When fuel scarcity emerged across the country few days to the 2017 Christmas celebration, series of blames and reasons were thrown up as the cause.
There were accusations and counter-accusations among the various stakeholders in the oil sector.
Majorly, the blames were between the oil marketers and government agencies including the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the Ministry of Petroleum Resources.
While the scarcity lasted, not a few Nigerians believed that the oil marketers were up to the games they were known for under past administrations.
Many accusing fingers were really pointing at the oil marketers suspecting that they were hoarding fuel and manipulating the system in order to force increase of pump price of fuel above the current government price of N145 per litre.
The NNPC had also claimed that 4501 petrol trucks were untraceable and vanished from the Nigerian radar during the fuel supply crisis.
Worried by the pains Nigerians went through during the festive season, President Muhammadu Buhari in his New Year message called those behind the scarcity as ‘blackmailers’.
He also vowed to unmask and punish the perpetrators.
In his first broadcast to the nation in 2018, he said “Unfortunately, I am saddened to acknowledge that for many this Christmas and New Year holidays have been anything but merry and happy. Instead of showing love, companionship and charity, some of our compatriots chose this period to inflict severe hardship on us all by creating unnecessary fuel scarcity across the country.
“The consequence was that not many could travel and the few who did had to pay exorbitant transport fares. This is unacceptable given that NNPC had taken measures to ensure availability at all depots.
“I am determined to get to the root of this collective blackmail of all Nigerians and ensure that whichever groups are behind this manipulated hardship will be prevented from doing so again.
“Such unpatriotism will not divert the Administration from the course we have set ourselves. Our government’s watch word and policy thrust is CHANGE. We must change our way of doing things or we will stagnate and be left behind in the race to lift our people out of poverty and into prosperity.” he said
Towards fishing out the ‘blackmailers’ and ensure lasting solution to the problem, the President last Tuesday mandated his Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari, to preside over a meeting with stakeholders in the oil sector at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Rather than see oil marketers heading to jail or punished for the scarcity, information at the end of the meeting somehow gave them clean bill.
As at the end of the meeting, government agencies more or less exonerated oil marketers as they have no evidence against any of them for wrong doing.
The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, after the meeting, said: “The thing is even the Nigerians who have suffered will want to be sure that we find a lasting solution and find evidential basis upon which to punish people. This is a democratic government.
When reminded that the government ought to have got all the evidences it needed with what Nigerians went through, he said “I don’t have one yet if you have one I will like to have it.
“The Chief of Staff instructed that specific names should be put on the table, those who have gone against the rule, done certain things that are against the book should be punished.
“But the greatest difficult in Nigeria is that people make allegations when you then ask for evidence even one, everybody now goes back into the safety nets.
“You cannot prosecute except you have evidence, I’m 30 years old as a lawyer. So we will need to find that evidence, we will definitely punish those who did things that were wrong.” he added
The oil marketers, after the meeting, also did not fail to exonerate themselves of any blame.
The Chairman of Depot and Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (DAPMAN), Dapo Abiodun, said “Today’s meeting was called at the instance of the Chief of Staff to the President and it was to find out exactly what happened, where we had the problems we had in December with the supply of petrol and how Nigerians was made to go through the pains and suffering.
“He wanted to know the truth and to ensure that going forward this problem will be solved once and for all. And that is why you saw that we sat in here from 2pm and the meeting just finished after three and half hours.
“A lot of issues were raised and a committee was constituted that will meet tomorrow under the chairmanship of the Minister of State for Petroleum to further go into the nitty gritty and to ensure that these problems do not reoccur again.”
Stressing that it was not a marketer-related problem, he said “There was no hoarding on the part of any marketer. Marketers are your brothers, they are Nigerian citizens, they are businessmen, no marketer makes money from hoarding petroleum products, our business is to take petrol and sell.
“We explained that the problem that you saw is not willful on the part of anyone either NNPC or marketers. The situation from our point of view is that from January to December, the price of crude remained relatively stable following the hurricane Katrina in the month of September October, crude prices went up and marketers lost the ability to import and sell at N145 per liter.
“Since the price of crude is directly proportional to refined product, we could not import petrol and sell at N145 anymore.
“And this business is a partnership between marketers and NNPC. Marketers bring in a certain volume and NNPC also brings in a certain volume.
“In the past, marketers bring in about 60% while NNPC brings about 35 to 40 per cent. But by the month of October marketers completely stopped importing because there was no more subsidy so we can’t sell for profit so we have to stop importing.
“So, the burden of importing 100% now fell on NNPC. So you can imagine a situation where NNPC was importing in part and marketers were importing in part and then suddenly NNPC begins to import 100%.
“Couple with the fact that in the months we called the ember months from October to December the consumption of petrol is highest in the country. So you now have what we called a double warning. NNPC is suddenly finding itself importing what they probably didn’t expect in terms of volume and the fact that Nigerians themselves are consuming more volume than they will normally consume in earlier months.
“Couple with the fact that the countries that are surrounding us as a nation are all selling fuel at more than $1 per liter. $1 today is about N360. If you go to Cotonou, Ghana, Niger so it is not unlikely that some of our petrol is finding itself across to these countries.
“All these are issues we believe amounted to what we saw in December but thankfully NNPC rose to the occasion, they stepped up import, stepped up supplies that situation has since normalized.
“Today’s meeting is to ensure that this does not happen again and this we are going to continue tomorrow in the committee that was set up under the chairmanship of the Minister of State for Petroleum to ensure that we find a long lasting and enduring solutions to this problem so that Nigerians will not have to go through this situation again.”
On the issue of subsidy, he said: “Well, like I said to you there is no subsidy at the moment. The government in its wisdom has decided that the N145 cap will remain because of what they consider will be consequences on Nigerians. This is a government of the people and they believe Nigerians should not be made to buy fuel for more than N145.
“So, if that is to remain then we have to find other ways to manage the situation so that we will continue to sell fuel at N145. As far as we are concerned, there is no subsidy in the budget, as far as we are concern marketers cannot import and sell at N145, so government has to find a way and ensure that marketers themselves importing alongside NNPC and still sell at N145. So when we meet with the minister tomorrow we will find solution to see how that can be sustained.”
The National President of Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), Chinedu Okoronkwo and the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of IPMAN, Aminu Abdulkadir, also spoke in the same vain defending oil marketers of wrong doings.
At the follow up meeting last Wednesday, the oil marketers were said to have pleaded for tax holiday to facilitate their importation of fuel into the country in order to continue selling at the N145 government price.
From the oil marketers’ positions, the blame for the scarcity was directed at happenings at the international oil market, which made landing cost of N171 per litre of fuel more than the government stipulated pump price of N145 per litre.
Nigeria over the years has not really got value for the millions of barrels of crude oil exported out of the country monthly, which later returned in refined form.
In the past three months, the NNPC was said to have incurred a cumulative loss of N85.5 billion importing petrol and selling at the current retail price of N145 per litre.
While the country has continued to suffer, some dubious Nigerians in the system no doubt have been smiling to the banks.
These set of Nigerians, for their selfish gains, directly or indirectly have made it impossible for existing refineries in the country to operate effectively, the product which Nigeria is richly blessed in.
Since Nigerians shouldn’t have business suffering from the scarcity or from over pricing of the product, urgent steps should be taken to make the proposed modular refineries realities in no distant time.
Everything should be done now to bring the hanky panky in the oil sector to an end.
