It’s not a nice way to say good bye! I am referring to the protracted and persistent long queues at petrol stations in the federal capital and many parts of the country on the one hand, and the impending departure of President Muhammadu Buhari – the Minister for Petroleum Resources, on the other.
The citizens of Africa’s largest producer of oil and gas are unable to access a resource many would argue, they are entitled to get even for free. Never mind that even the Arabian Gulf states that swim in the abundance of petroleum resources don’t dispense theirs for free.
Notwithstanding the fact that scarcity had lingered for more than a year, Nigerians waited patiently through September and October 2022, for the flood waters to recede so that normalcy could return to the supply of fuel across the land. The floods had disrupted road traffic substantially.
It was explained – and it was understandable – that petroleum tankers couldn’t venture the suicidal mission of driving through inundated roads just to deliver products to dry land.
But the floods have since gone out of season. The roads are dry and free. The traffic jams across many towns and cities are ‘normal’ and the tanker drivers are much accustomed to plodding through them. What then is the reason for the current dilemma of scarcity? No one feels obliged to explain or think they owe anyone an explanation.
It can’t entirely be down to the threat by petroleum workers to go on strike. The cycle of shortages has been protracted and persistent with few windows of normalcy which seem to always be a breathing space before another intense spell of shortages.
With the product selling as much as ₦300 per litre outside the FCT and at varying higher prices across country, inflation is standing gidigba and even the rich are complaining about the prices of commodities. Add to the mix the stunt about new naira notes and you’d figure out why most people are frowning. Many are already fighting. Even the Asiwaju of Africa has complained!
We are waiting and hoping on 650,000 bpd capacity Dangote refinery to be commissioned this quarter. It holds promise to fill the vacuum and blaze the trail for more private sector investment in petroleum refining. The fear that it could birth a new kind of monopoly pales before the optimism that an individual is on the verge of making a huge success of government’s incapacity to manage a very strategic business.
There is nowhere Nigeria has shown its weakness and lack of progressive will like in its inability to refine its own crude oil. – Its Bonny Light is a high value easy-to-refine crude with low sulfur content. ‘
This “sweet crude” as it is called, is shipped to refiners who can maximise value on it and in turn, refined petrol – obviously from very crude and unsweet sources, is shipped into Nigeria. Vehicle engines have been damaged as a result of low quality imported petrol.
And for decades, we have exchanged our gold for aluminum while swallowing conspiracy theories that some witches and wizards in Western capitals are behind our travails. Leadership – at all levels, has failed Nigerians more than any conclaves in the east or west of the planet.
Meanwhile, the Minister for Petroleum Resources hasn’t resigned or ceded powers to his junior counterpart. Both men no longer bother to venture an explanation as to the reason for the scarcity of petrol, or the extremely high prices of diesel and kerosine.
And taking the cue from where the buck should stop, the regulatory agencies no longer bother about the wholesale hoarding of products by petroleum dealers who close their outlets during the day, and dispense products to black marketers at night. The racket is so elaborate, that the sellers of plastic cans must be having a boom season.
In my neck of the woods, the vicinity of petrol stations have become the territory of vendors hawking petrol in jerrycans. The pumps in the stations are dry – or so it seems, and the attendants are nowhere in sight. If the stations lack products, who is supplying the roadside vendors? Definitely not the depots.
The duplicity of petrol being sold in cans right inside and outside petrol stations which are shut to motorists on the excuse of product unavailability should go down as the biggest dereliction of duty by the petroleum industry regulatory agencies.
However, the real story that touches the heart for me, is that Nigerians are caught between the failure of regulators, and the cannibalistic exploitation by fellow Nigerians high and low, who, unfortunately, think there is no problem in making money by draining blood from the poor. They are milking a sick cow – they know it, and they don’t care!
It is not clear whether President Buhari draws salary as the Minister of Petroleum. Many of his allies think he doesn’t and going by his antecedents, it is safe to say he does not. But the responsibility for the success of failure of this critical sector of the economy lies squarely at his feet.
He has between June 2022 and now rubbished the fact that for almost the entirety of his first term, citizens rejoiced that the recurrent circle on ember-months artificial scarcity of petrol had gone for good, even if the grumbling about price hike was loud.
At the evening of his term, that legacy is being undone. Worst of all, the president seems oblivious of the reality that this might well affect the electoral fortunes of his party, few weeks from now. Or is it as the Jagaban and other voices have alleged, political?
The setting up of a 14-man committee by the President to restore normalcy and end product scarcity is too bureaucratic a measure. The matter requires more urgency and radical approach than the treadmill of committees. A taskforce should be more like it!
During his 80th birthday commemoration, the President said he could hardly wait to quit the presidential villa. But his term still has a few critical months to go and he must not take his foot off the pedal.
Those he referred to as: “… people around that think that they can intimidate me to get what they want instead of going through certain systems to earn whatever they want to earn…” have not gone to sleep.
If anything, they are earning what they have not earned and feasting off the ordinary people. Like fleas, they are sucking the people dry and the CBN has joined them.
–Julius writes from Utako
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