Re: NNPC must go

I had planned to profusely congratulate you for the rare courage you displayed to write the letter to President Tinubu. Only the sycophants and unpatriotic Nigerians would have taken umbrage. You also amply displayed the dictum that a good university education is meant to liberate one’s mind and not to shackle and manacle it. I am educated enough and exposed enough to know that Nigeria, despite its claim to being the giant of Africa, boxes below its weight or at times acting like an overgrown baby. As a result, most Africa countries only tolerate us and not respect us.

As a diplomat, I know what I am talking about. If we want to get our acts together and show that we mean business, we need benevolent dictators. See how Lee Kwan Yeu transformed Singapore from a Third to First World country. Also, see how Dr Mahathir Mohammed, a medical doctor, transformed Malaysia. Malaysia got palm kernel seedlings from Nigeria, but we are now importing palm oil from the same Malaysia. Can someone be bold and courageous enough by showing character like Lee Kuan Yew and Dr Mahathir Muhammed and whip the slumbering and bumbling giant of Africa to rise up and do what it is capable of doing?

Today, you heavily descended on the behemoth called NNPC. In my time as a diplomat, I had some engagements with some officials of the NNPC during my tour of duty in Vienna, Austria. As Head of Mission, I attended every single OPEC meeting and observed it was what the officials wanted and not what Nigeria wanted that mattered most to them. US dollars were spent any how and some Nigerian petroleum dealers were on hand to add to the sharing.

It was fashionable then but it can still be fashion for these petroleum dealers to fly to Vienna because it was easier for them to trap the minister of Petroleum Resources, the GMD of NNPCL and other senior officials in Vienna. I believed then and still believe that the Vienna meetings were aimed at improving Nigeria.

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My greatest disappointment has been on how an oil-country cynically and unconscionably allowed itself to become an importer of refined petroleum. It is only Nigeria among OPEC members where such shameful and disgraceful things happen. Despite so-called Turn-Around-Maintenance (TAM), the four refineries have remained dead horses. Corruption and the lack of patriotism are the only explanation for such a situation.

We, the patriotic Nigerians prayed fervently for the Dangote Petrochemicals Refinery to come on board. The same people, who have rendered the four refineries to remain in a coma, suddenly came out in the most diabolical manner to frustrate it.

Suddenly, those selfish, greedy and unpatriotic NNPC officials and its subsidiaries, obnoxiously began to talk about “monopoly”. Did Aliko Dangote stop any man from building his own refinery in order to challenge Dangote’s monopoly? So, in their myopic view, Nigeria must continue to import refined petroleum even though Dangote Refinery is here in Nigeria. Is that how to attract investors? Do we think that foreign investors will blindly invest in Nigeria when its own investor is being recklessly and mercilessly treated?

In my opinion, the era of fuel importation, which is shrouded in corruption and lack of patriotism, must stop; and now is the time. Let me remind the NNPCL, NUPRC and fuel importers, and other dealers that they should fear Allah’s day of judgement.

Thank you

Ambassador Sulaiman Dahiru

Re: NNPC must go

This piece is a must-read by any serious-minded Nigerian. NNPC is a shame to Nigeria and Africa. For 30 years of doing business and the huge revenue it is supposed to generate for the country, the last protest against hunger and bad governance wouldn’t had taken place.

Many a time, government agencies want to know the salary structure in NNPCL, it is difficult. NNPCL structure its own salaries and allowances. Corruption is possibly highest in the organisation. What happened recently about Dangote Refinery has existed in NNPC for many years where foreign interests come to play. Foreigners will do everything possible to penetrate staff so the yearly or periodic turnaround maintenance doesn’t work.

What is happening in NNPCL is similar to the Ajaokuta Steel Complex. If the steel project had worked in Nigeria, Nigeria would have been a great country today. Oil thieves in the Delta Region are with the encouragement of foreigners so that NNPC will never work.

The West fear Nigeria, and never want it to work, because if it works, the whole world will come to Nigeria. We have the land and weather for agriculture, the steel project in Kogi and the crude oil. Above all, we have the population. What else do we need again than to remove corruption, unpatriotic life and ethnicity in our society?

So, we support your write up… NNPC must go because the staff don’t want to hear the sales of the outfit! There is a recent unverified allegation of a foreign NGO paying a journalist to write fake stories against Dangote Refinery.

There are probably criminals and unpatriotic people stationed in NNPCL as staff to sabotage the country. NNPCL must go.

God bless. Keep up the good work.

 Machu Abraham G.

Area 1, Garki Abuja

0805 996 5168

Re: NNPC must go

First, you missed the letter ‘L’ which caps the new acronym of the corporation, NNPCL. This should have answered the question regarding its status under the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA). It is now a state-owned enterprise with the federal government having controlling shares and other industry players taking the rest. But you are right that the company has not lived up to expectations.

But as a Nigerian state oil company, we should not expect it to work wonders where the rest of the system is rotten. As the nation’s leading “cash cow” one is not surprised if it turned out to be perhaps the most cited citadel of corruption and sharp practices in the country.

Nigeria, the world’s 9th oil producer and Africa’s 3rd, has failed to meet its OPEC crude quota, refine its crude for domestic consumption and regional markets and make its enormous potential in oil wealth work for the infrastructural development and welfare of its citizens. Despite its crucial, central role in our nation, the NNPCL is supposed to be regulated by both the federal government and the relevant regulatory agencies.

But what of the syndrome of “you chop, I chop”, a corrupt cancer bedeviling a society like ours? Little wonder therefore the NNPCL CEO, Mele Kyari, quite recently said at a NASS panel of them managing the oil industry, “We are not thieves.” He added that they were constrained not to disclose in public “all what we know” but may do so when the time comes.

You mentioned some countries where their equivalent of NNPCL works to grow their national economies into prosperity. You failed to mention the conspicuous example of Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil company, ARAMCO, how it is investing proactively in exploration, refining for both local and external needs and crude exports.

A tragedy of NNPCL which is linked to that of the larger rotten system, is that of sinking hefty salaries and allowances on supposed refineries staff even though as you observed, it has not refined a barrel of oil in the last three decades!

We just learned that a similar scenario is unfolding at the moribund Ajaokuta Steel Rolling Company in Kogi State. Then enter the shameful issue of Dangote Refinery which was set up to save the nation the embarrassment of failing to refine its crude oil domestically for local consumption and export despite monies sunk over the years to turn around the four state-owned refineries.

Dangote is facing challenges from both IOCs and ironically our oil industry managers and regulators. This “cabal” who should ordinarily be the staunchest backers of local refining, are instead opposed to the $20 billion investment. What do you expect where personal interests are raised above that of the nation and its people?

Like the rest of our national systems, the solution is not for NNPCL to go, but to embark on a collective national paradigm shift.

Garba Isa

0802 916 9551