The above piece in your newspaper of October 14 made an interesting reading. One of the fallouts of the BBC interview as alleged by NNPCL and IPMAN is that OPEC agreement compels member countries to sell allocated domestic crude at an international rate even if refined locally.
You will agree with me that, it is not surprising then, why there is no strong commitment that our local refineries should work as the operators of our oil industry believe they can always sell to us the above alibi.
Available record shows that the claim on OPEC is not true, the consideration for allocating domestic crude is to allow for affordable price for citizens of oil-producing countries, and most oil-producing countries, except Nigeria, are still enjoying lower price of petrol.
The NNPCL and IPMAN officials are merely tasking Nigerians to sustain their profits. The GMD of NNPCL was quick to tell us that the current increase in the pump price of petrol is responsible for decrease in petrol smuggling as if justifying the increase. The increase has resulted to higher cost of food items, domestic products and services. These should be of serious concern to our policymakers. Today in Nigeria, you are either rich or poor as the middle class has been completely wiped out.
OPEC is not responsible for local cost of petrol and petroleum products in Nigeria. OPEC grants Nigeria the opportunity to produce 2 million barrels of crude oil per day, but due to oil theft and insecurity, we are only able to produce just an average of 1.5 million barrel per day, thereby affecting our capacity to earn more foreign exchange.
The IMF, World Bank, and their Western Allies have ingeniously programmed that our oil price should not rise beyond a certain level that can enable us to experience oil boom of the 70s and 80s, and that is why they ensure, using several mechanisms that price hike in the international market must simultaneously cause a hike in the price of petroleum products in our local markets, sometimes resulting into civil unrest, thereby forcing governments of oil-producing countries to revert prices at the international market. Unfortunately, our leaders have, unpatriotically, fallen for this.
The patriotic support of Nigerians for Dangote and other local refineries is to make cost of fuel affordable to Nigerians, while creating opportunities for local businesses to also make profit.
Abdulhameed Ohieku Yusuf wrote from Abuja
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