NNPC: TO DIE OR NOT TO DIE?

“Oil is supposed to have brought wealth to the nation but the reverse is the case. Oil has made a few citizens billionaires while the rest especially the Niger Deltans are wallowing in abject misery…Why a generation of rulers deliberately ignored the real development of the country…Why is Nigeria still in pitiable state, living below a dollar even with the present of abundant oil?’’- Quoted in Nowinta’s book (2009)-Where We Are (page 100)

Pebbles with Igbotako Nowinta

Whenever the issue of Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) comes to my mind I normally feel disgusted, angry and sad. Why do I usually feel so? The reasons are not far- fetched.

NNPC has been (and it is still) like a ruthless and merciless blood sucking vampire licking everything that would have bettered the lots of the people of Nigeria

Agreed that corruption is an issue tragically tormenting our country like Lucifer on special assignment, but the single biggest government agency pulling all of us down is NNPC.

This is so because Petroleum is the main stay of our country’s economy and we have all seen what the drastic drop in price of fuel globally has done to our financial fortunes as a nation; and consciously enough those who are supposed to manage the resources coming from that all- important sector have been performing (still committing) the greatest acts of treachery against the Nigerian nation

Few days ago, the Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir el Rufai and a veteran columnist for the Nation newspapers, Sam Omatseye were involved in a heated discussion during the 7th Wole Soyinka Centre Media Series where the issue of NNPC became the main topic for discussion on what should be done to it.

This article actually was prompted by the discussion about what should be done to NNPC: Should NNPC die or not?

Before I will lay bare my own opinion about NNPC I want to escort us a bit into the gory scenario that has bedeviled NNPC for quite some time now.

Every discerning mind will know why President Muhammadu Buhari had to dissolve the board of NNPC as soon as he settled down within the confines of Aso Rock Presidential Palace.

It is not for nothing that a Special Committee of three wise men (comprising Governor Adams Oshiomhole, Governor Nasir El Rufai and one other sitting Governor) were constituted during the inauguration of the National Economic Council under the present civilian dispensation to look at the books of NNPC, nay the financial transactions under the watch of former Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mrs. Ngosi Okonjo-Iweala, Excess Crude Account etc.

And since the three wise men hit the ground running we have seen salvos and cross salvos already flying between Governor Oshiomhole and Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala on some allegedly spent and misspent billions of naira during the Goodluck Jonathan regime.

Indeed, we are being entertained daily about the heinous stealing or misappropriation of money generated by the Nigeria National Liquefied Gas (NNLG) project, from where President Buhari dipped his hands to bail out the economically struggling states recently etc.

Talking about ex-President Goodluck Jonathan. It is heart wrenching that Dr. Jonathan could not build a single refinery within the space of 6 years for Nigeria.

What a tragic reality! Instead the existing refineries were left to rot and waste after expending billions of tax payers’ money on their turn around maintenance, while the evil practice of taking our crude oil overseas for the purpose of refining continued unabated.

Today, our economy is in shambles courtesy of  the treacherous mismanagement perfected by Okonjo-Iweala and her gang, who continued to lie, deceive and confuse us to the tilt with manufactured figures of economic growth (best fast growing economy in Africa, la la la etc.) until the electoral hurricane that swept the pretenders away on March 28th 2015.

The most painful aspect of the modus operandi of those in the know within the NNPC was the wicked connivance with the government of the day in the tragic fact that most of the money (billions of naira) budgeted in the name of Fuel Subsidy ended up in private pockets of already stupendously rich acolytes of highly placed politicians during Jonathan’s discredited reign.

Certainly, it is only here in the Federal Republic of Nigeria that such criminal wastages and gigantic corruption could be allowed. In fact, it is only sheer madness and wickedness of the highest zenith that fellow Nigerians in the name of profit deliberately ignored our refineries, even after fixing them to the level of refining crude oil and preferred to import refined oil abroad!

Honestly, besides the phony privatization/commercialization program initiated by Olosegun Obasanjo’s regime, the oil subsidy scam under Goodluck Jonathan is the most ruthless criminal enterprise ever staged by the enemies of the Nigerian people.

It is not sad to note that under Jonathan politics was equated to the fertile grounds for conscienceless looting of our resources and the culprits got away with bulging pockets?

Former Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi now Emir of Kano shouted aloud that billions of money was not remitted by NNPC, many thieves close to Jonathan said no money was missing! All within the periphery of the NNPC!

Now, the visibly angry Governor El Rufai said that: ‘‘The NNPC must die’’ hinging his argument on the fact that NNPC is being run like a parallel government accounting to nobody while Sam Omatseye countered that instead of killing the nation’s oil firm it should be restructured to serve the nation positively.

My take is simply that killing the NNPC without killing its ugly catastrophic manifestations is tantamount to sparing the monster for another round of havoc.

The National Assembly and the Presidency should move fast on this issue. I feel NNPC should be overhauled drastically, its statutory mandates/responsibility should be revisited to serve the Nigerian nation patriotically; all revenues accruing to the body should be made to go straight to the federation account. The name can be changed to reflect a new direction; all mindless expenditures and extraordinary salaries/privileges should be wiped off etc.

This approach should be immediately tailored and transferred to all federal agencies/departments still swimming in the waters of gigantic corruption and waste like the present NNPC.

Nowinta wrote WHERE WE ARE – A CALL FOR DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION IN NIGERIA