Rivers State-born oil magnet, Tein Jack-Rich, is one of the aspirants eying President Muhammadu Buhari’s seat in the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). In this interview, the 47-year-old contender says he has the magic wand to revive the country’s comatose refineries, stimulate production and end the petrol subsidy regime.
Why are you aspiring for the presidency?
I think the most important thing that brought us here is the country Nigeria. It belongs to all of us.
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For people in the calibre of the former governor of Bauchi State, Malam Isa Yuguda, Senator Abubakar Gada and their likes from across the country to accept to be part of this project, it means we are going somewhere. For us, our country needs people like us and we love the country. 2023 is going to be a spectacular year in the history of Nigeria. You heard that Emmanuel Macron just won his second term and this guy is just 43 years old. France is the third-largest economy in Europe; and if largest economies in the world can entrust their national security in the hands of 43-year-olds, why would it be difficult for Nigeria to believe a 47-year-old who is a producer of what the country consumed? Somebody who understands the economic engine that drives profitable growth through private sector participation should be considered for the job. God has given us everything that we need, the challenge is how to produce it, how to grow it and how to utilise it for the benefit of all.
We need someone who understands the engine called production, what government does is tax and what the government does is dispense it to stimulate the economy, but where do you earn to tax, where can you earn to stimulate? It’s the private sector, so as a private sector chap, I believe strongly in the engine called private sector growth and these are the top guys that can employ and provide food on the tables of families.
As a stakeholder in the oil and gas industry, how do you intend to address the production problem where we export crude and import refined products?
The truth of the matter is that you are preaching to a preacher; what I do is oil and gas, I have been in the upstream for 24 years, and the key thing is that I understand the game, I understand the intrigues, I understand the dynamics, I believe strongly that I can take production to 3 million barrels per day.
What about the vandalism going on?
It’s just like somebody saying because you are a writer or publisher, the trouble that it takes to produce your print is so difficult and all that. That is what we do for a living, so those guys vandalising oil and gas infrastructures are those who we strongly believe understand our language and that language is how to create job opportunities. When you create job for a hungry guy, he will not be angry anymore. So, the first stimulus is that you create job opportunities for these guys and then you take them up from left-wing of life to the right-wing. I have done that before, between 2008 and 2010, during the era of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.
In passing, you mentioned that you are going to increase our production to three million barrels per day. How do you intend to achieve this when the refineries are comatose?
I can move our national production to 3 million barrel per day, right now, I think we are struggling with 2.2 million barrels per day. I have the capacity to move to 3 million barrels per day, I understand the language, it’s technical.
Apart from that, I can show that whatever we consume, we will refine, when we do that, the amount of money spent on subsidy will be converted into other engines to enable us acquire competence, so that we can forge into other economic engines that are important for the industrialization of this country.
This country needs to be industrialized but before you industrialize, you need skills, the right skills need to be developed, the right know-how needs to be established. We don’t have the resources to do that because we are depleting our resources a lot.
The swamp that is draining our ability to have that surplus is what I’m going to block, when you block the swamp depleting our economic surplus, there will be an overflow, and that overflow is what I’m going to use to transform our country.
The other aspect is our daily consumption. Today, NNPC will tell you that a million litres are consumed daily, tomorrow it will be different, what do you know about this?
Well, I think consumption is based on market data, but you know we have one or two leakages because we have neighbouring countries and all that. Some products come in and go out through the back door, but the most important thing is the private sector driven market.
In the private sector driven market, you know how much you make every single day because you know how much sales you make every day, you know how much production you make every day. The most important thing we do is to run and drive a private sector driven economy, and the data that the private sector provide becomes the data that you take to the bank. So, economic liberalization is very important, you liberalise the economy, and then you have the private sector come in, and then go round the deal. All you need to do is just tax, tax earnings. I won’t go into detail because it’s sensitive, but when we get there, you are going to see the other side of me. This is the knowledge-based leadership that we are trying to promote right now.
Can you withstand Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, Rotimi Amaechi and other popular contenders?
These guys are big, I’m going to deal with this from the intellectual point of view, Nigerians are looking for content, they are looking for success stories. I’m coming with my success story, I’m coming with my content, I’m coming with my know-how, I’m coming with my experience, I’m coming with what I have done before. I’m a producer, I’m not a consumer.
Nigerians are looking for a leader that is a producer, leadership that produces what it consumes not the leadership that consumes what it doesn’t produce. So, my pedigree and antecedents are out there for Nigerians to make their choice, and their decision. I tell you what: we have had different political leaderships over the years – at the state levels, local government levels, that are consuming what they have not produced. I belong to that generation that believes in productivity, we have been living a life of debt, you need to think about how much the leadership has contributed in the state.
In the past few years, I have paid taxes worth over N300 million – personal income tax in my state. So, out of what I have earned, I have paid my own. Now, do you need somebody who is a producer or somebody who spends what he doesn’t produce? The whole world is going through economic turmoil. We need to re-strategize.
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