The Nation Newspaper

Tag: saboteurs

  • Saboteurs won’t lead Ninth National Assembly, says Presidency

    The Presidency yesterday disclosed that President Muhammadu Buhari and his government will not allow saboteurs to occupy the leadership position in the Ninth National Assembly.

    A senior aide to the President dropped the hint on condition of anonymity.

    According to the aide, the President will ensure that only persons selected by the All Progressives Congress (APC) National Working Committee (NWC) will be Senate President and other principal officers of both the Red and Green chambers.

    “Even as the President has no preferred candidates for the position of the principal officer of the parliament, he is ready and willing to support the decision of the leadership of the party in line with worked out zoning arrangements”, the aide said.

    He said the Presidency had never had it smooth with the relationship that existed between it and the leadership of the eight National Assembly and will, therefore, not fold its arms while another set of unfriendly characters take charge in the next dispensation.

    He said: “Be rest assured that the President will not micro-manage the process electing the National Assembly leadership but he will not allow the lawlessness that happened in 2015 to repeat itself.

    “The President will allow the decision of the party to remain supreme. Once the party zones the positions, he will give maximum support to it.

    “It is not like before, now, the decision of the party is supreme. You see what has happened to the two governors. In the past, this won’t have been possible.

    “What I can tell you is that the President doesn’t have any preferred candidates.”

    At the beginning of the Eighth parliament, Senate President Bukola Saraki and house of Representatives Speaker Yakubu Dogara, emerged against the arrangement of the APC leadership.

  • Saboteurs behind Lagos refuse, says Cleaner Lagos

    Saboteurs behind Lagos refuse, says Cleaner Lagos

    Officials of the Cleaner Lagos Initiative (CLI)  have raised the alarm over  attempts by those they referred to as saboteurs to frustrate  the state’s  new waste management policy.

    They  said the saboteurs were determined to kill all efforts to make Lagos  cleaner and healthier.

    A senior CLI, who preferred anonymity said it was unfortunate that those who felt the new arrangement would affect them adversely were working hard to sabotage it by all means, including deliberate dumping of large volume of waste in public places.

    The official said: “Take for instance, the picture of heaps of refuse under the Idumagbo Pedestrian Bridge that was published today (yesterday) in a national daily. The refuse at that spot was evacuated just overnight and the team finished by 3am today (Sunday) and by 3am, the heap of refuse was back there, including a fully loaded LAWMA big refuse container that was not there previously.

    “As I am talking to you, our officials have returned to the same spot to clear everything. The Commissioner for the Environment was also there to see things for himself and he has asked the Private Sector Participant (PSP) operator that dropped the container belonging to the Lagos State Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) on the spot to remove it immediately.

    “That has been the challenge. When our officials clear the heaps of refuse from a spot, before one could say Jack Robinson, the heaps were back on the same spot cleared by our officials and this really has to stop because a cleaner Lagos is in our collective interest,” he said.

    The new policy encapsulated in the Cleaner Lagos Initiative (CLI) was introduced to address the challenges in the sector, and as well revolutionise waste management in the state in line with international best practices.

    A source said the permutation of those behind the sabotage was that if they kept dumping tonnes of refuse in public places, they would achieve the twin objective of distracting CLI officials from paying adequate attention to other places while projecting the initiative, which is targeted at a comprehensive turnaround of Lagos to become one of the cleanest cities in the world, as a failure.

    Another reliable source said the situation had also been compounded by members of the public who indiscriminately dump their waste in public places and not the designated spots, saying that such was also a challenge.

    Also, in a recent video that went viral on social media, an official of Visionscape Sanitation Solutions, Mr John Olawale Joseph, had lamented how people were dumping refuse on the same spots in public places, thus frustrating the efforts to rid the state of filth.

    Joseph, who is Visionscape’s Area Manager for Lagos Island West, alleged that heaps of refuse sometimes appear overnight in places already cleared by environmental officials, saying that the deliberate sabotage of the project called for concern.

  • Sacked workers were economic saboteurs, firm alleges

    • Reinstate them, insists PENGASSAN

    The management of Neconde Energy Limited, an exploration and production (E&P) arm of the Obijackson Group, the operator of the oil mining lease (OML) 42 in Delta State, has  said sacked members of Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN),  who worked with the firm were economic saboteurs.

    PENGASSAN had threatened to shut down Neconde Energy operations  in Lagos and Warri for sacking five of its members who worked in the company without following due process.

    Obijackson Group spokesman,  Olusegun Fafore, in reaction said the sacked members strayed from the company’s operational rules.

    “The individuals in question committed an act of economic sabotage and total disregard for the human lives. This position followed our verification of their involvement in vandalisation of valuable equipment, assault, abduction and hostage taking of person on Thursday, 18th May 2017 at the Jones Creek, Delta State.  These dastardly acts were committed against fellow employees, who reported the matter to the management of the company.

    “As a responsible organisation, conducts like those perpetrated by these individuals are not in alignment with our organisational values and written company policy, which every employee is aware of, and understands.  The allegation that these individuals were victimised because of their involvement is not only baseless, but also unfounded because picketing of our office was on Monday, May 15th 2017 and a meaningful agreement was reached with the union, which resulted in speedy winding down of the picketing exercise,” he said.

    He continued:“So, the unpatriotic development that resulted in disengaging the employees happened days after our resolution of outstanding issues with PENGASSAN. Therefore, it was not just an act of economic sabotage, but a case of premeditated destruction of our facilities, and disruption of our operations and malice against our employees. Keeping them in our employment, without doubt, constitutes a threat to the lives of other employees, whom they abducted and held hostage.

    “Consequently, we were left with no option, after confirming their involvements in the dastardly acts, which contravened our corporate ethos, than to let them go. We are a company working to boost the economic development of Nigeria through our activities, but when employees work against the organisational purpose and national interest, then it is not inappropriate or illegal to disengage such employees.

    “Moreso, Nigerian courts have always upheld the sanctity of the terms freely agreed to by parties as set out in the relevant employment contract and the courts have enforced the same as binding. In the case of Chukwuma .V. Shell Petroleum Development Corporation, the Supreme Court of Nigeria upheld the Common Law principle that an employer has the right to terminate its employee for good reason, bad reason or no reason at all. Therefore, it is inherent in every employment contract that the employer has a right to hire and fire, provided that the procedure stated in the employment agreement is duly complied with.”

    PENGASSAN General Secretary, Comrade Lumumba Okugbawa, had written the firm, demanding immediate reinstatement of their sacked members or face industrial action.

    In the letter copied the Ministers of Labour and Employment and Petroleum Resources (State), as well as Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Group Managing Director, Group General Manager, National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPIMS), Chief Executive Officer, Neconde and relevant officials of PENGASSAN, the association demanded the reversal of the sack by Neconde within 72 hours or face shut down of operation.

  • Between saboteurs and avengers

    There is a ring to his name, a poetic ring. The surname is not global. But, the first name pretends to be. Madoch Agbinibo —that is what he claims. His first name and surname are radical departure from Gbomo Jomo, the generic being who spoke for the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND). And also remind us of the dreaded Gbomogbomo (aka abductor).

    Agbinibo claims to be Ijaw and I assume he speaks Izon. His names sound real; though I doubt he is real. He has been spitting fire in the last few weeks. Heaven will fall, hell is real, Agbinibo has been telling whoever cares to listen and he is not losing his voice yet. If his conditions are not met, I suspect he will soon tell us that he will detonate bomb that will wipe out the whole of Nigeria. The man get mouth and liver no dey cut am, some must have hailed him.

    At first Agbinibo, who prefixes his name with the Army rank of Colonel, gives me the impression that he and the boys in the creek for whom he speaks are willing to die martyrs but I remember that militants are no terrorists. Terrorists love their victims so much that they die with them. Militants do not have such love for their victims. Unlike Boko Haram elements, militants fire gunshots or throw grenades and, most times, run away; terrorists strap bombs to their bodies and die with those they want to kill.

    Militants love the good life, the choice wines, the easy women and the giddy excitement that comes with having free money to throw around. So, why does Agbinibo talk like a terrorist? He is a militant for goodness sake.

    But the creek boys’ recent moves tell a tale of how a generation of leaders has failed the young at every level. And make nonsense out of their lives.

    Agbinibo’s story, which has enjoyed massive space in the traditional and social media, is of vengeance. It makes no sense to him and his like that vengeance is of the Lord. No wonder his group goes by the name the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA). They say without some conditions being met by President Muhammadu Buhari, peace will elude the Niger Delta, their home. And, by extension, Nigeria.

    For the president to take them serious, they have carried out some bombings. They bombed the Chevron valve facility in the night of Wednesday last week and the 48-inch trunk line supplying crude oil to Warri refinery. They say they will crumble the economy unless their demands are met.

    One of the demands is the immediate implementation of the report of the 2014 National Conference organised in the run-up to the last general elections by ex-President Goodluck Jonathan. They say if this is not done, the country will break up.

    Another demand centres on ownership of oil blocks. They say 60 per cent of the oil blocks must be owned by indigenes of oil-producing areas and 40 per cent for others.

    They also have an axe to grind with their fellow Niger Deltan and Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, who earlier in the life of the Buhari administration faulted the Maritime University started by the Jonathan administration. They say Amaechi, an Ikwerre man from Rivers, must apologise to the Ijaw on whose soil the university is sited for his “careless and reckless statement about the siting of the university”. They say maritime university is located in “the most appropriate and befitting place Okerenkoko” and must start the 2015/2016 academic session immediately.

    That is not all. They also show some love to the Ogoni people of Rivers. They say their land and all oil-polluted areas in the Niger Delta must be cleaned up and compensation paid to the communities.

    Their love is not limited to Southsouth alone. They also extend their love to the ‘Biafra’ nation. They say the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, must be released unconditionally.

    They also have issues with the Niger Delta Amnesty programme, which they say must be well funded and allowed to continue to function effectively.

    Their conditions also affect the Buhari’s anti-corruption campaign. They say it is skewed in favour of his political associates. The militants say that all members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) who are indicted in any corruption-related cases should be made to face trial like members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Fair enough, you will say.

    Those they want apologies from also include Buhari, the Department of State Services and Timipre Sylva. Their offence: They killed former Governor of Bayelsa State, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, “with intimidation and harassment because of his party affiliation”.

    They also have a word for oil multi-nationals and foreign investors if the government dares them. They say the failure of the government to meet their conditions will lead to attacks on their business interests.

    There is a sordid ring in Agbinibo’s statement in which his group claimed responsibility for the Chevron attack. In the statement, the group said it was taking its fight off the creeks to Lagos and Abuja and advised oil firms not to rely on the country’s security.

    The statement said: “This platform is the most significant platform for chevron because it’s the main connecting point where all other platforms linked up and it’s a fulcrum to Chevron BOP and the Chevron Tank farm. With the valve platform blown all Chevron activities are now halted.

    “This is what we promised the Nigeria Government that since they refuse to listen to us we are going to zero the economy of the country.

    “As for zeroing the Nigeria economy we the Niger Delta avengers is (sic) done with Delta State major oil installations. Now we are taking the fight out of the creeks to the Niger Delta. We are taking it to Abuja and Lagos now.

    “We want to pass this message to all international oil companies operating in the Niger Delta that the Nigeria Military can’t protect your facilities. They should talk to the federal government to meet our demands else more mishaps will befall their installations.

    “And to the Military we are the masters of the creek and it is time for you to admit you don’t understand the terrain making it impossible for the Nigeria military to stop the activities of the Niger Delta avengers.

    “Not until our demands are met (sic) no repair works should be done at the blast site. Whoever that is going there for any repair work will be doing that at their detriment.

    “The high command of the Niger Delta Avengers wants to use this medium to thank strike team 6 for successfully blowing up of the Chevron valve platform. And we are ready to protect the Niger Delta people.”

    Interestingly, the Avengers’ hide-and-seek tactics have incurred the wrath of the Niger Delta Liberation Force (NDLF) led by John Togo. This set of militants thinks the Avengers are cowards. They also want the Ijaw man who heads the Amnesty Office, Paul Boroh, sacked if the president wants to be in control of the “current oil war”.

    Their spokesman, Mark Anthony, who, unlike Agbinibo, has universal first and surname, says: “Those bombing pipelines in Delta State should not behave like cowards if they are truly fighting the interest of Niger Delta.

    “They should be bold enough to come out. When we were bombing, our leader General John Togo did not hide his face. We dealt with the Nigerian army, and we were not hiding.

    “They should not hide their identity. Buhari is not God and they should not be scared of him. JTF should not attack and arrest innocent people in Ijaw communities, they should go for the real saboteurs.”

    My final take: At this stage, I am enveloped in fear. The storm is gathering and no one is sure what will happen next. Togo’s men obviously have my kind of fear when they urge the military to go only after the saboteurs and not arrest innocent people.

    The Army and the Navy are threatening fire and brimstone. Buhari has given them the order to crush the saboteurs who like Togo’s men noted in their statement are cowards by hiding under the cover of darkness to perpetrate evil and claim to be fighting for the Niger Delta. By threatening to attack Lagos and Abuja, their cup seems not full and running over.

    The almighty Government Ekpemupolo has also dissociated himself from the avengers. His position and Togo’s seem to tell me that there is no difference between the avengers and cowards.

  • Budget 2016: Saboteurs within?

    Budget 2016: Saboteurs within?

    The Muhamadu Buhari Presidency is alleging hideous “mutilation” of Budget 2016, just passed by the National Assembly.

    That is delaying the presidential assent to the Appropriation Bill; and the frenetic economic activity, with the probable money ease, expected to follow.

    The alleged “mutilations” affect key infrastructure proposals, including the coastal Calabar-Lagos standard gauge rail project.  Nigeria’s N60 billion counterpart funding, a crucial component of a proposed $2 billion (N400 billion) loan from China to implement the project, was allegedly expunged from the document.

    But that claim has drawn fierce legislative-executive  exchanges.  The National Assembly has riposted, through Abdulmumin Jibrin, House Approximation Committee chair, that the so-called Calabar-Lagos rail wasn’t originally part of the budget.  Ay, admitted the executive, but it was in the amended estimates the president re-submitted.

    According to a report in The Nation of Sunday of April 10, the parliament allegedly made a complete mess of estimates to complete crucial road arteries nationwide.  Instead of endorsing that spending plan, it shovelled funds for new roads, such that, at the end of the day, neither the old nor the new would have been completed.

    So did it make an alleged mess of the bulk of the health components of the social infrastructure the budget was designed to fund. Alleged over-provision for rural health facilities and boreholes, already provisioned for; and alleged scrapping of funds to buy drugs for major public health campaigns, like HIV/AIDS and Polio.

    But again here, the National Assembly balks.  The Health mix-up arose from the original padding, with the Health minister, it recalled, spectacularly disowning his ministry’s estimates.

    Now, after all the see-saw, what really is happening?

    Is this a case of a careless executive, pushing its fault on, and infernally scapegoating an already notorious National Assembly, which has not, for once, fired popular imagination?

    Or, internal sabotage, by an anti-development (if not outright anti-people) National Assembly, wilfully abusing its powers of budgetary oversight?

    Or just infantile politics by an errant ensemble, the supposed bastion of the people’s democratic dreams, hopes and aspirations, bent on turning all to a hideous nightmare?

    More worrisome: the news that the Lagos-Kano modern rail project was left intact but the Calabar-Lagos project was scrapped, introduced a noxious regional politics into the whole mix.

    If true, why would northern national legislators band together to pass the Lagos-Kano rail project but the southern ones, in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, conspire to let go of a key infrastructure thrust, that could change the face of the South East and South-South economies for good?

    For the South-South and South East representatives, could it be a case of mindless spite, the political equivalent of cutting your nose to spite your face?

    For the South West ones, a case of culpable indifference that damned the politically grumpy South East and South South to stew in their perceived spite?

    If that were true, wouldn’t the South-South, despite its huge oil resources, no thanks to its own lawmakers, make itself Nigeria’s political Tantalus?  Tantalus (from which came the English word “tantalize”) was the Greek wretch, fated to eternally gawk at choice fruits and sparkling water, but never tasting neither!

    Indeed, if South-South parliamentarians share the mentality of Rivers Governor, Nyesom Wike, who because of political differences with his predecessor would abandon the state’s monorail project, then they would have put the South-South in further developmental bind.

    And is the South East, due to nothing but bad politics, resigned to its perennial anthem of “marginalization”, when its representatives could make a huge difference by playing the politics of development, as opposed to politics of spite?

    But at the end of it all, isn’t everyone in a lose-lose situation, further  deepening the intolerable mass poverty and lack of opportunities in the land?

    O, could this “dummy” be why the National Assembly wanted to blind-sight the president into signing the bill without providing him with the detailed breakdown?

    That the president wouldn’t give the National Assembly the benefit of the doubt — doesn’t that raise a big question about the legislature’s trust quotient?

    Questions, questions, questions!  But at the end of the day, the answer lies in the National Assembly leadership.

    Since 1999, when President Olusegun Obasanjo roasted the National Assembly in the furnace of the controversial furniture allowance, the national legislature has never really recovered its image.  So, should there be any controversy, not a few would rather pronounce it guilty, before it proves its innocence!

    With the current 8th National Assembly, that perceived integrity gap even got worse.

    To start with, the rule by which the Bukola Saraki-led leadership in the Senate emerged was a forgery.  The Police already investigated and established that forgery.  But somehow, the Federal Attorney-General, for curious reasons, would not press a charge, as required under the law.

    Then, there are the many troubles of Senate President Saraki, all hinged on alleged lack of basic integrity in government and scant regard for public morality.

    The ongoing Code of Conduct Tribunal trials and the newly brewing Panama papers scandals have cast a serious pall on the corporate integrity of the legislature — if the fish’s head is rotten, isn’t the body dead? — and its leadership’s likely temptation to fudge and block, just to have one back on the executive, allegedly orchestrating the CCT trials.

    The putative motive to stall even gets starker, when the subject is political nitty-gritty.  The trade-off to make Saraki senate president changed the power calculus. Rebel APC legislators banding with the PDP, which strategic interest is seeing the APC government fail, further points in the direction of plausible sabotage of the budget, to settle political scores.

    Is Budget 2016, programmed to reflate the economy and give Nigerians a new lease of economic life, a victim of political war gaming?  No conclusive proof.  But there appears a disturbing pointer.

    That is why Nigerians must rise and rally against any such negative manifestation.  With the current pains in the land, this budget is too important to be left to the whims and caprices of degenerate politicians.

    So, the executive and legislature must make a success — and fast — of their ongoing palaver to sort out the mess.

    As for probable saboteurs, that is a grand betrayal of sacred trust.  A legislator is to make laws for the good of his polity, not to play politics to inflict more pains on his electors.

    That is why the electors, betrayed and hurt, must take specific notices of such errant and irresponsible behaviour; and punish hard, whoever is culpable, at the next electoral cycle.

  • Buhari to go after power saboteurs

    Buhari to go after power saboteurs

    The Federal Government has described the shutdown of the national transmission facility in Osogbo and Ikeja Disco by some unionists as an economic sabotage.

    It warned yesterday that pipeline vandals and power infrastructure saboteurs will be punished.

    Minister of Information and Culture Alhaji Lai Mohammed gave the warning in a statement issued in Abuja by his Special Adviser, Segun Adeyemi.

    He said the repeated attacks on oil and gas pipelines and wilful shutdown of power facilities by protesters amount to economic sabotage.

    Mohammed added that these have combined to drastically reduce power generation/transmission and fuel supplies, stressing that no government would tolerate saboteurs.

    His words: “Vandals, whatever their motives are, cannot and will not be treated with kid-gloves because their actions constitute a clear and present danger to the nation’s economic, social and political well being.

    “The attack on the Forcados Export Terminal that has affected gas production by oil firms and reduced gas supply to power generating plants and the shutdown of the Utorogu gas plant are totally condemnable and cannot be allowed to continue.

    “Also, while this administration will not do anything to abridge the constitutional rights of any individual or group to carry out protests, it will also not tolerate a situation in which anyone will hide under the guise of legitimate protests to sabotage power infrastructure.

    “The shutdown of the national transmission facility in Osogbo and the Ikeja Disco by some unionists amount to economic sabotage,” he said.

    Mohammed said the government was aware that as it steps up the fight against corruption, “corruption will vigorously fight back in many forms, including the destruction/sabotage of key national infrastructure to make the government look bad”.

    “However, nothing will make this government to slow down in its anti-corruption fight and no one who is corrupt will be spared,” he assured.

    The minister appealed to Nigerians to join hands with the government to check the activities of unpatriotic elements, who have taken it upon themselves to work against the people’s interest.

    Mohammed added: “When oil and gas facilities are vandalised, the impact is felt directly by Nigerians. When power infrastructure is sabotaged for whatever reasons, Nigerians bear the brunt. While those actions may be aimed at discrediting the government, those who pay the price are the vast majority of innocent, law-abiding and well-meaning Nigerians, not the vandals or the saboteurs.

    “This is why Nigerians must not allow the few recreants behind these attacks to hold sway.”

    He said the power situation is gradually improving as generation has now increased to around 4,000MW while the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Mr. Ibe Kachikwu, has assured that the prevailing fuel queues would gradually ease in the next few days.

  • Fish out the saboteurs

    Hardball wishes the  President Muhammadu Buhari administration well. The President cannot afford to fail. He must not fail. Nigerians don’t want failure. Nigerians don’t deserve failure.

    When a leader publicly expresses doubts about the loyalty of some important members of his administration, it is a sign that all may not be well with the administration. When Buhari spoke to Al-Jazeera during his recent visit to Doha, Qatar, he perhaps betrayed his uncertainties and anxieties.

    A report said: “When asked to be specific on his submission, which suggested that there were saboteurs in his government, Buhari replied, “Certainly!” He said it would be wrong to assume that government officials, especially those who his government inherited from the Peoples Democratic Party will be 100 per cent loyal to his government.”

    The President advised Nigerians , particularly the critics of his administration , “to be fair to us. “ He was quoted as saying that his administration inherited many officials of the previous  governments , among them permanent secretaries.

    “ So, we cannot assume that all of them are 100 per cent loyal to this government. However, the President did not name these officials, “ the report said.

    So, who are these saboteurs? Does Buhari know them? If he doesn’t know them, what is the point in saying that they exist? If he knows them, what is he doing about them?  Surely, it isn’t enough to paint a picture of sabotage without having a clear picture of those involved and how to arrest their disruptive actions.

    Buhari’s comments were curiously reminiscent of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan’s 2012 comments that the extremist Boko Haram group had succeeded in infiltrating his government and planting its members in government agencies and security outfits. Jonathan’s revelation came during a church service at the National Ecumenical Centre, Abuja, as part of the annual Armed Forces Remembrance Day celebrations.

    Jonathan had lamented: “During the civil war, we knew and we could even predict where the enemy was coming from.  You can even know the route they are coming from, you can even know what calibre of weapon they will use and so on…Some continue to dip their hands and eat with you and you won’t even know the person who will point a gun at you or plant a bomb behind your house.” Could this observation partly explain why the Jonathan administration failed to make positive progress in the anti-terror war?

    The Buhari era is being promoted as a change era and Buhari is described as a change agent. If indeed there are saboteurs in his administration, he should do something about it quickly.

  • AGF blames forex crisis on saboteurs

    The Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN),  yesterday said the Federal Government  discovered that some individuals and institutions were behind the persistent distortions in the foreign exchange (forex) market.

    Malami, who did not disclose the identities of the “individuals and institutions,” said the government would soon expose them and prosecute those found culpable.

    Addressing a press conference in Abuja, Malami identified the activities of those involved to include “round-tripping of foreign exchange sourced from the interbank market, rendition of false foreign exchange utilisation data, non-repatriation of export proceeds, use of foreign exchange for non-eligible purposes, consumption of foreign exchange transactions with inadequate, expired and or forged documents and failure to report exchange end users, who default in the submission of required documents.

    “Government is aware of the insidious activities of certain elements within some of our strategic national institutions, who rather than exert their regulatory powers, have chosen to use their strong accomplices within the system to manipulate the foreign exchange market for personal corrupt gains and to the detriment of the national economy.

    “Let me restate in the strongest terms that theses nefarious malpractices by unscrupulous individuals and institutions will no longer be tolerated. In this regard, measures are already in place to deal with the infractions decisively and relevant security agencies are on the red alert to investigate these infractions and appropriate sanctions shall follow accordingly.

    “I have therefore directed the economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and other relevant security agencies to further investigate and confirm the information already available,” the AGF said.

    He said the government’s action was informed by its realisation that the crisis in the forex market was artificial as against the claim that it was from the interaction of market forces. He said those behind it resorted to this because they have failed in their effort to make the government devalue the nations’ currency

    “There is an urgent need to review our foreign exchange market from the perspective of the degree of compliance with extant laws and regulations due to certain disturbing developments which  increasingly are  confirming the initial suspicions of government that the current state of the naira is not the result of neutral economic factors or directly related to demand and supply forces alone,” he said.

  • DPR reads riot act to saboteurs

    DPR reads riot act to saboteurs

    The Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) has said it would not hesitate to deal with major and independent marketers found engaging in sharp practices capable of sabotaging President Muhammdau Buhari’s efforts at bringing succour to the citizens during the Yuletide.

    Its Director, Mr. Mordecai Danteni Ladan who spoke after an inspection tour of fuel retail outlets in Lagos, said marketers who indulge in sharp practices such as diversion/ hoarding of fuel, and inflation of prices of fuel, especially during the Yuletide period would be severely punished.

    He said anybody found diverting fuel would pay a fine of N200 on each litre of fuel he or she diverted, adding that all hands are on deck to ensure uninterrupted supply of petroleum products during the festive period.

    He said other penalties include selling fuel at filling stations discovered to have hoarded the product at give away prices, and imposition of fines on marketers engaging in hoarding of petroleum products, depending on the nature of the crime committed.

    He said marketers, who sell above government regulated prices risk closure of their stations including payment of the prescribed fine.

    According to him, DPR in conjunction with the Pipeline Products Marketing Company (PPMC), the Department of Security Services (DSS) and the Police has started a joint surveillance of fuel retail outlets in the country with a view to curbing the excesses of marketers who are hoarding fuel in order to make money during and after the Christmas and New Year.

    Ladan said: “We are stepping up efforts to nip in the bud the activities of people who, for obvious reason of making money during the festive season, engage in fuel diversion/hoarding among other criminal activities.

    “Some marketers have products but want to sell in the night in order to escalate the price. We are taking the right action by going out in the night to check their pumps, and arrest if need be people who involve in these undesirable activities. If you are caught escalating the price of fuel, we close down your station for some days and thereafter ask you to pay N10,000 per pump.’’

    Ladan said DPR is taking the directive to ensure even distribution of fuel to consumers during and after the yuletide. He said inefficiency in fuel supply has brought about the issue of diversion of the product and other activities.

  • The saboteurs

    The saboteurs

    All over the country, fuel queues. The lines loop out of fuel stations through roads and streets like broken necklaces. In the morning, the car drips with dew. The sun licks it up later but a furtive city wind drapes it with a film of dust. Hours later, it enjoys the wry reward of a balmy night. But the fuel tank, still empty, tempts you for another 24 hours of longsuffering.

    It no longer makes sense to speak of the irony of our nation, that we have scarcity of fuel when the bowels of our earth churn with lots of crude. It is like what the Russian poet Nikolai Nekrasov said of his country, “wretched and abundant.” Or, that we have refineries but we refine crude oil outside the country. To ship home the oil has forced the President to write the National Assembly for permission to pay N413 billion (about two billion dollars) subsidy to marketers.

    But what is more wretched is the economics of the story. They say we have to pay subsidies because the cost of shipping the oil is so high we should not allow the market to take its course. Or else the common man’s purse will squeak into debt and destitution. So, we have to show mercy to the poor and downtrodden, and the government has decided to pay the kind and missionary marketers for bringing us oil.

    But who are these marketers? They are the men in briefcases. They sign deals with government-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation to bring refined oil. We thank them because they have done so well to travel first-class to the United States, Europe and Asia to broker deals with refiners. Those good old foreigners do good jobs. They refine our crude while our refineries lie limp like impotent monsters. The men in briefcases ship home the fuel.

    Innocent enough. Really? But that’s where it gets messy. In the Nigerian way, we have become servile to their mathematical manipulations. Many agree it is all fraud. They hike up the landing costs. That is why we have to pay N413 billion.

    The marketers’ due is our doom. The tragedy is that we have to pay them. It is like a rapist with a right. The more murky the story is, the more alluring. We are told that between the refiner abroad and our ports, lots of things happen.

    One ship of oil can enter the account books up to three times. This is how it happens. The ship skirts Nigeria’s territorial waters, lands after a queue – not cars alone queue – and it is on the record. But it goes to a neighbouring land, and returns and goes on record but it has no fuel. On record, we are owing the marketer lots of money. Many ships do this and those in the industry call it round-tripping, an elegant phrase.

    Recently, a wave of fear overtook the marketers that the Buhari administration planned to remove subsidy. But we were surprised that the President instead wrote to lawmakers for permission to pay them such a whopping sum.

    Many thought the President’s gesture would soothe the fuel life of the commuter. But no. The marketers have decided to hoard fuel in their depots and stations. In many parts of the country, the prices have soared.

    So why do they tell us that the whole exercise is to benefit the poor? The low-slung Nigerians already are paying what they should if the fuel subsidy is removed. Again, it seems the marketers are eating their cakes and having it. First they give us a big and bogus bill to pay for subsidy. While we are preparing to pay, they don’t believe us. So, they punish everyone by withdrawing the same thing. They own the products and subject us to their faith.

    We are left at their beck and call. Obviously, they have committed two crimes. One is murky, the other in the open. The murky one is in figures that have been computed as N413 billion. The other one is hoarding. Yet, no eruption of lawyers and prosecutors. They are saboteurs but the law officers are quiet while we squirm. If we arrest any of them, maybe others will free the fuel from their tanks. One scapegoat, no saboteurs.

    But the matter, some say, is a little simple. Why not remove the subsidy by cutting off the marketers and arranging with the refiners abroad, so our government and NNPC can control the cost of subsidy? That seems easy. But I don’t think so. If we allow the briefcase men to get away with lies, what guarantees that our representatives in government will not take a cue from their free market predecessors?

    It is not a problem of the marketers alone. It is Nigerian business. We do business for crooked profits. We lie, make profit and swagger.

    To succeed, the briefcase men conform, like Babbit in Sinclair Lewis’ Nobel Prize-winning novel. They do business the right way, don the happening suit, flourish their wrists with the latest Breitling, soar in private jets and cruise in private boats and throw weddings in Dubai and birthday parties in New York. They pop up in society pages of the newspapers, do no charity except for the vanity of their image. They put upside down Thorsten Veblen’s Theory of The Leisure Class. They have excess money but splurge it in clubs, but do nothing to expand the frontiers of luxury for society. They are sick of self-love like Shakespeare’s Malvolio.

    Fuel queues are not new on our shores, it is like going back to the beginning. If we suffer anything today, we are bound to suffer it again. In a recycle of shame, Nigeria’s crises have no finales. It is because we have not built institutions and nurtured a breed of leaders who can distinguish between public wealth and private rights. The lines are blur.

    The more simple solution is to build our refineries. During the Jonathan era, subsidy was partly removed with the promise to build green-field refineries. We were shown the green fields, if they lied about the colours. We did not speak of even a spoke of promise till that era ended.

    The fact that our government-owned refineries are not working is not only a testament to corruption, but proves that if government takes over shipping the oil from the brief case men, the story might not change.

    Some are pointing to the example of the break-up of the power company, NEPA, to baby NEPAs. But we are still doomed with power outages.

    Is it government intervention or free market that will solve it? Is it Hayek or Galbraith? Even Adam Smith from whom all economists come was wary of both tendencies. The advocate of the invisible hand also suspected a market without rules. It is simple matter that other countries may handle without much ado. But ours reminds me of Professor Sam Aluko’s definition of economics as “common sense made difficult.”

    To have a free market, we must first market core values. We are not there yet. That is why the briefcase men can keep our cars in long lines, frustrate commerce and still manage to party.

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