The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Scandalous!

  • Interesting, scandalous times from corners of Africa

    We are indeed in interesting times, not only in our country but on the continent of Africa.

    From our land is the story of the money gulping snake that had over 30 million naira stuffed up its long trunk in a federal agency.

    I first thought it was one huge joke when the news broke until it assumed a life  of its own when a serving Senator, concerned about the hugely incredible thievery, decided to hire snake charmers to help unravel the mystery.

    I do hope that before long, we will get to the bottom of the matter. In the meantime, Nigeria is undoubtedly set to enter the Guinness Book of Records as the most amazing nation on earth where the sublime, the ridiculous and the most scandalous do happen without much whimper.

    The Yorubas have this saying, made popular by the late MKO Abiola in his time, that the bead ornament that  was adjudged as oversize for  the buttock of the frog was the very ‘garment’ the snake wanted to adorn its narrow trunk. “Ileke s’odi akere, ejo jade, o ni ki won fi si toun; ibo ni idi na wa”. The ingenuity of the typical Nigerian fraudster in and out of government is limitless, if the depth of it is not bottomless; and this is one classic example where it is proven beyond any iota of doubt that there are some citizens who just want to keep the country in perpetual reverse gear, for just their own selfish interest.

    Sometime, someday, the Great One from whom nothing is hidden, will deal with such people, beyond the present incurable ailments with which many of them are afflicted and the secret agony they bear, which they can’t share with anyone.

    From Nigeria is to South Africa where her President, Jacob Zuma has tumbled into ignominy with his not-unexpected resignation of the South Africa president from office. If Zuma tells that he resigned on his own account, he has only himself to delude. After the illustrious and the widely-acclaimed symbol of world peace, Nelson Mandela and Thambo Mbeki as the two forerunners in the presidency of apartheid-free South Africa, Zuma’s tenure was riddled with so much scandals and shoddy performance that many in the world had long wished to see his back from that country’s highest office.

    The world, without a doubt, is happy to see him go, except Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State who’s so enamoured of Zuma’s governance style that he thought he needs to wake up every morning to see and worship at the feet of Zuma’s statue, at a time many Ibo families were mourning their offsprings who were callously mowed down in parts of South Africa under Zuma’s watch.

  • Scandalous!

    •Nigeria has no business importing palm oil with scarce forex 

    The report that Nigeria spent a whopping N116.3 billion ($323.1 million) in the first 10 months of this year to import palm oil yet again exemplifies the paradox of a country that perennially shells out scarce foreign exchange to import commodities that it is well endowed to produce for export. From being the largest producer of palm oil in the world with a market share of 43 per cent in the 1960s, the story is that Nigeria currently ranks at the bottom among palm oil producers, accounting for a miserable world share of 2.9 per cent.

    That is not all: of its domestic demand of 2.7million tonnes, it is, at the current level of production, only able to muster a total of 970,000 metric tonnes – a mere 35 percent – leaving a huge shortfall of 1.73 million tonnes. By comparison, its peers like Indonesia produces 33 million metric tonnes; Malaysia, 19.8 million; Thailand, two million and Colombia, 1.108 million. The three are said to account for nearly 80 percent of the global palm oil trade.

    What makes the story truly tragic is that the country’s romance with palm oil trade actually predated the colonial era. In fact, it was among the first commodities of international trade between the vast territories making up southern Nigeria and Europe after the slave trade. It played no less significant role at the turn of the 20th century, right up to the Second World War when exports from the British West African countries accounted for about two-thirds of the world palm oil trade. Juxtaposed with the countless fables that have been spawned about the Nigerian origin of the Malaysian palm oil seedlings (although this has been proven to be improbable), the situation can only be described as scandalous.

    The situation should not be allowed to continue. The Federal Government must do everything in its power to reverse the trend and urgently too. More than half a century after industrial giants like Unilever and Paterson Zochonis – leading users of the commodity – opened shop in the country, that its manufacturing processes is still locked on importation can only be explained by short-sighted policies of the past years, all of which have denied the country the fruits of backward integration and the benefits of industrial optimisation.

    To imagine that the country has, for more than five decades, maintained a flagship research institute – Nigerian Institute For Oil Palm Research (NIFOR) to research various aspects of its production and its utilisation makes it worse.

    While palm oil may not necessarily rank on the same scale of priority with say, a food crop like rice (and we do not see why it should not) which the Federal Government has been pushing with fervour, it seems to us that at a time the country is seeking every avenue to conserve foreign exchange, to create jobs, particularly in the agricultural value chain, and to get local businesses to utilise local raw materials, the least the Federal Government can do is push aggressively to ensure that a commodity like palm oil receives its fair share of policy support. This is much more so that Nigeria enjoys immense comparative advantage in its production and it is also a potential foreign exchange earner.

    We say this because, multiple investments in plantations and processing over the last couple of years in notably Cross River and Edo states have raised the stakes on the scale of what is achievable. What remains is for the Federal Government to upscale such policies, particularly the fiscal incentives to encourage investors across the value chain, all with set goals and clear timelines as was done for rice. And just as in rice production in which substantial progress has been recorded in a relatively short period, we have no doubt that progress is achievable given its relatively short gestation cycle. Nigerians cannot wait to see concrete programmes put in place to bring about this; that will be one practical move to end the generational whining over so-called palm seedlings from Asia.

  • subsidy

    All thinking Nigerians should be worried about the daily revelations of impropriety in the oil industry. This has led to arguments even within government about how much money is coming into government coffers from the oil industry. We had a situation where the suspended Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria Sanusi Lamido Sanusi gave an alarming figure of how much seepage from the oil industry Nigeria was experiencing. It is common knowledge that forty percent of oil production is being stolen by bunkerers and through damage to oil pipelines by so called militants in the Niger Delta. Every effort to combat this by government through deployment of security forces in the area and also paying off militants and awarding fat contracts to their leaders do not seem to have solved the problem. Therefore, when the CBN Governor announced that huge amount of money was lost between the NNPC and CBN many Nigerians were worried about the shenanigans going on in the oil industry.

    The alarming figure that the CBN Governor gave as money missing was first scaled down to $20billion and finally to $10.8billion. Even our World Bank surrogate of a Finance Minister confirmed this figure. Now as if working to answer the NNPC has come out with figures to wipe out the $10billion plus that has been a subject of argument. The NNPC has said that about $7billion of this money has been used to subsidise importation of kerosene even though there is an extant government policy on not subsidising the price of kerosene. The remaining three billion was accounted for in sundry ways which appeared to any thinking person incredible and cooked up explanations on how government money is being spent without budgetary appropriation this is outright illegal. We are talking about billions of dollars and not naira. It seems to me that the Nigerian public is being taken for a ride. No one is saying that whatever impropriety that is happening in the oil industry is new.

    It appears to me that the shady dealings are the norm of operation in the Nigerian oil industry. This opacity usually begins with allocation of oil blocs to anybody with influence in government and collaborators, and fronts of Ministers and top most politicians. This is how some Nigerians have come to immense wealth that some of them publicly declare that they do not know what to do with the unearned money they have accumulated. One sometimes wonders if the way we operate our oil and gas industry is unique to Nigeria because our neighbours in the ECOWAS region as well as in the Cameroons and Chad do not seem to operate their oil industries the same way we do in Nigeria. This is certainly not the case in most OPEC countries. And the difference is clear we are the least developed of all the OPEC countries. And we are the only OPEC member country that imports gasoline and diesel for internal consumption. The irony of this should shame us as a people. Nigeria has been exporting crude petroleum since 1956 from Oloibiri, that is 58 years ago, and in spite of having four refineries most of which are probably not working we continue to dissipate our foreign reserves on gasoline and diesel importation. This is why in spite of a barrel of crude oil selling over $100 for almost 15 years since 1999 to the present our foreign reserves that by now should have been more than $100 billion is still hovering around $43 billion.

    What should worry most of us is that with the development of shale gas oil in the US and Canada and possibly in Europe within the next few years and with India and China also following suit we may have the ground cut under our feet when there may be no market for sale of what is left of our rapidly dwindling hydro-carbon resource(s) and even if there is a market this astronomical price of over a $100 per barrel may not be sustainable. The logic of the situation therefore is that we should make hay while the sun shines. Most of our governments in the past, have always talked about diversification of the economy and the present government has also embraced the same slogan without any concrete plan to bring this into reality. I shudder to imagine what will happen in 10, 20 or 40 years time when our chicken would have come home to roost and when nemesis of the rampant corruption we indulge in would stare us in the face. This is why it is necessary for the youth of this country to be engaged in discussing and finding solutions to the problems of this country and not allowing old fuddle fuddies to ruin their future.

    The solution to all these messy oil deals is blowing in the wind and everybody can hear it. We need to stop sale of oil blocs to non-oil companies and individuals. It is easier to bring to book any corrupt multi-national companies than individuals and comprador agents of foreign companies. We also need to build up oil reserves rather than wiping out through corrupt sales of oil blocs all the known oil reserves of Nigeria. In the Province of Alberta in Canada, money accruing to the provincial government from oil production is divided into two and one part is invested in Blue Chip companies for citizens yet unborn who have a claim to the oil wealth of the province. The reason for this is that no one generation should spend the material heritage of a people. This same argument informs the massive investment in Blue Chip Companies by Saudi Arabia, Iran and Kuwait so that posterity could also share in the oil wealth of the present, we need to embrace this wise policy. We also must sell off all the oil refineries in this country to private companies even at a giveaway price so that the annual drain pipe of so called rehabilitation of refineries can end.

    It will then be left to the private owners to make the refineries function so that they can recoup whatever investment they have in them. This should be a win-win situation for us because the nature of capitalism is that private investors are not Santa Claus’s and the only way to make profit is through the sale of their products and our large market would give us the advantage of economy of scale thereby bringing down the pump price of refined petroleum products. Finally, government must take a bold decision about so called oil subsidy on all oil products. We should stop immediately spending money that is not appropriated in the budget as oil subsidy. Whatever we call it whether petroleum tax rather than oil subsidy would have to be paid by the public so as to eliminate the present opportunity for rampant corruption.

    These enumerated policy options cannot wait they have to be implemented right away so as to put the finances of this country on an even keel. Our people have suffered so much in a time of plenty and this cannot continue without dire consequences on the country. The general insecurity in the country and even the terrorism of Boko Haram are not unconnected with the hopelessness that have become the misfortune of the youths. It is in the interest of the poor and rich that we must find a solution to the general and generalised poverty and immiseration of our people. We now have a situation where the rich cannot sleep with their two eyes closed because the poor can also not sleep because of their empty stomachs. If we don’t take preventive action to stop the open robbery of a nation, we should be prepared for a people’s rebellion that will overwhelm the country.

    The poor people of Nigeria have waited long enough for the amelioration of their miserable lives. The young and educated Nigerians roaming about the streets without jobs have become cynics who see everyone better than themselves as the cause of their problems. All they seem to be waiting for is for a leader to galvanise their boundless energies in the right direction or against those who are oppressing them. We who are their fathers cannot be smug about it believing our hands are clean. Unfortunately, if we don’t speak up to change the direction and trajectory of our corrupt ways we will all in the whirligig of time be swept off in the fury of justifiable rebellion and violence of the masses. A word is enough for the wise.

  • Scandalous!

    Scandalous!

    FROM the House of Representatives Committee on Power came the depressing news that the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) is being owed a whopping N400bn by the Nigerian Armed Forces and ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs). Chairman of the committee, Mr. Patrick Ikhariale, disclosed this during an oversight visit to Ughelli and Sapele power plants. Although Mr Ikhariale did not say the period which the debt covers, that is immaterial. It is bad enough that government agencies that should be epitomes of good corporate governance are neck deep in debts to this ridiculous amount.

    In the first place, the debt increases the stock of domestic debts and this comes with ramifying implications. Secondly, this kind of situation is bad for investment because investors are in business to make profit. But when there are many ‘untouchables’ in the system that want to enjoy services without paying for them, prospective investors would think twice before making up their minds to go and do business in such an environment. The situation becomes the more precarious considering that Nigeria, despite its huge market base, is not investor-friendly, given the problems of power and other challenges.

    Moreover, the fact that the PHCN is still in business in spite of these huge debts is indication that ordinary Nigerians are the ones bearing the brunt of the debts. This probably explains why many people are given all kinds of crazy bills because the PHCN gives its men targets that they must meet revenue-wise. What the debtor agencies do not realise is that the company can do a lot with N400 billion in its coffers.

    We are daily inundated with stories of how PHCN cannot pay for gas to power its plants. In some instances, especially with recent improvements in the megawatts generated, the company still cannot afford to fire the plants full blast due to gas shortages. Indeed, but for frequent interventions by the Federal Government in transactions between PHCN and the companies supplying it gas, the situation would have been worse. This is unnecessary where all customers pay for services.

    Perhaps what is the more scandalous in this development is that the armed forces and the MDAs that are owing this stupendous amount have their allocations annually. Is it that they have considered PHCN’s services as freebie and so do not budget for electricity supply? Or, is it that they do but the money, as usual with most government monies, ends up in private pockets?

    The government must be interested in a serious matter like this because it has been expressing its desire to improve the power situation. Yet, we cannot have results when some of its agencies are indebted to PHCN to the kind of amount that the House of Representatives committee has alleged. Obviously, those in power have no incentive to pay electricity bills because it is not like contract award where there is something in it for them.

    This is the height of indiscipline that should not go unchallenged. If government agencies are not paying electricity bills and are not disconnected, why disconnect ordinary Nigerians over smaller justifiable debts or even debts that were imposed on them just because PHCN staff must meet certain revenue targets? The least the government can do in this matter is to investigate if truly these agencies owe this amount and force them to pay up, or at least ensure that they pay whatever verified debts they are owing the power company. That is the only way the government itself can set a good example for others to follow. And that should be done immediately.