Buhari, hand over petroleum sector to more capable person

Fellow Nigerians, a bad workman is always quarrelling with his tools. There are always a thousand and one reasons why he fails and will always fail. A diligent workman on the other hand will always succeed and there are also thousands and even millions of reasons why he will succeed. This is the case of the leadership of Nigeria, a leadership that is not just rudderless as many Nigerians suppose it to be. It is not lacking in control, direction or coherence, rather the ship of the Nigerian economy is deliberately being navigated towards the rocks with a view to engender a huge crash that will unleash momentous suffering on the people. This discourse uses the trajectory of the tragedy of our petroleum resources to demonstrate this elevation of mischief as the hallmark of petroleum policy, planning and implementation.

The ship of the petroleum industry was already being recklessly navigated before the year 2015. This was demonstrated in the incessant fuel scarcity, unsustainable subsidy and inadequate and declining domestic refining capacity. The subsidy regime was shown to be a source of endless corruption for the ruling elite and their cronies. The executive and legislature through various probes acknowledged the magnitude of the challenge and promised to change the scenario. However, their actions and decisions for positive change were not good enough. The president then left the petroleum minister portfolio for a substantive minister and a minister of state. This was the sad situation before the ruling party with their change agenda and messianic claims came on board.

Today, based on the need to ensure transparency, accountability and greater value for money in the petroleum industry, the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), kept the petroleum ministry portfolio to himself and merely appointed a minister of state for the sector. For all intents and purposes, the success or failure of the petroleum industry rests squarely on the table of Mr President. What do we have today? The refineries have completely shut down and do not produce a single litre of refined products while the workers and management are still paid unimaginable hefty salaries for being idle. Adulterated PMS was imported into the country and many Nigerian car owners were made to pay for the dereliction of duty of the managers of the oil sector. Evidently, there was no inspection, supervision and the authorities did not even acknowledge the duty of care owed Nigerians. All these happened under the direct watch of the Minister of Petroleum being Mr President. Fuel queues are endless and there is no hope of the scarcity ending anytime soon and all that can come from the presidential spokesman, Femi Adesina, is the arrogance of telling Nigerians that they have gone through worse times in the past.

Various turn around maintenance contracts from previous regimes up to the contract awarded by the present one has failed to turn around the refineries while the turnaround experts smile to the bank. Promises upon promises have not changed the incredible scenario. The claim for subsidy has ballooned from 35 million litres a day to 65 million litres. This is the case after two recessions, factory closures, job losses, declining gross domestic product and other macroeconomic fundamentals that are all headed south. This is a claim that everyone knows to be extremely far from the truth and even the security agencies have acknowledged that fuel is smuggled across our borders.

Furthermore, we have a situation where the Nigerian National Petroleum Company even after the reforms introduced by the Petroleum Industry Act have consistently, under several guises, refused to remit due funds to the federation account for sharing by the three tiers of government. This is coming at a time when the NNPC is declaring that it has made profits. Pray, there is an apparent and inherent contradiction in a company claiming to have made profits while failing to remit monies due to the federation account. NNPC, its managers and supervisors have a barrel of ready-made excuses. It is either oil theft or old equipment arising from under investment in the sector over the years or production from offshore wells which have reduced the government’s portion of the profits. Stories and excuses ad nauseam. If the excuse is oil theft, why is our change leader and honourable minister not taking steps to stop the stealing. If it is about investments in the sector, is seven years not enough for a government that claims to be managing national resources transparently and sustainably to provide investment funds so as to reap bountiful resources to grow the economy?

The most disgusting part of this failure to remit is that the current administration made a song and a dance out of the allusion that oil prices went above $100 per barrel during some years before they came on board. Now, we have oil selling at about $100 per barrel and the story has changed. The administration now provides excuses informing the refusal to remit due funds to the federation account. For how long can Nigerians be taken for a ride by an administration and all we do is be on the mute mode?

The lamentation (as reported in the print media) of Kayode Fayemi, the governor of Ekiti State, Chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum and a member of the ruling party puts it succinctly. “When you look at the statistics, transparency is central to the challenge this sector faces. On my way here, I was looking at the Natural Resources Governance Institute reports and Nigeria is not doing very well. We rank 40 out of 58 natural resource country on the transparency index, because we are still believed to run a largely opaque industry and we see it ourselves. Even though oil prices in the international market is going up, maybe $110 today or more. It would appear that the more the price goes up, the more we suffer locally now. We’ve just had Federation Allocation Accounts Committee meeting a couple of days ago, and the NNPC contributed zero to the Federation Account this month and this is not the first month that the NNPC is contributing zero. Over the last couple of months, we’ve been having these challenges of course, we know why. NNPC declares profits yet it cannot meet its obligations. My simple knowledge of economics teaches me that it is only after you’ve met all your obligations, that you then talking about making profits. So, if your obligation to the Federation Account has not been met, how can you then talk about profit making”

When someone is appointed to manage a sector and s/he thereafter fails woefully and becomes an unmitigated disaster, there is only one sure path of honour. Such a person should resign or alternatively wait to be told to leave by the appointing authorities. But when someone, because he is an appointing authority, arrogates the management of a sector to himself and also fails woefully, the only path of honour is to excuse himself from the position and hand it over to competent hands while apologising to the victims of his mismanagement.

It is therefore time for the president to hand over the management of the petroleum industry to a more capable hand.