By Erasmus Ikhide.
The hope of restoring normalcy to a morally bankrupt nation to a place in the sun greater than it had ever been is ebbing gradually.
Nigeria is in economic dire straits, maimed by official corruption, which slices off more than 50 % of its GDP in revenue. The nation’s oil deals which have been shrouded in the caucuses of bargaining and appalling crudity have left the people in abject poverty.
But President Goodluck Jonathan’s sidekicks wouldn’t see it that way. Rather, they are used to thinking that the ugly picture is a mere grotesque hodgepodge, concocted by half-baked, uneducated neurotics who are bent on sabotaging the ‘humane’ president.
It’s time for Mr. President to summon the moral courage and pledge the reversal of the nation’s menacing presence for a better future.
Regrettably, the argument of Jonathanians is not supported by Mr. President’s broken promises, overt corruption, oil theft and pipeline vandalism.
The grueling grind of irony in a land flowing with energy under its belly shows presidential hollowness for its failure to make the economy boom.
In 2011 NNPC signed USD28.5 billion Memorandum of Understanding, MOU with the Chinese to build its Greenfield Refineries in Bayelsa, Kogi, and Lagos States.
So far, none has been built, four years down the road. In 2012 at the Nigerian Oil and Gas Conference, the bogey oil minister promised that ‘Turn Around Maintenance’, TAM, will gulp USD700 million for the four refineries within 12 months.
As we speak, none of the four Nigerian Refineries operates with more than 60% capacities. Kaduna refinery operates below 30% of its installed capacity.
That is after billions of dollars was expended. How else can we explain that TAM was a waste of our common patrimony and the crudest form of corruption?
The four refineries can produce 445,000 barrel of oil per day, if they are functioning at 100% capabilities; which is still below Nigeria’s current need of about 39 million liters, according to the PPPRA per day!
President Jonathan’s government expended trillions of dollars on the so-called Fuel Subsidy that was wreaked with hyper-corruption.
When Nigerians protested the enrichment of the president’s cronies with the oil scam, Mrs. Diezani Allison-madueke deadened her concerns scornfully and bluntly told the nation to go to hell or that the Fuel Subsidy would be reduced by half any time she chooses.
It was a show of sheer unconcealed disdain for the Nigerian masses. The protest against Fuel Subsidy was partly against her career of gross abuse of office and blatant assault on the volition of the people to benefit from the resources of their nation.
While the people haggled and groaned under the excruciating hike in the price of fuel, the federal government remained blunted in her responsibilities to the electorate as stipulated by the constitution.
That profound deadening of consciousness is the sheerest negation of nation-building, where the peoples’ demand for access to common till is viewed as doing them favor.
Any surprise that President Jonathan gloated and gloried suppressing protesters who sought the reversal of fuel increments in the past? Even after many people have lost their lives, all the promises of palliatives never came.
Till now, the consistent figure of about N200 billion the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency, PPPRA, pays to petroleum marketers quarterly for subsidy hasn’t changed. Yet, Nigeria remains one of the few OPEC members still importing majority of Refined Petroleum products to the tune of over USD15 billion yearly.
There is no doubt that the Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB, has accumulated dust wherever is it kept. This is due largely to the frosty relationship between the Hon. Minister and the National Assembly members.
This has resulted in her getting court injunction stopping them from investigating the N10 billion allegedly expended on private jets since assumption of office.
This is away from the USD20 billion missing in the NNPC accounts as alleged by the former CBN Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, now the Emir of Kano and who at some point became a target of persecution for blowing open the lid on such crime against a beleaguered nation.
The Presidency is aware that the non-passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB, is gravely affecting investment in the oil and gas industry and that, continued delay is inimical to the nation’s economy.
The passage of the PIB would have fast-tracked the exploration of oil in many part of the country where oil has recently been discovered.
The President is also aware that the passage of PIB will stem the tide of mega-corruption and the suitcase oil portfolios will come to an abrupt end.
We are back to the same position. My former union, Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, NUPENG, in alliance with the Petroleum and National Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, PENGASSAN, recently embarked on industrial action, grounding the already traumatized economy for lack of faith in the government of the day.
The oil unions are accusing the president of inability to fix existing and build new refineries, bad roads, arbitrary sacking of union members by oil companies. The Trade Union Congress even took it further.
Arising from its National Executive Council, NEC, the central labor union enthuse: “The congress expresses dismay that the prices of refined petroleum products have remained unchanged despite the significant fall of crude oil prices which the CBN acknowledged as a steady one. “
We therefore called on the government to direct the appropriate agency to respond by adjusting the pump price of petroleum products, which will ameliorate the impact on the purchasing power by the devaluation of the Naira.
Now, Nigerians are reminded to be contented with the oil goddess with the burning beauty who the alternate lot falls upon as the OPEC’s Chairman that becomes a shining jewel on her scrap-iron crown!
A fourth-grade schoolmarm could have thought that the minister and even the hewers of wood and the drawers of water knew when to demand wage increase to cushion their labor.
She was the least possessed of that burning sense of mission to end the ogre of corruption, the perennial crisis of fuel scarcity.
Over last weekend, the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Mr. Godwin Emefiele disclosed that Nigeria loses N24 billion yearly on waivers granted to importers of crude oil.
This is in spite of the fact that those enjoying the waivers are the same people as those criminally benefiting from Fuel Subsidy graft.
Both the International Energy Agency and former U.S. Energy Information Chief Guy Caruso predict oil prices are likely to remain lower for a while, barring a major disruption in supply.
“It’s highly unlikely OPEC gets their act together, so I see prices being weak for the next six months or so,” Mr. Caruso said.
It’s obvious that Nigeria will remain politically stunted, economically traumatized, developmentally backward for many years to come for refusing to diversify.
It’s a stark choice we have to make. Either we diversify or we start drinking our oil! An anti-State agent? Megalomania? A sadistic fancy? All of them in part. It’s because the State itself has become the biggest swindler and crook.
A robbers’ state! The hope of nation-becoming, which early in 2011 vividly accompanied President Jonathan’s restoration campaigns, has faded in the twilight of 2014.
There is no retelling that Mr. Jonathan’s moribund regime represents the most harrowing of the nation’s nightmares over and beyond even the horror visited on the nation by the military juntas.
I am certain Nigerians will be approaching the polling booths across the country on February 14, 2015 with one thing in mind: Nations collapse or perish for whom it exists when the loss of force of resistance by the people give way to oppressive despots to triumph in their oppression.
Erasmus Ikhide, a public affairs analyst writes in from Lagos, Nigeria.Tell: 23480 5622 5515. Follow him on twitter @ErasmusIkhide
