By Akintayo Balogun Esq. 

The reports of the destruction of seized crude oil and the vessels conveying the crude illegally siphoned or explored from the Niger-Delta region of Nigeria by Joint Task Force and other security agencies in recent times have drawn comments, criticisms, and series of reactions as to the impropriety or otherwise of destroying these seized crude oil and vessels immediately upon arrest without any legal action or seeking any court order to carry out the destruction of the substance. It has been a practice of the Joint Task Force that immediately upon the impounding of crude oil and the vessels as well as arresting the culprits, they proceed to destroy the substance found with them.

In a recent interview, the Director, of Defence Media Operations, Major General Edward Buba, disclosed during the military’s biweekly press briefing in Abuja that the burning of the vessel was in line with the military’s Standard Operating Procedures on stolen crude oil. He stated thus, “There are Standard Operating Procedures concerning arrested vehicles, equipment, and vessels, among others, that are associated with oil theft. That procedure stipulates that such equipment, vehicle, or vessels should be destroyed instantly.” This position by the military has been met with much criticism and disaffection by the general public and particularly the National Assembly. The burning of the vessel drew criticisms from some quarters with the Nigerian House of Representatives cautioning the military and other security agencies to desist from burning vessels with stolen crude.

As much as the action/effort of the Joint Task Force and other security agencies is laudable and plausible in the fight against crude oil theft and other vices in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria, the destruction of crude oil and vessels seized by the security operatives is doing more damage than good to the country at large. There is absolutely no justifiable reason for the destruction of these substances and their carriers.

Allegation of cornering of stolen crude oil 

Unfortunately, the immediate destruction of these seized substances and their carriers has raised more suspicion as to the honesty and sincerity with which the crude oil is being destroyed. There have been unconfirmed reports that not all the crude oil that is seized is being destroyed during the destruction exercise. A good portion of the crude oil is being reserved and then sold again by the arresting officers. However, a certain quantity is destroyed to cover up as an entire destruction of the stolen crude. While we may not be able to confirm the veracity of the above allegation, we must state categorically that the destruction of stolen crude oil does in any way help neither the Nigerian economy nor the environment that is at the receiving end of the resulting pollution. 

 Effects of the Destruction of crude oil and their conveying vessels

1. Severe Environmental Pollution: This is the first major disaster that follows the destruction of crude oil. When the so-called destruction is being carried out, so much pollution is done to the environment. There is air, water, and land pollution. The atmosphere is contaminated with hydrocarbon substances and other dangerous chemicals released into the atmosphere which is poisonous to humans, plants, and animals. There is also pollution on the ground surface where the burning/destruction takes place. The environmental damage is enormous. The Niger Delta region is already being severely affected by various activities such as gas flaring, oil spills, and other forms of pollution. Now adding the burning of seized oil vessels to the already bleeding environment is adding insult to injury. The burning/destruction of seized oil vessels is to all intent and purposes very wrong. The ecosystem in the Niger Delta region is already being heavily polluted by oil exploration. The destruction of this stolen only further deepens the destruction of the ecosystem in the region. 

2. Safety of lives and property: It is reported that some of the destruction carried out by the Nigerian forces is done by bombing the vessel that had been seized from the oil thieves. Apart from the environmental hazards caused by the destruction, the act of bombing these vessels also causes a major security threat and psychological trauma to the inhabitants of the communities where the crude oil is being destroyed. The sound of bombing can send a community into serious panic.  

3. Destruction of sources of livelihood: The destruction of crude oil-laden vessels also deprives the people of their sources of livelihood. When the chemical waste from burnt vessels and crude oil comes in contact with the environment and particularly the water, it kills and or contaminates the aquatic life and poisons the surrounding soil. Several fish farmers in the Niger Delta region have been rendered jobless following the severe contamination of the water bodies upon the destruction of seized vessels and crude oil. 

4. Loss of Economic earnings to the Federal Government of Nigeria: Destroying badges of crude that run into millions is equivalent to denying the nation and its people the revenue that can be derived from such large amounts of crude. This is a country in dire need of resources to rebuild the economy, build infrastructures, and to better the lives of the people. The country is in heavy debt, yet we are destroying the sources of enhancing our economy. The burnt vessels can be transformed into other uses like enhancing the work of seafarers in the country. Nothing stops the Federal Government from taking immediate possession of seized crude oil and with the backing of the court; the same is forfeited to the Federal Government. We must state that the fact the crude was stolen does not make the crude bad. The stolen crude is the same crude being explored by Shell and other exploration companies in the Niger Delta.

5. Absence of evidence to prosecute culprits: We stated earlier that culprits involved in stealing crude oil from the Niger Delta are being apprehended. Now what is the evidence that you have against them to prove their activities when all exhibits have been destroyed? As a legal practitioner defending persons being prosecuted for being in illegal possession of crude oil, I will demand the said substance to be tendered in court or any court order regarding their lawful and proper disposal. Failure to produce the evidence for which the accused persons are standing trial goes to the root of the charge. Having destroyed the crude oil found with these burglars, what evidence does the government have to tender against them at the court of law if they are charged in court? There were recent judgments of the Federal High Courts in Nigeria where persons accused of oil theft were let off the hook because the materials that would have formed the evidence to be used against the accused persons had been destroyed or were not brought to court. The vessels and crude oil ought to be preserved as exhibits to prosecute the owners of the vessel. 

A typical example is the statement by the military high command which stated that it has discovered and destroyed no fewer than 23 illegal crude oil refineries and “arrested 60 suspected oil thieves in the last two weeks”. However, the entire badges of crude worth about N202, 788, 300.00, seized from the suspects were allegedly destroyed. What then do you do with the 60 suspected oil thieves in the custody? It will be futile to charge them in court or keep them in custody indefinitely when there is no evidence whatsoever against them. 

All these and more are reasons why the Federal Government of Nigeria must put an immediate stop to the destruction of seized crude oil and the vessels conveying them and give a counter order to the Joint Task Force. The action of the Joint Task Force or any other security agencies involved in the destruction of seized crude oil is doing much more damage to the environment and the economy than solving it. 

Solution to Disposal of stolen Crude Oil

There is just one way out in terms of a solution to the problem of disposing of stolen crude oil. All the government needs to do is to get a court order forfeiting the said crude oil to the government with proper documentation. Using the case of stolen funds for example, over the years in Nigeria, it has been the practice in the Nigerian courts that when funds obtained by fraudulent means are being recovered, the court usually makes orders that the monies be forfeited to the purse of the Federal government or the State government either temporally or permanently depending on the nature of the suit. This same rule should apply to stolen crude oil and the vessel used in conveying them that has been recovered. They should be forfeited to the Federal government which in turn can take them as the same crude oil it has been exporting or refining.

This is a more profitable way to handle oil theft for the government and the community where these products are being stolen from. This to me serves a better form of deterrence to oil burglars than destroying the substances. It would be more painful for oil burglars to see government benefit 100% from their malevolent labour than for both parties to lose out completely. What the government needs to do once substances of this nature are being seized, they should obtain a court order seeking the leave of the court to temporarily or permanently forfeit the seized crude oil to the Federal Government. This should however be done with proper documentation and profiling as well as pictorial evidence which could serve as evidence in court if the existence of the substance needs to be tendered in court.

Conclusion 

The concept of destroying crude oil seized from oil burglars is hasty, unwise, wasteful, unnecessary, and a very bad decision by the officers of government both economically, environmentally, psychologically, and in every wise to the members of the community and even Nigeria at large. The suggestion that it would serve as a deterrent to others who are involved in oil theft goes to no issue and is a very shallow argument. Oil theft has been for decades in Nigeria and destroying stolen crude oil has never changed or stopped the practice. For the sake of the communities where these explorations have taken place, the act of destroying crude oil seized from oil thieves should be stopped as a matter of urgency. The revenue that the nation should have generated vide the said crude oil is being thrown away for just nothing. Nigeria is in serious debt and has spent the last eight years living on borrowed funds from every borrowable source. While this is the situation, Nigeria is carelessly throwing away the bath water and the baby. This ought not to be.  

Akintayo Balogun Esq., LL.B (Hons), BL, LL.M, is a legal practitioner in private practice, based in Abuja, FCT. A prolific writer, public affairs analyst, and commentator on national issues. [email protected]

By Martins Oloja

The word on marble above shows the organic source of the topic. It is from a classic from Robin Sharma, the original ‘Monk Who Sold His Ferrari’. The topic derives from his book, “Who Will Cry When You Die?” It is a time to resort to motivational writing for our leaders who don’t seem to be listening to what oracles and sages in the civil society including the media have been saying and writing. Our leaders appear to have missed the road again. They hate media reports of their listless activities. They don’t like the constitutional role of the media – monitoring governance and holding government to account.

They lean only on their understanding through their friends and relations who pose as consultants and experts. They don’t want to respect even the organic law of the land, the constitution, let alone public service rules and regulations. They don’t like to comply with treasury rules as encapsulated in the financial instructions. They drop the appropriation acts as soon as the executive ink on the documents dries up. They don’t study editorials and commentaries as warning signals and writings on the walls anymore. After all, our leaders have invested heavily in the multi-media business. They don’t need the ‘irritation’ of independent media anymore. After all, the political economy of a free press is quite toxic and complicated at this time.

Our leaders can afford to recruit even media executives to do even dirty jobs for them. They can pay hack writers to publish what they would like to read. They now pay dubious ‘media entrepreneurs’ to monitor adversarial reports about them. They constantly receive awards from such artful ‘media entrepreneurs’ who have polluted the media space. They have assisted in diminishing the influence and agenda-setting role of the media. Our leaders don’t listen to what the people are saying through the media anymore. Sadly, they don’t understand the times. We have written and written, spoken and spoken million truths to their power. They pretend to be deaf and dumb. They are even specialising in denying reports they regret giving out. They engage lawyers to write to the editors to remove even authentic stories from digital portals. They don’t want anybody’s voices of reason and wisdom. They don’t want the law to rule them. They are the law. They are the lords. It is the rule of lords, not the rule of law. They don’t care about features that after elections, there should be governance.

They don’t care about the implications of winning elections and losing the people. They don’t listen to commentators who warn daily about the danger of ignoring civic competence in governance. They celebrate mediocrity as long as the mediocrities and neophytes they recruit are loyal and useful for tomorrow’s political engagements. They employ mercenaries daily to appear on early-hour television shows to deceive the people. They don’t know about the power of the truth they daily bury in the grave. They haven’t read in their classics that you can bury truth in a grave but it won’t stay there. Yes, our leaders lean only on their understanding. They can’t understand why Authur Miller once warned leaders to note that, “a good newspaper… is a nation talking to itself”’. They don’t know why a leader of leaders once preferred a newspaper without government to a government without a newspaper. They want to kill the independent media.

But we will not give up the fight for a new Nigeria that works for all. That is why I would like to resort to motivational talks to our leaders. Maybe that will make them listen. Let’s share some tested words of life with them. I would like to encourage our leaders to get some soft power from words of grace from the masters such as Robin Sharma, among others who have been motivating successful business and political leaders who care to listen to what the civil society, including the media is saying to them. I mean leaders who will not bury the truth told to their power in the grave. And so let me introduce some wisdom nuggets from the classic of Sharma, “The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari”. It isn’t a compilation of editorials. It is a compact and useful book our leaders should read too. But they should also ask their political consultants and aides to buy for them the one that inspires today’s topic: ‘Who Will Cry When You Die?’

We are unarguably passing through an area of turbulence and our pilot, the commander-in-chief, is supposed to tell us that there is nothing to fear. But we the citizens in the flight can’t believe the hubris from our pilot that we have nothing to fear now. This is therefore a time to motivate our leaders at all levels that they need to do some introspection on who will genuinely cry in this country if they die today. We may even extend it to them to reflect well on ‘who will cry if their regime, sorry government dies today?’. That is the motivational message here today. It is also a time to stir their conscience about what another author and inspirational writer, David McRaney calls  “the public goods game”.

“When you were born, you cried while the world rejoiced. Live your life in such a way that when you die, the world cries while you rejoice.”― Ancient Sanskrit saying

Does the gem of wisdom quoted above strike a chord deep within our leaders? Do they often feel that life is slipping by so fast that they just might never get the chance to live with the meaning, happiness and joy they think they deserve? If so, then this very special book (‘Who Will Cry When You Die?’) by leadership guru Robin S. Sharma, that has transformed the lives of thousands, will be the guiding light that can lead them to a brilliant new way of living and governance.

In this easy-to-read yet wisdom-rich manual, Sharma offers more than 100 simple solutions to life’s most complex problems, ranging from a little-known method for beating stress and worry to a powerful way to enjoy the journey through life while creating a legacy that lasts. When our leaders are finally ready to move beyond a life spent chasing wealth and popularity through media from pages and prime time without life-changing projects, to one of deep significance, this is the ideal manual for them. They need to reflect today on a life of significance, Rick Warren, another purpose-driven author has written extensively about.

Our leaders who keep recycling themselves from commissioner to governor and from governor to senator and from governor to minister should look into the seed of time and ask themselves: Who will cry when you die? If this set of dealers, sorry leaders feel that few people will miss them, it may be a time to make some changes. To give your best and to enrich other people’s lives takes a bit of effort, but it’s worth it. All these never-do-well leaders should aim to find personal fulfillment and live their lives to their full value. They can make an active change by using their time productively and recognising what is most important to the people. They will then realise that the best version of them is one that will surely be missed by others.

In ‘Who Will Cry When You Die?, Sharma offers advice on overcoming the difficulties of life while developing personality and skills.
Our leaders, once again, ask yourself:  Who will care about you when you die? Have you ever thought about who will attend your funeral? Who will speak? Who will cry? And who will still be loving you? Asking ourselves questions like these can bring peace and calm to our daily life. These questions help remind us that we are human. We are not robots, and our days do not have to be repetitive.

Similarly, Sharma’s manual urges us to schedule our daily life tasks. This is what will make our leaders think more about accountability and servant leadership. We should pay attention to this schedule and identify when we are not spending enough time being human.  We must allocate time for our loved ones, family, friends, and nature. We must also allocate time to being alone. Being alone allows us to think about life and the communities we serve. We should do what we love to do. Scheduling, passion, and self-discipline are ideas that consistently arise throughout the self-development manual. Scheduling is an important art that everyone needs to master to become highly effective and successful. Our leaders who daily make mistakes even on simple governance issues need to take the basic lessons seriously. We should make a to-do list to be significant in office and power every day.

The real secret to getting things done is to know what things need to be left undone. Our leaders appear disorganised and disoriented every day. That is why we are not making progress. An ancient word of life teaches us that we should let things be done properly and in order. I learned from a Middle-East ancient journal that being organised and orderly, is a national culture that is driving development in the United Arabs Emirates (UAE) and indeed most parts of the oil–producing and prosperous Middle East.

Studying ‘Who Will Cry When You Die? can help leaders live life to the fullest. People dying is a tragedy but often people’s lives are a greater tragedy. This is because they are wasting their time on frivolities on earth. We all want to leave a legacy when we die. We all want people to remember us forever. Let our leaders talk of life’s concept remarkably without losing its very essence. Our leaders should work to show themselves approved by the people they govern. Let’s look at some of our past leaders we cried for when they died. Most southwest political leaders like to don the famous Awolowo cap. But how many of them can be cried for as we continue to do for the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo who died since 1987 at the age of 78?

The iconic Awolowo, an uncommon strategic thinker and planner who was once referred to as “the best president Nigeria never had” introduced a free and compulsory basic education policy as a fundamental objective and directive principle of state policy in Western Nigeria. He established a world-class regional university as a ‘global’ centre of research for tropical agriculture and medicine. Another leader, Sir Ahmadu Bello in the North also established another world-class university, Almadu Bello University in Zaria. In the same competitive federalism spirit, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe established another remarkable University in Nsukka. Inexplicably, a federal military government seized all the three centres of excellence in 1975 without paying compensation to the regions. But then, before we debate their return to the owners someday, let our leaders of today note that when the three leaders, (Awo, Bello, and Azikiwe) died, we all cried for them. And so our leaders should ask themselves today: who will cry when they die?

By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu

161 days after the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) picked a winner in the Nigeria’s presidential election at the beginning of March and 72 days after the inauguration of a new administration, the Senate on 8 August, 2023, transmitted to the presidency the names of 45 persons whom it had cleared for appointment as ministers, including some politicians described as some of “the most violent, corrupt politicians the country has ever seen.”

Azu Ishiekwene – a columnist who is not unsympathetic to Bola Ahmed Tinubu – writes about the in-coming cabinet that “a few nominees…. make the legend of Robin Hood look like a child’s play” and raises informed doubts about the “integrity of the nominees list”. This is an insult to Robin Hood who is reputed to have accomplished some good with his plunder.

This raises two legitimate questions about the cabinet list. The first concerns its provenance. On this, Leadership newspaper alleged that an original list of cabinet nominations had been “tampered with”, laying responsibility for this at the feet of the Chief of Staff and former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila. The new chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and immediate past governor of Kano State, Dr. Abdullahi Ganduje, claimed that neither he nor the president knew anything about a female nominee from his state who was subsequently stood down from the list of nominees, before being replaced.

The second question goes to the strategy that informs the list. For an answer to this, we must look at the composition of the cabinet list. Eight of the 45, representing 17.78%, are women. This is marginal improvement on the seven women (16.67%) who made Muhammadu Buhari’s 42-member cabinet in 2019 but considerably less than the 13 (31%) in the 41-member cabinet of President Goodluck Jonathan in 2011. Three of the eight women are from the south-east zone, which gets the least number of ministers. Two are from the north-west, which has nearly double the number of ministers from the south-east.

The final list that returned to the presidency also features eight former governors and a similar number of former or serving legislators. With a ministerial list largely comprising a majority of former elected officials or senior political office holders, the screening felt like a mutual admiration club mostly bereft of both seriousness and purpose. What passed for ministerial screening for most of the nominees was a process of ritualized bowing, after which the senate set them free to go.

In response to what has become known as “bow-and-go”, columnist, Nosa Igbinadolor, complained that the “Senate has turned its screening powers into a laughable jamboree that ensures that incompetent and corrupt former governors and unproductive MDA chiefs walk boldly through the process to become ministers because they are not being sufficiently asked critical questions.”

For playing their part excellently in this ritual, Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, himself also a former Governor and former Minister, announced to the senators with some initial relish at the end of the process, that they were the proud recipients of a “token” to see them off to their holidays. When some fastidious officials called his attention to what appeared to be a faux pas, Senator Akpabio upgraded the token to “prayers”. This was a mere fortnight after he appeared to take equal relish in joking about the contagion of poverty in Nigeria. The appearance of a self-absorbed senate leadership was not lost on Nigerians.

As they departed for their holidays after the screening, some senators at least appeared to share that feeling. Senators reportedly let it out that the “token” sent to them from the Senate President was a mere two million Naira. Some of them could not hide their disappointment at the “paltry sum” while others appeared to be clearly upset that the Senate President had gratuitously exposed the fact “that they received bribe money from ministerial screening.”

Premium Times computed the sum of money administered among senators for this “token” at 218 million Naira, a figure ostensibly arrived at by multiplying the number of Senators (109) by two million. It is claimed that the money was part of a pot of one billion Naira contributed by or on behalf of the ministerial nominees to facilitate the screening process. If so, then it seems clear that some members of the Senate would have received more than just two million Naira and that the sum of N218 million is only a fraction of what got shared out, unless the Senate President was overcome by an uncharacteristic affliction of selflessness.

Sources in the senate compare this with the sum of $30,000 which was the reported capitation for each Senator after the conclusion of a similar process four years ago. If that figure is correct, it was nearly fifteen times the size of the “token” administered this time around to the senators.

If, however, the suggestion that the screening process was under-written by a deferred quid pro quo turns out to be true, it could go a long way in explaining why the process felt like a mutual back-slapping festival enacted with parliamentary circumstance. For instance, the Senate failed to account for the fact that at least two of the nominees, a male from Lagos and a female from Katsina, do not appear to have done the mandatory National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme. The NYSC Act, which is entrenched in the 1999 Constitution, makes national service mandatory for eligible persons. Those who fail to undertake it are ineligible for employment assuredly in the public service or political office. 

In 2018, Kemi Adeosun, whose NYSC discharge certificate turned out to have been invented, was forced to resign as Finance Minister. Five years later, the 10^th Senate under the leadership of Senator Akpabio appears to have decided to retrench the NYSC Act into a statutory artefact without any need for a formal parliamentary process.

For some reason that remains still undisclosed, however, the Senate at the point of voting through the confirmations, failed to extend its forbearance to three nominees. One of the three is former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory and recent Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir el-Rufai. Neither the senate nor the presidency has issued any formal reason for the failure the confirm Mr. el-Rufai besides the unspecified claims of delayed “security clearance” or “suppressed animosity” from the presidency. 

Mr. el-Rufai’s first ministerial screening in 2003 was nearly scuppered after he accused some senators then of bribery. This time around, his nomination appears to have been sunk by “allegations of human rights abuses, unguarded public utterances, and a purported flood of petitions” masterminded by some well-connected persons.

In a quarter of a century in public life, he has got into what has been delicately described as a “romance with controversy.” In 2016, Mr. el-Rufai gloated as state governor that he had paid identified killers in Southern Kaduna to stop killing. As State Governor, he gleefully took credit for the death in 2010 of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, who was his senior in high school. Ahead of the 2019 general election, he threatened international observers, warning them that they would “go back in body bags”.

Shortly thereafter Mr. El-Rufai went to Lagos, the political home of Mr. Tinubu, to attack him as a political godfather who needed to be defenestrated. He has been viciously intolerant of criticism and one of his foremost critics as governor, Dadiyata, has been missing for over four years. This record forced the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) in 2020 to cancel an invitation to him to address their annual general conference.

After the Senate declined to vote through his nomination, Mr. El-Rufai remembered that he is a doctoral student in the Netherlands and stood down so he could return to school. It is not inconceivable that his record as governor will attract attention if and when he reports to Europe to pursue his doctoral research.

In the interim, Muhammad Pate, an accomplished doctor in both medicine and the academia and one of the few experts in the world on health systems, emerged as one of the few bright spots on the ministerial list. Another bright spot on the list is the talented Yusuf Tuggar, Nigeria’s current Ambassador to Germany. Both Yusuf and Muhammad, coincidentally, are from Bauchi State.

A lawyer and a teacher, Odinkalu can be reached at [email protected]