AS ANOTHER ROUND OF NATIONWIDE FUEL SCARCITY PERSIST, NIGERIA, A COUNTRY UNDER PERPETUAL SIEGE

17/09/2012

AS ANOTHER ROUND OF NATIONWIDE FUEL SCARCITY PERSIST, NIGERIA, A COUNTRY UNDER PERPETUAL SIEGE

In the prelude to the inhuman, insensitive, callous, invitation to anarchy and undemocratic raise in the price of petrol per litre under the guise of removal of fuel subsidy by the Federal government on January 1^st 2012, the government and its propagandists like its predecessors employed the same worn out old tune among others that its so called subsidy on petroleum products meant for the Nigerian people was being hijacked by a cabal. Even after pretending to engage the society on this contentious issue in which public spirited individuals and groups came up with facts and statistics to puncture the government’s line of argument and established that what the government called subsidy was in actual fact nothing but entrenched corruption in the oil industry which needed urgent and patriotic action to combat.

But alas, the whole country was taken aback when the government against reality of facts and figures, reasoning and democratic principles unilaterally increased the price of petrol per litre from #65 to #144 on January 1^st 2012 without consideration for its socio economic implications on the society. The consequence was that Nigerians took to the streets nationwide to assert that sovereignty indeed belongs to the people for whom government exists for their welfare and not the other way round for days which somehow resulted in a reduction to #97 per litre.

In the heat of the oil subsidy removal debate, it was incontrovertibly established that Nigeria was the world’s 7^th largest producer of oil without an accurate data of its production level, the only OPEC member country who exports crude and imports refined products with its attendant economic loss as well as the only oil producing country in which oil theft is the order of the day as confirmed too by President Goodluck Jonathan at a recent public event.

In the midst of the socio economic quagmire instigated by the Federal government action, the House of Representatives hurriedly reconvened and set up a committee to investigate the subsidy regime. The committee after months of public sittings in which the state agencies and actors in the oil industry testified, came up with a report that was mind bogging to conscientious persons with revelations of monumental corruption and thus confirmed the long held position of non state actors about colossal corruption in the oil industry clothed in the garment of fuel subsidy. It took the relentless agitations of the media, public spirited individuals and groups before the government shamelessly admitted its failure and unwillingly arraigned the suspected oil subsidy payment thieves in the courts which are still ongoing. But we are still watching.

Ever since the government took the undemocratic step to economically punish the masses for its mismanagement of the oil sector just like other sectors of our national life by raising the price of petrol per litre, we have not known peace with negative developments unfolding everyday in the oil industry.

However, what is mind puzzling today is the official silence on combating the ravaging fuel scarcity that is fast spreading nationwide and which has the tendency to further economically dislocate our already comatose economy. This perennial scarcity of fuel is a fallout of the failure and mismanagement of the fuel industry by the unitarist federal government which has castrated our four refineries and has refused to either build or put in place enabling laws to encourage the private sectors or state governments to build new ones to service local consumption. Today, we have shamelessly become a net importer of refined petroleum products which have made us as a people to be at the mercy of the oil cabals whom the government claims benefits the fuel subsidy payments.   

This scarcity of petrol has been prevalent up North and in Abuja the federal capital territory for months now, owing to claims and counter claims over payments for fuel subsidy between the federal government and marketers which even involved National Union of Petroleum, Energy and Natural Gas (NUPENG) threatening a nationwide strike action. Just when we thought this matter had been laid to rest, the scarcity is now spreading and ravaging states in the South East, South West and has hit Lagos over the weekend as a result of fractured pipeline in Arepo, Ogun state according to unconfirmed official source.

However, one is shocked and alarmed that days after the killing of three engineers of NNPC who went to effect repairs on the fractured pipeline in Arepo village in Ogun state by vandals in which their labour union have told its members to retreat because of insecurity, the government with all the apparatus of state have not deemed it fit to arrest the criminals for prosecution but have turned a blind eye to this violation of the laws of the land and allowed this economic infraction of fuel scarcity with its attendant implication to spread. Or is the government going to negotiate with these criminals to protect the oil pipelines by paying protection fees just like they have done with vandals in the Niger Delta area at the expense of our security agencies who are constitutionally empowered? Time will tell. 

Today, we have become a country where criminality pays and thus perpetually under siege from oil cabal, Boko Haram, oil vandals, armed robbers, kidnappers, sea pirates, cultists, rapists, arsonists, etc. Or what does one make of the fact that criminals are prowling freely in a country that has constituted authority but is shirking in its responsibility? We have lost all sense of shame in the comity of serious minded people, hence our pitiable state.

In the same vein, one cannot but commend Governor Rabiu Kwankwanso of Kano state who recently declared the readiness of his state government to access Niger Republic for its petroleum products needs in view of the failure of this unitary system of looking up to NNPC and the cabal for supply. With this initiative, who knows, petroleum products might even be readily affordable and available in Kano state than other states in Nigeria who have had to endure the unending pain and exploitation of the cabal? One is thus recommending this type of panacea or the building of refineries by the states governments who have oil in their land so as to boost our economy by creating jobs and also save us the shame of being at the mercy of economic saboteurs.

Until we return to practicing true federalism in deed and not in words in which powers and responsibilities are devolved to the federating units like it is done in federal states all over the world, because our country is a multiplicity of nations that are endowed materially and humanly in different ways by the Almighty, we would continue to be under siege and bondage from enemies of the people.

Thanks,

Yours Sincerely,

Nelson Ekujumi,

Executive Chairman,

Committee for the Protection of Peoples Mandate (CPPM),

26A Adesina Street,

Ikeja, Lagos.

08023172694, 07033853232