Buhari, Jonathan, Obasanjo, Sanusi, Okonjo-Iweala: When Heroes Disappoint

By Tony Eluemunor

How many times have you heard it said that the right thing to do is to remove the subsidy on petroleum products?

I wonder why our leaders are not filled with shame when they betray their country by uttering that supreme insult on the people of Nigeria. President Olusegun Obasanjo, Dr Goodluck Jonathan, and now President Muhammadu Buhari have poured that insult upon injury against Nigerians. It is on record that the late President Umaru Yar’Adua remains the only national leader in recent times who refused to punish Nigerians by in­creasing the pump price of petrol, and insulting us by saying that the subsidy on petroleum products was being removed.

Could Ibrahim Babangida, Obasanjo, Jonathan and Buhari or any of their aides or Ministers explain when God enacted the 11th commandment by stipulating that Nigeria’s refineries should nev­er work and as a consequence, that impoverished Nigerians MUST buy petrol at whatever they are told is the international price of crude oil, though provision has been made for some barrels of crude oil to be made available to the local refineries, at reduced rates, to provide petrol and other products for Nigerians? And if the refineries have not worked, or have been sabotaged, whose duty was it to fix the problem?

If refineries work in other climes, and that includes govern­ment-owned refineries, why have they not functioned properly and effectively and optimally in Nige­ria? And why do the so-called cou­rageous heroes in Nigeria who blab about everything, excoriate every­one but their buddies, have refused to call a spade a spade when it comes to neglected refineries? Why have they refused to tell the truth?

The truth about the evil inherent in petrol subsidy cannot be that Ni­geria operates a system of petrol subsidy to lessen the economic burden on its citizens, but that our leaders, despite the hefty salaries they receive, have failed in their duty to get the refineries to work. Or is it not a part of the duty of those in government to get the refineries to work? This insult on the average Nigreians by those who should be apologetic for failing the masses should stop. Nigerians should shake off the stupor to which debilitating poverty has reduced them and let’s join the discourse.

For instance, please listen to one of the supreme heroes that the aver­age Nigerians glorify; Sanusi Lami­do, former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), defending his incessant calls for the removal of subsidy on petroleum products. During his 60th birthday celebra­tion in Kaduna last year, he gloat­ed: “Many years ago, when I was screaming about the trillions being spent on fuel subsidy, I remember there was actually an attempt to at­tack my house in Kano. I was in the Central Bank. Where are we today? We are face to face with the reality that this (fuel subsidy) is unsustain­able.” We applaud Sanusi as “the economist and banker”, but what in the two fields have stopped him from fighting the real battle; to see that the refineries were repaired? How many times did he cry out for such?

Why have the so-called heroes always left the real fight crying to be fought on Nigeria’s behalf and to turn around to punish the same Nigerians who have been impover­ished by their incompetencies?

Also, please listen to former Fi­nance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iwea­la, deny masterminding the policy to remove subsidy on fuel during Jonathan’s administration. She told the BBC that he states governors be­gan pushing for subsidy removal six months before she joined the admin­istration. “The World Bank and IMF have nothing to do with this, abso­lutely nothing! This is an internal government decision and President Jonathan has made it very clear. Re­member, six months before I came, the governors have all pushed for subsidy removal.” Finish? Is that what her incandescent brain, Har­vard and MIT-trained brain told her could distance her from the collec­tive blame? Phew! She should tell us what she did to make the refineries function optimally? She has written several books on her service to Ni­geria, but has she written about her fight to make the refineries work?

Now, petrol subsidy has returned as a hot national issue. It is incred­ible that nobody in government, no politician, no personal aide of Mr. President and not even the President himself remembered that January 2022 would mark the tenth anniversary of “Occupy Nige­ria” protests directed against then President Goodluck Jonathan’s re­moval of the subsidy on imported petroleum products. That is why they could have chosen such a time to talk about subsidy removal, yet again.

Or could it be that they remem­bered but just didn’t care a hoot? That brings up the question: why things never change, even with this administration that promised a change to the next level? See it this way, why would President Buhari embrace an idea he quarreled with when he was an ordinary citizen, pleading to be elected President? And why would some persons who marched on the streets with him, excoriating President Jonathan for increasing petrol pump price increase, sit snugly in their minis­terial offices, instead of resigning, when the Buhari administration increased petrol pump price from where Jonathan left it?

On January 1, 2012, President Goodluck Jonathan announced the removal of fuel subsidy and increased the per litre petrol price from N65 to N141. “Occupy Nige­ria” mass protests ensued in major cities. The price was later adjusted to N97 after more than a week of protests. It was further reduced to N87 in 2015. But while Jonathan faced serious backlash from the fuel prices during his tenure, Bu­hari has adjusted the pump price from N87 to N145 without any pro­test, just as subsequent adjustments were equally accepted until another price hike was proposed this Janu­ary. The gathering storm over the price hike was diffused when Bu­hari postponed the evil day and evil price increase.

Please, put your hand in mine as we walk through the memory lane. Date; March 3, 2015, when Premi­um Times published a story titled “Fuel Scarcity: Buhari lambasts Jonathan, past leaders for neglect­ing refineries”. The story: “The presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, and former head of state, Muhamma­du Buhari, has expressed outrage at the current fuel shortage that has lingered nearly a week, criticising President Goodluck Jonathan and past Nigerian leaders who failed to fix the refineries.

“In his first response to the petrol scarcity that began Thursday, Bu­hari said past governments, and Mr. Jonathan’s, left Nigeria at the mercy of fuel imports by failing to fix the refineries.

“He recalled that two of the four refineries in the country were built while he was petroleum minister in the 1970s.

‘The countless man hours that will be spent at petrol stations today, will reduce our productivity as a na­tion. This should not be so. – GMB,’ Mr. Buhari tweeted Tuesday. (So, he once loved Twitter, too)

“In my time as NNPC chairman and Petroleum Minister in the late 70s, two of our four refineries were built, and domestic consumption catered for.

“But over the last several years our refineries have declined, and we are at the mercy of imports,” he said. Mr. Buhari criticised the government for allowing the prob­lem to persist by failing to fix the refineries, saying despite Nigeria’s oil wealth, the country has been re­duced to an importer of petrol. We must reject a system that has turned one of the world’s largest crude ex­porters into an importer of petrol. Things must change”.

And, really, Buhari got his wish and things changed. Jonathan was tossed out of Aso Rock Presiden­tial and he landed in Otueke. Bu­hari became President, ostensibly to change things. But have things changed? Or how come that in the seventh year into Buhar’s eight years in office, Nigeria’s four re­fineries are operating at about zero capacity? FACTSHEET: What you need to know about Nigeria’s ail­ing refineries and their perennial repairs, published on 14 April 2021, says:

“In 2012, an official task force ranked Nigeria’s refineries “bottom of the ladder” in Africa, saying that from 2009 to 2012 their capacity rare­ly exceeded 28%, according to the Nigeria Natural Resource Charter. Recent capacity has also fluctuated. In January 2017 it was at 36.7%, be­fore falling to a low of 5.8% later in the year. In April 2019 it fell to zero, where it has stayed since July of the same year”.

The way I read it is that the Petro­leum Minister of State in Buhari’s first tenure, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu per­formed the magic that brought our refined capacity to 36.7% in 2017, but President Buhuari sacked him in 2019. But before his final exit, Dr. Kachikwu had made it clear that he had lost even the little power he had. The only way to end the subsidy is to source our refined petroleum needs locally. Finish. If not, any time the price of crude oil appreciates, the monetary burden on Nigerians will increase. So, too, any time the Naira depreciates against the US Dollar.

So, why has Buhari, who boasted that in the less than four years he was Petroleum Minister, he (or the government he served in) built two refineries but has been unable to even keep one, yes, just one refinery working at any capacity? Or, why has the administration of the gov­erning party, the All Progressives Party (APC) not been able to be so progressive as to get just a refinery to work in seven years? And are APC members not ashamed of this terrible record?

My plea is that change could be deceptive. Or, as French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr, wrote in 1849, “the more things change, the more they stay the same”. This has been explained to mean that turbulent changes do not affect re­ality on a deeper level other than to cement the status quo. A change of heart must accompany experience before lasting change occurs.

A change of heart? No, that has not taken place yet. There is one visible change though; those who run the show. For instance, on 24 January when the government suspended the fuel subsidy remov­al, over “the timing of the removal” those that made the decision includ­ed: The Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, Senate president, Ahmad Lawan, the Minister of State for Pe­troleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, Yahaya Abdullahi, and the Deputy Whip, Aliyu Abdullahi, the Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Reg­ulatory Authority, Farouk Ahmed, Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Mele Kyari, and Commissioned Chief Executive Officer of the Ni­gerian Upstream Regulatory Com­mission, Gbenga Komolafe. Others are the Special Assistant to the President on Natural Resources, Habib Nuhu, Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Finance, Aliyu Shinkafi, and Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Petroleum Resources, Nasir Sani-Gwarzo.

Do you get the point? While Ni­geria’s diversity remains, its deci­sion-making organs have shed that multiplicity of ethnic groups.

Still, I have to thank God for little mercies. We have a President who believes that it is evil for Nigeria to be importing refined petroleum products. He must remember when he said this (and I beg to repeat my­self) “But over the last several years our refineries have declined, and we are at the mercy of imports.”

Mr. Buhari criticised the gov­ernment for allowing the problem to persist by failing to fix the refin­eries, saying despite Nigeria’s oil wealth, the country has been re­duced to an importer of petrol. We must reject a system that has turned one of the world’s largest crude ex­porters into an importer of petrol. Things must change”.

Dear President Buhari, I support you totally and stoutly: Things must change. This is better than what Sa­nusi has been blabbing about. The people insist on subsidy simply be­cause Nigerian leaders have failed woefully. Or when did God also enact the 12th commandment: Ni­geria, thou shalt not export refined petroleum products? Haba!