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Tag: Nasir el-Rufai

  • El-Rufai donates 5,000 books on corruption to schools

    El-Rufai donates 5,000 books on corruption to schools

    The Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir el-Rufai has offered to donate 5,000 copies of two books to the educational sector of the state as a means of curbing corruption among the impressionable youth.

    The two books titled ‘Rebirth of Conscience’ and Know about Corruption’ were written by Amina Othman and launched in Abuja, Tuesday.

    The governor, who chaired the occasion, explained that the books emphasised the need for ethics and morals which would foster national development.

    In a bid to combat such ills in the society and commence the process of national orientation, El-Rufai said, “Ethics and morals are the foundation of any society and the way and manner people are brought up to have standards of right and wrong determines the fate of nations which we do not take seriously in Nigeria but is being emphasised under President Buhari’s administration.

    “This is why I think these two books are being published and presented at this right time. I think the entire appellation titles from the youngest to the oldest generation need to read these books and think through what has made Nigeria lose its way.

    “I think the way we can regain our way back on the path of rectitude and progress, is to have a society that is founded on honesty, integrity and rewards from hard work, not opportunism, entitlements, preferential treatment of one group against another.

    Speaking on the occasion, the Dan Masari of Kano state, Dr. Yusuf Sule, reflected on how past and present administrations have tried combatting corruption through different programmes.

    Sule, who was the keynote speaker, called on Nigerians to support President Muhammadu Buhari in his bid to rid the society of endemic corruption, noting that culture through unity and love would help Nigeria achieve national objectives.

    He stated that Nigerians should not take a neutral ground concerning decisions pertaining to the growth of the country but they should play critical roles in changing from the old ways of doing things.

    The Minister of Information and Culture, Honourable Lai Mohammed who was represented by the Director General of the Nigerian Television Authority, Yakubu Mohammed, said Nigerians would experience a trajectory of change when they begin to do things in the right manner.

    The 49 paged book, Know about Corruption and 61 paged book, Rebirth of conscience, were published in 2007 and 2016 respectively and were premised on the message, direct our noble cause from the second stanza of the national anthem.

    The message of the two books to Nigerians is to avoid complacency during election and a reenactment of an outcry in the know about corruption thus advocating to parents to be a good emulation to their children.

    The six chapter books emphasised the need of altitudinal change to the approach of things, imbibing the culture of standard practices and satirises bad examples of leadership by emulating their counterparts in developed countries.

  • Labour to El-Rufai: publish names of those aiding ghost workers

    Labour to El-Rufai: publish names of those aiding ghost workers

    The leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) in Kaduna State has urged Governor Nasir El-Rufai to substantiate his claims and publish the names of the workers aiding and abetting ghost workers.It said the call became imperative, considering the huge sum of money alleged to be involved monthly, which was big enough to assist the government in its developmental programmes.

    In a statement issued yesterday by Comrades Adamu Ango and Shehu Mohammed, chairman of NLC and TUC, the leaders said union membership was a constitutional issue, which was above the jurisdiction of any state government. “Labour unions will resist any attempt to polarise and create disharmony among their members.”

    The leaders said: “No amount of campaign of calumny from any quarter will deter us from demanding our right.”

  • Nasir el Rufai and secularity of the Nigerian-State

    Nasir el Rufai and secularity of the Nigerian-State

    El Rufai needs to be supported for plucking the courage to strengthen the principle of democratic citizenship in a multi-religious society, without sacrificing citizens’ right to promote the metaphysics that brings meaning to their private lives.

    The principle of separation of Church/Mosque which springs from the supposed secularity of the Nigerian constitution would be severely battered if this bill is pursued in the way it is.—Caritas International in Nigeria.

    Nasir el Rufai’s Executive Bill toward a law to replace the Kaduna State Religious Preaching Decree of 1984 is already raising tension in Kaduna State, but the noise that birthed the tension is more against rights of citizens in a republic than it is in favour of itinerant evangelisers of Islamic and Christian scriptures who want total freedom to bombard incessantly believers and non-believers with high unbearable noise volume.

    Of all the many progressive policies of el Rufai since he became governor: policy on free and compulsory primary education; unconditional release of allocations to local governments from joint state/local government account to enable local governments perform their statutory duties; and introduction of free meals in over 4,000 primary schools for over 1 million pupils, none has given him so much negative publicity as his proposed bill to regulate practice of religion in public space. In his bill to replace a 1984 military decree with a democratically enacted law, the governor seems to have attracted more criticism than his good intentions for the security, peace, and stability of Kaduna State in particular and by extension of the country in general deserves.

    Ironically, both spokespersons for Islam and Christianity in the state have been calling el Rufai names that include emperor and aspiring dictator, for making attempt to provide a non-threatening and safe public space for all citizens, a duty that is given to him and other governors and the president by the 1999 Constitution. In political parlance, there are two major types of states in the world: theocratic and secular. In a theocracy, there is a clear integration of political and religious organisation of life in the state. Two examples are The Vatican and Saudi Arabia. Secularism refers to a state in which the country’s political culture is neutral to political preferences of individual citizens. Examples can be found in the United States of America and Turkey. All other systems are variants of one or the other. Nigeria’s concept of multi-religious society is one of such hybrids. But existence of multiple faiths in a country does not automatically make it a theocracy.

    To all intents and purposes, Nigeria is viewed by the 1999 Constitution as a secular republic even though it may be a multi-religious society. In chapter IV of the constitution on Fundamental Human Rights, Sec38 (1) says: “Every person shall be entitled to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, including freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom (either alone or in community with others, and in public or in private) to manifest and propagate his religion or belief in worship, teaching, practice and observance. But Sec45(1) of the same chapter says: “Nothing in sections 37, 38, 39 40 and 41 of this Constitution shall invalidate any law that is reasonably justifiable in a democratic society in the interest of defence, public safety, public order, public morality or public health or for the purpose of protecting the rights and freedom of other persons.”

    While Sec 38(1) of the constitution recognizes the importance of religion in the Nigerian society, the Sec 45(1) recognises the right of the state to make laws to protect public space for citizens to thrive, regardless of their religious affiliation. The current constitution has, with combination of these two sections, avoided much of what some religious leaders call tension, that is fostered by elRufai’s bill. Like the United States of America, Nigeria starts all its formal state and official functions with the anthem, rather than with reciting the Bible or the Koran, in order to proclaim symbolically the separation of Church/Mosque and the State. Even where states have Sharia law, the country’s constitution remains superior to customary and religious law.

    Instead of praising el Rufai for his courage to promote order in Kaduna’s public space, the governor is being chastised by both Christians and Muslims for attempting to carry out his constitutional duty to make public space safe for all citizens regardless of the God they worship or how they worship him or her. The thrust of the criticism is not to improve the content of the bill but to push for its withdrawal. More specifically, el Rufai’s bill intends to achieve the following: restrict the playing of loud religious messages to the following places: inside one’s house; inside entrance porch; inside the Church; inside the Mosque; and any other designated place of worship and playing of loud messages that project beyond designated places beyond 8 p.m. It also requires that preachers be registered along with their churches or mosques and assigns statutory functions to an Inter-faith committee.

    Admittedly, requiring that preachers register after the organisations they work have been registered is superfluous. Faith institutions should have the freedom to appoint their functionaries without having to be slowed down by red tapes. Similarly, it does not make sense to have a cut-off of 8 p.m. for loud messages without indicating when such messages can start, knowing that they often start at 4 a.m. in many places across the state. In addition, the bill’s establishment of an Inter-faith committee instead of a Charity Commission that can regulate practice of faith in the public domain leaves too much of an important decision in the hands of a non-statutory body. It is better to assign such functions to a government agency that is guided by democratic rules in the performance of its functions, rather than by religious precepts and protocols. Apart from these, nothing else in this bill should make Muslims and Christians unhappy. The bill contains nothing that inhibits the practice of any of the so-called two major religions. On the contrary, it is subscribers to other religions in a multi-religious society, such as believers in traditional African religions, believers in Hindu, Buddha, Shinto, Orunmila, etc., that should cry foul about a legislation that has ignored or marginalised them.

    Decision making about public order in a non-theocratic state is starkly different from what obtains in private decision making. It is illogical to make laws about public space in a multi-religious society as if public space is synonymous with private space. Citizenship of a multi-religious country is what makes all persons in such society co-owners of public space. In a polity, as distinct from private spaces within it, public domain does not belong to any individual or group of individuals. It is a space that belongs to people of all religious views including atheists and agnostics, and there are many of such people in Kaduna State.

    While pastors are the professionals that manage private lives of citizens, it is politicians in a democracy that are mandated to manage the public conduct of citizens of all religious persuasions. In a country that has been destabilised for years by terrorism at the hands of religious extremists, it makes sense for courageous governors to make laws to prevent any form of blatant indoctrination and psychological terrorism or harassment of people of other religions that can arise from the conflation of the private space of religion and the public space of citizenship. By allowing religions to invade public space with their messages at will, as is being canvassed by critics of el Rufai, such policy disrespects the human rights of non-religious citizens in the same country, just as any government’s failure to recognise the right of men and women to express their religious belief in designated spaces for specific religions is a violation of their rights.

    The Kaduna governor’s bill is one that should be appreciated for the courage and vision it shows about the need to protect human rights of citizens in a country that simultaneously needs to allow religions to thrive and the political space that makes living in the society possible to be safe for all citizens regardless of their religious orientations. El Rufai needs to be supported for plucking the courage to strengthen the principle of democratic citizenship in a multi-religious society, without sacrificing citizens’ right to promote the metaphysics that brings meaning to their private lives.

  • Why CBN should cut interest rate, by El-Rufai

    Why CBN should cut interest rate, by El-Rufai

    •Amosun seeks new forex window

    Kadunna State Governor, Nasir el-Rufai has urged the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to review its interest rate regime by cutting it drastically.

    Speaking at the State Governors’ Panel during the Economist Conference concluded yesterday in Lagos, the governor said interest rates are politically determined and that the current lending rates in excess of 20 per cent is not acceptable because only traders can borrow at that rate.

    He said: “The CBN should bring down the interest rate or one day, we will have to do it for the bank; we should be looking at having a single digit interest rate.”

    el-Rufai said devaluation as being canvassed by international investors is not in the interest of the economy, and will only favour the rich and not the poor. “I am against devaluation of the naira because previous devaluations did not work given that we are not an export-driven country,” he argued.

    Also speaking at the event, Ogun State Governor, Ibikunle Amosun, agreed with el-Rufai that interest rate should be cut to a maximum of seven per cent. Amosun also sought  the creation of a secondary forex market for importers and other forex users who cannot access dollar from the official window.

    He said the state is deeply committed to promoting agriculture and empowering women entrepreneurs. “We have come to realise that getting agriculture right will even help interest rate to come down. We need to sustain key sectors of the economy especially the agriculture sector,” he said.

    His Nasarawa State counterpart,  Umaru Tanko Al-Makura, who was also at the event said agriculture, holds the future for the country. He said the state is taking strategic steps to attract investors to expand agric business and create wealth for the people. He said Nigeria has to take full advantage of opportunities in different sectors of the economy.

  • Independence spending: el-Rufai’s claims, tissue of lies – Jonathan

    Independence spending: el-Rufai’s claims, tissue of lies – Jonathan

    Former President Dr. Goodluck Jonathan has debunked claims by Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State that his administration spent N64 billion on Independence anniversary celebrations in five years, describing it as “a tissue of lies.”

     

    In a statement issued on Sunday in Abuja, the Jonathan Administration explained that it spent only N332.6million in the three years covering 2012 to 2014, “for which records are readily available.”

     

    The statement signed by former Minister of National Planning , Dr Abubakar Suleiman on behalf of the Jonathan Administration, challenged the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation( OSGF) to publish the details of the allocation for the events in the affected years.

     

    Giving the breakdown of the expenditure in those years, the statement said:  “ For the record, a breakdown of our spending for this event between 2012 and 2014 goes thus; 2012-107.6million; 2013-N45million and 2014 had N180million. So, the question here is where did the billions as claimed by el-Rufai emanate from?”

     

    The statement added that “even though that of 2010 and 2011 are not handy now, it should be known that they all fall within the same bracket as the ones stated, except that the 2010 anniversary was a golden one when the country marked her 50 years of independence. But even then, no such outrageous sum was either budgeted or expended.”

     

    The Goodluck Jonathan team further explain the increase in the 2013 anniversary spending for the purpose of accountability, stressing that “the National Honours Award Investiture was incorporated into the celebration, thus making it two events in one, hence the N174,800,000.00 budget. We also want to add that the said award investiture could not hold in 2013 and the approved budget rolled over and was utilized to organise the investiture in 2014.”

     

    “Perhaps President Olusegun Obasanjo was right in his assessment of el-Rufai when he said in his latest memoir, My Watch that his vivid recollection of him is penchant for lying, for unfair embellishment of stories and his inability to sustain loyalty for long. That exactly is what el-Rufai has done with his ungodly fabrication of lies against Jonathan government,”  the statement added.

  • El-Rufai shuts churches, hospital

    El-Rufai shuts churches, hospital

    Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai has shut two churches, a seminary and one hospital at Saminaka in Lere Local Government.

    He ordered that the buildings be closed down to prevent a breakdown of law and order.

    The closure, according to the governor, followed leadership crisis in the Assemblies of God Church (AGC) at Saminaka District in Lere local Government.

    A statement yesterday by Governor El-Rufai’s Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Samuel Aruwan, indicated that the measure was taken at the end of a Security Council meeting. The governor said the step was to forestall sectarian crisis in the local government and in the state.

    He gave the names of the affected religious institutions as Theological Seminary of Northern Nigeria (TSNN), Saminaka; Shalom Comprehensive College, Saminaka; Assemblies of God Church, Nmbare, Saminaka; Assemblies of God Church (Jerusalem) Saminaka, and the AGC Evangelist Hospital, Saminaka.

    El-Rufai said his administration would not tolerate the use of religion and ethnicity by any individual or group to cause crisis.

    He said his government would prosecute anyone causing crisis.

    The governor said those affected would be admitted into government schools or hospitals, if they so wished, adding that the government and security agencies would watch development in the area.

    He said the status quo regarding farmlands, houses and other assets of the church should be upheld, pending the resolution of the leadership crisis, which is a matter before the Supreme Court.

  • Boko Haram ‘seeks talks with govt’

    Boko Haram ‘seeks talks with govt’

    [dropcap]S[/dropcap]ome Boko Haram elements are seeking dialogue with the Federal Government, the Centre for Crisis Communication (CCC), an independent Non-Governmental Organisation, said yesterday.

    The development—should it be genuine— will bring a ray of hope that the seeming intractable insurgency in the Northeast will stop.

    Breaking the news, the CCC confirmed that some insurgents approached it to facilitate a channel of dialogue between them and the Federal Government.

    The Centre’s Executive Secretary, Air Commodore Yusuf Anas (rtd), made the disclosure at a news conference in Abuja.

    Commodore Anas, who was the immediate spokesman for the Nigerian Air Force, also spoke on other national issues including: terrorism, cattle rustling, National Assembly crisis, pipeline vandalism, kidnapping, armed robbery and  Radio Biafra among others

    He said: “The Boko Haram challenges have continued to become an intractable crisis situation to our nation. Borno State Governor, Kashim Shettima said that more than three million innocent Nigerians from Borno, Yobe, Adamawa and parts of Nigeria live in deep agony having lost their sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, relations and neighbours after brutally being attacked by members of Boko Haram.

    “Indeed, many of our citizens are now orphans, widows and forced to become refugees within and outside our country.

    “Over the years, government has been pursuing the terrorists with the aim of ending insurgency.

    “Although, some level of successes has been recorded in degrading the volatility of the terrorists, they are far from being defeated.

    “Some prominent Nigerians have in recent times canvassed the idea of dialogue with the Boko Haram.

    “The option of dialogue, according to them, at the moment provides a leeway of not only safely rescuing the abducted Chibok schoolgirls alive, but also possibly bringing to an end the orgy of violence unleashed on innocent citizens by the group.

    “Considering the unspeakable atrocities which the group has visited on Nigeria and Nigerians, this option is no doubt a hard sell. However, the recent statement by President Muhammadu Buhari on government’s readiness to negotiate with credible members of the sect has rekindled the hope for dialogue.

    “The centre views this gesture as good. It has opened a window of opportunity for dialogue for those insurgents that are willing and ready to lay down their arms.

    “This position is predicated on calls made to this centre by some members of the Boko Haram requesting for genuine and comprehensive dialogue that could lead to hundreds of them coming out to renounce their membership.

    “The centre, however, suggests that such dialogue should be done with every sense of caution and responsibility, bearing in mind the previous disappointments that attended attempts at negotiations.

    “Nevertheless, the centre will continue to support and encourage all efforts towards bringing insurgency to an end in our country.”

    The retired Air Force chief warned against the resurrection of militancy in Niger Delta by the outlawed Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND).

    He said if there were genuine grievances with the Amnesty Programme, legitimate avenues and appropriate channels should be exploited.

    His words: “The centre is equally agitated by the recent moves to resurrect the once rested Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND).

    “It was purported to have planned a meeting of its old brigade members on 25, July 2015 in Yenagoa. The arrow head of the meeting is no other person than Mr. Tompolo along with some Ijaw youth.

    “Although, Mr. Tompolo denied attempting to resurrect the rested militant group, the last may not have been heard on the issue. Nigerians will recall how this deadly group almost crippled the nation’s oil production from 2005 until when late President Umaru Yar’Adua initiated the Amnesty Programme.

    “Since the inception of the Amnesty Programme, billions of naira has been and is still being spent to address the youth challenges of the region.

    “The appointment of Brig.- Gen. Peter Boroh (rtd) will no doubt energise the programme. If there are genuine grievances with the Amnesty programme, legitimate avenues and appropriate channels should be exploited.

    “However, the full wrath of the law should be brought to bear on any individual or group that wants to engineer crisis aimed at militating against the socio-economic development of our dear nation.”

    On the herdsmen clashes with farmers, the CCC chief said it has reached an alarming proportion as ‘it always precipitates bloody clashes’ leaving scores of people dead in different parts of the country, especially in Taraba, Plateau, Benue, Kaduna, Nassarawa, Niger and other states over grazing rights.

    He said: This recurring but often violent crisis perpetrated by unknown hoodlums has continued to traumatise innocent and enterprising Nigerians engaged in cattle rearing and farming.

    “The crisis is perhaps accentuated by the economic hardship and joblessness. The Centre has received hundreds of calls from several parts of the north over this issue.

    “Instances abound where hoodlums send letters to cattle breeders especially Fulanis and farmers to pay hundreds of thousands of naira or even millions as ransom to avert attacks.”

    He praised Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai for setting up the ‘Cattle Initiative’ to curtail the excesses of cattle rustlers.

    Anas said: “The Centre is calling on governments at all levels to ensure every action aimed at finding a lasting-solution to enable the return of normalcy in every nook and crannies of our communities.

    “The Centre believes that more discussions and legislative actions at the states and National Assembly levels are needed now on the propriety or otherwise of creating or delineating grazing areas in the country.”

    On the lingering National Assembly crisis, the CCC appealed to all the contending individuals, groups or parties to ‘shield their swords’ in national interest “knowing how far-reaching and negative effect political crisis of this dimension could continue to be in inflaming passions, creating divisive tendencies, and ultimately translating in crisis.”

    He urged the legislators to emulate President Buhari and slash their remunerations to “demonstrate to Nigerians that they are also sympathetic to the current financial challenges of the nation and ready to make sacrifices to make Nigeria better.”

  • NNPC should be replaced – El-Rufai

    NNPC should be replaced – El-Rufai

    • Full text of Malam Nasir El-Rufai, Governor of Kaduna State at the 2015 Wole Soyinka Centre Annual Media Lecture, delivered on 13 July 2015.

     

    There is every danger that addressing a topic like this might yield another exercise in vain lamentation when what our country needs to do is take and give effect to rational decisions about the oil sector. For instance, the discourse around the resource curse has had a deep resonance for many Nigerians because it vividly sums up the paradox between the huge earnings from oil and the reality of poverty and underdevelopment for most Nigerians.

    Thus we have jobless growth, a fact that statistics touting high GDP growth rates tend to obscure but which is painfully real for many people. And we continue to suffer the consequences of our affliction with the Dutch disease. The easy money from oil has led to the neglect of other endowments, most especially agriculture.

    Yet talk we must when a problem persists in the embarrassing dimensions that Nigeria’s oil debacle represents, in the hope that we can deepen understanding about the precise nature of the problem, and build national consensus about the possible solutions.

    Even the crafters of the topic of this lecture imply that something is rotten in the governance and outcomes of Nigeria’s oil industry. Yet they helpfully infuse an air of optimism by not describing it as oil misfortune.

    Thus I approach this assignment not as an fortune-teller, but as a Nigerian who has had the duty and the interest to pay more attention to this issue than most of my compatriots. During the Obasanjo years, I had the responsibility to constitute Oil and Gas Implementation Committee that led to the drafting of the original Petroleum Industry Bill as an instrument for reforming the oil sector.

    Eight years after the exit of that government, the PIB has not become law, mainly through the wilful neglect of the successor governments that prioritized their personalized stranglehold on the sector’s revenues above its reform and efficient performance for national benefit.

    We now have another chance to anchor our oil sector reform agenda on the current and projected realities in that sector. And we must do that in the knowledge that the world is not waiting for us, that while we dallied new suppliers have come in to the global oil business and buyers have more choice.

    Some of our traditional customers have become self-sufficient, while others have developed alternatives thus reducing their reliance on our ‘light, sweet crude oil’.

    Is there an oil fortune?

    In fiscal terms, the answer is a massive yes. That the revenues have de-clined, or not been used to build human capital or enduring physical infra-structure is another matter. Nigeria’s oil reserves relative to our population is puny by comparison to the Gulf states. But you only need to imagine what national budgets would look like without the oil receipts to appreciate the fact that some oil is better than no oil.

    And we are not talking peanuts here. Despite a 60% fall in oil price between June 2014 and the end of that year, Nigeria still earned USD 77 billion from oil exports in 2014. The Punch newspaper of 2 April 2015, quoting figures from the United States Department of Energy, placed oil export earnings for the year 2011 at USD 99 billion. Indeed in the five Jonathanian years, Nigeria earned nearly USD 500 billion from crude oil and gas sales.

    The 2014 earnings of $77 billion is rather small compared to the $246 billion that Saudi Arabia made, but it cannot be sniffed at. So there are oil fortunes and there are oil fortunes. What we need to interrogate is how responsibly we have managed that fortune, how diligently we have tried to expand and sustain it and whether having that national fortune has impacted significantly on the fortune of the average Nigerian.

    About 40% of Nigerians are estimated to be very poor. That is about 70 million living people living below the poverty line in a country that has earned at least 1trillion in current dollars from oil in 50 years. For our vast masses, oil is no fortune.

    It is more of a mirage, but a more insidious kind, because the fortune is visible in the lifestyles of a few thousands of the privileged elite but is stubbornly inaccessible to tens of millions of ordinary people. Our rich enjoy the lifestyles of the richest in the world, while our poor are truly the wretched of the earth. This inequality is most unfortunate.

    That wide gulf in living standards is clearly problematic. It is, in my view, a major responsibility of a democratic government to strive to move more people away from the attrition that extreme poverty inflicts. This is not attained by wishful thinking, or by merely affirming the intent. It is about managing our resources in a way that sustainably builds our people, diligently collecting revenues and applying them in a determinedly cost-effective and result-oriented manner.

    The best fortune a country can have is its people. But like many gems, they have to be polished and nurtured for their talents to glow. Spending efficiency and effectiveness is best reflected in outcomes such as more educated and healthy people, living longer lives productively and happily.

    That, for me, is the major reason we must seek to enhance and responsibly manage Nigeria’s oil fortune. It must become the people’s fortune.

    Sketching the Oil Industry

    Let us examine some statistics to give us a picture of the oil industry in Nigeria. In 2014, Nigeria was producing on the average about 2.2 million barrels of crude oil per day, while importing most of its daily consumption of 43.5 million litres of refined petroleum products.

    That reliance on imports of refined products has seen unsustainable expenses on questionable subsidy payments, exemplified by USD 8.99 billion in the 18 months between January 2012 and June 2013.

    About N971 billion was budgeted for subsidy payments in 2014 alone (more than twice that was eventually paid). You all recall how trillions of Naira were paid out as oil subsidy in 2011, when only N254 billion was appropriated

    No one has been successfully prosecuted for this scam. Huge deficits in gas supply have ensured that the country’s thermal plants cannot produce power at optimal levels. In the eight years leading up to 2014, joint venture production declined by 50.4%. Some 100,000 barrels per day, about five percent of total production, is estimated to be lost to organized theft.

    And we all dread the ease and rapidity with which supply shortages lead to endless queues, widespread panic and mortal consequences for the many victims of tanker accidents.

    The long and short of the situation of our oil industry is best exemplified by the parallel government called the NNPC. In 2012, it sold N2.77 trillion of ‘domestic’ crude oil but paid only N1.66 trillion to the Federation Account.

    In 2013, it earned N2.66 trillion but paid N1.56 trillion to FAAC, in 2014 N2.64 trillion but remitted N1.44 trillion, while between January and May 2015, it earned N733.36 billion and remitted only N473.2 billion!

    That means that the NNPC only remitted about 58% of the monies earned between 2012 and the first half of 2015. A company with the audacity to retain 42% of a country’s money has become a veritable parallel republic!

    The NNPC feels entitled to consume more resources than the 36 states, the FCT and the Federal Government combined! The example just given is only with respect to domestic crude oil sales. Similar leakages exist in NPDC, NAPIMS procurement and subsidiary budgets.

    How could a country so dependent on oil revenues have been so lax about the proper governance, efficiency and security of its oil industry?

    How can a mono-product economy be so relaxed that it takes up to 24 months or more to make decisions on vital oil industry projects? Why is it that in this most crucial of sectors it has been possible for briefcase companies to walk away with big assets, billion naira subsidy payments and ‘local content’ contracts?

    Can an oil industry with virtually no serious barriers to entry yield fortunes beyond a narrow circle? For so great are the miracles that oil has performed in the lives of a few, there is not much left for the many.

    Having strayed into lamentation in describing the Nigerian oil industry, let me quickly return to trying to draw lessons and to suggest ways by which we may successfully navigate a different track. We can agree that what passes for the oil industry is a mismanaged, costly, corrupt and grossly inefficient operation. These negatives are not the way to grow or retain fortune.

    So what should we consider doing?

    Let us first learn the appropriate lessons. We are neither immune from the laws of economics nor from the consequences of sheer folly.

    Now that more countries are producing and selling oil and gas, we can safely assume that barring a new phase of explosive global economic growth, oil will remain relatively cheap at the $50-$60 per barrel range, for the foreseeable future. What do we intend to do with these diminished earnings?

    If we persist in indulging our appetite to consume rather than save, import rather than produce domestically, or neglect to prioritize capital investments, we will simply sink deeper into poverty. We must resolve to spend wiser, and do more with less.

    Our general national orientation has been impacted for worse due to our attitude to the oil cash cow. Let us firmly resolve that growing our people’s potentials will be a primary goal, and that in the pursuit of that aim, we shall commit to an efficiently and transparently managed oil industry.

    We can demonstrate this new purpose by slaying three huge dragons:

    1) A fixation with public ownership and control of every major oil asset

    2) the corruption and distortion that oil subsidy is inflicting on our economy, and

    3) the NNPC in its current form is in our collective national interest.

    End the fixation with public ownership: You will recall the outcry when the Obasanjo government sold two of our refineries shortly before it left office in 2007. The successor-government reversed the sale.

    Eight years and millions of dollars in turn-around maintenance later, the refineries are at best a minor component of our supply sources for refined products while remaining a suction pump of our resources.

    One of the men whose purchase of the refineries was aborted is now building his own, and it can be expected to be more modern, far more efficient and more productive than the public facility we turned into an object of baseless veneration. Let us be realistic enough to choose the most pragmatic options when we confront national problems.

    We should incentivize competent investors to acquire majority shares and management control in all our refineries and sell to them crude oil at market prices, and remit the proceeds directly into the Federation Account!

    Tackle the corruption and distortion in subsidy regime: I daresay that the oil subsidy regime has neither grown our people nor guaranteed stability of refined product supplies. What subsidy has achieved is create a huge hole in the budget and a new array of overnight billionaires.

    The downstream oil business in Nigeria has morphed into one optimised for the pursuit of subsidy payments. We see thinly-disguised periodic hostage-taking as the subsidy barons seek to pry open government coffers. It is time to tackle the corruption in the subsidy regime.

    We can discuss how the resulting subsidy savings will be spent to improve lives, while guaranteeing stability of supply to the domestic market.

    We have a president with both the integrity to responsibly manage the savings and the experience of managing special interventions based on subsidy savings.

    Let us say bye to foreign exchange drains, opaque crude swaps, offshore processing agreements and other devices that have derailed and distorted the subsidy regime, to our national detriment.

    Reverse missed opportunities: I have already highlighted the fact that our country has neither saved nor wisely invested oil proceeds from the five oil booms that my sister Oby Ezekwesili identified.

    I may only add that the oil industry itself is a victim of this lack of proper investment. We have been as unable to utilize what it yields us as we are remiss about expanding what it can yield us, by prudent and focused re-investment.

    Nigeria’s oil reserves are not growing at a fast enough pace. The gas potential is still largely that, an untapped potential amidst pressing needs. Since Bonny LNG we have not been able to complete and commission any other – Brass and Olokola LNG projects remain on the drawing board. The implementation of the national gas masterplan has stalled since 2009.

    And so there is simply not enough natural gas collected and dried to feed our power turbines, industries and households. There has to be a commitment to sustained investments to stimulate a proper gas sector.

    The multiplier effects of this will be immense, from contributions to improving the country’s power capacity, fuel homes and industries, create jobs and improve export earnings. We must be ambitious about what we can achieve here.

    We similarly need to encourage more local refining, and not just to assure stability in the supply of refined products for the domestic market but to cut costs and save jobs.

    We also have untapped potentials in petrochemicals, which can help fast-track domestic industrial activity and improve export earnings.

    In short, we must take steps to reposition our oil and gas sector as one that is properly integrated into the national economy, helping to create jobs, raise skills level, drive industrialization and earn more from exports.

    The rents therefrom can then be applied towards investments in human capital, physical infrastructure and economic diversification.

    How do we attain this wish list?

    We need a mix of fresh strategic thinking and a firm commitment to reform. We need to define exactly what we want the oil industry to be and to achieve, and then define the structure that can best deliver it. An efficient and productive oil sector, able to create jobs, spur industrialization and earn more revenues requires that we tackle the monster that the NNPC has become.

    This country can no longer afford to maintain an NNPC that arrogantly, unlawfully and unconstitutionally spends an unhealthy proportion of national oil earnings on itself.

    We should replace the NNPC with brand new organizations that are fit for purpose: – among others – a commercialized and corporatized national oil company and new industry regulators.

    This new national oil company should be capitalized once and for all, and then freed to fend for itself like other national oil companies do, seeking its financing independently from the financial markets and paying due taxes and royalties.

    The corruption and nonchalance that have hobbled the NNPC are symptoms that its best days are over. We should give it a deserved funeral so that a new institution, active and nimble, can promptly replace it.

    NNPC’s subsidiaries and associated companies can be reviewed, restructured and privatized or commercialized as appropriate consistent with national interest and objectives.

    The government should review the Joint Venture strategy, with the governing principle being to shift the financing and operational risks to the markets and operators respectively.

    Government should avoid owing the oil companies, and should more proactively review the terms and implementation of the Production Sharing Contracts (PSCs) and concentrate on collecting the royalties and taxes due to it.

    No one is better qualified to do this than the person that birthed the NNPC through the merger of the NNOC and the Ministry of Petroleum in 1977 – President Buhari himself.

    No one can appreciate the gap between the vision of NNPC’s founding fathers, the beautiful baby of 1977 and the 38 year-old monster it has become better than President Buhari.

    The NNPC of today must make Chief Sunday Awoniyi of blessed memory squirm in his grave. Something fundamentally decisive must be done to tame this monster.

    We must have the political will to make all oil industry transactions transparent. There should be clear rules and processes for licensing, concessioning, procurement and contracting. Opaque systems tend to be corrupt, and it is time to shine the light.

    The president has already taken the commendable step of directing that all revenues be remitted either to the Federation Account or the consolidated revenue fund as required by sections 80 and 162 of the Constitution.

    President Buhari is therefore clear that oil industry revenues will no longer be treated as some slush fund of the federal government.

    It is the national consensus that we arrive at regarding the oil sector that we can finally codify in a new petroleum act, which should be a simply worded, concise piece of legislation that spells out the general governing principles for the industry. Specific matters can then be based on subsidiary legislation, regulations and agreements. Complex and densely worded laws conduce to opacity and should therefore be avoided.

    I am by no means underestimating the titanic struggles that might be necessary to change the Nigerian oil industry. The vested interests will be all out to thwart change and uphold the status quo. The media and civil society organizations (CSOs) have the major role of pushing for transparent disclosures and adherence to due process.

    No other institutions have the power of CSOs and media to advocate, educate and enlighten the public to support and demand the most pragmatic, rational and effective measures that can make Nigeria’s oil fortune become the people’s fortune. The media in particular must lead from the front in this effort.

    To be in a position to accurately educate, the media must itself be knowl-edgeable about the issues. Apart from the obvious advantages of having specialists leading the reporting of certain industries, the media performs an immense service when it affords the public the resources to partake in informed debate.

    And the media must enhance its capacity for follow-up, to focus on an issue long enough to report its resolution. It must use the Freedom of Information Act maximally to ensure that wrong-doing and impropriety are not protected by official secrecy. If we successfully remake the oil industry, we would have significantly remade our country.

    And our poverty stricken majority will be the better for it. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the burden of responsibility placed on us as leaders in our various spheres of influence.

    Thank you for listening. God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

  • Kaduna bans beggars, hawkers for security measure‎s

    Kaduna bans beggars, hawkers for security measure‎s

    Kaduna State Government has commended the people of the state for promptly embracing the crucial necessity of watchful vigilance and attention to security.‎
    This was as the government announced further measures to enhance public security in the state. 
    It said: “All beggars and hawkers are to stay off the streets until further notice. Any beggar or hawker found on the streets will be arrested, until these measures are relaxed.”
    This was contained in statement issued by the Special Assistant to Governor Nasir El-Rufai, Samuel. It read that: “In addition, government reiterates that the ban on motorcycle taxis (achaba) remains in force, and the law will be strictly enforced in this regard.
    “The government hereby urges all citizens to report all suspicious persons and movements to the security agencies, and to afford these agencies their maximum cooperation. 
    “These measures take immediate effect,” the statement read.