light of day.
It is unfortunate that it is the same cabals that made importation of fuel our lot that are the ones fighting the man who provided an alternative. If they had run our refineries well, Dangote wouldn’t have been this crucial in the equation.
Indeed, left to many of those pretending to be fighting in the national interest (just because they know that the illegal honeymoon they have been having at the expense of ordinary Nigerians for decades was about to come to an inglorious and unceremonious end), they would have loved the stalemate that had made resolution of whatever grey areas in the agreement between DR and the government to linger. They do not care about Nigerians suffering on fuel queues while that lasted.
Please nothing I have said should be misconstrued as saying Dangote is a saint. There is no saint anywhere. Dangote has been accused of
oligopolistic tendencies. I won’t confirm or deny that. It is difficult for anyone like him to have come this far without having some favour here and there. The man, as at the last time I checked, has never been in government. Yet, he had enjoyed favour from presidents in the country, including those not from his geo-political zone. I don’t know any of those accusing him of oligopolistic tendencies who would not want to dominate their environment, especially in a country where that is possible. If there are no laws forbidding that, how do you now blame an investor of Dangote’s stature for oligopolistic tendencies?
Politicians who we know that have stolen huge sums of public funds and their collaborators in public offices stash the money abroad and are the very ones accusing someone who established industries where hundreds of thousands of people are working, of unethical practices. Who among the two is more useful to the society?
I know many Nigerians must have been disappointed that Dangote petrol is not coming cheap as anticipated. But, given the dynamics of the economy, it could not have come cheap. The value of the Naira is partly a reason. Mind you, crude oil would still be sold to Dangote and other local refineries at the prevailing foreign exchange rate, even if they are paying in Naira.
Second, the local refineries have other bills to pick, which are also denominated in forex.
So, where lies the excitement about Dangote petrol? Good question. If Dangote Refinery and other local refiners are able to meet our local petrol need, it means we would stop importation of the product, saving a whopping 35-40 per cent of the forex we would otherwise have spent importing the product. If we are able to make such saving and it still
does not impact positively on our exchange rate and the economy at large, then, we would need deliverance from the cankerworm and caterpillars that are feasting on our collective patrimony from the pit of hell.
This, for me, is the significance of Dangote petrol.
So, we still have something to cheer despite things not turning out exactly the way we had anticipated. Ultimately, though, I expect the price of petrol to get better if the government handles the forex savings well.
Nigeria must be the only crude producer where the government and the people would never be on the same page while the regime of fuel import lasted. When the government would be praying for increase in crude prices at the international market, Nigerians would be praying for low crude prices because they know they will pay less for fuel. Mercifully, that divided interest should end now that we seem set for local refining of petroleum products.
