Why Buhari Must Sack Buhari Now

Adeboye 'Fall My Hand'

That Nigeria is broke and can barely fund her budgets is unarguably because the black gold, aka crude oil, which has remained our major source of revenue, has been badly managed since its discovery in commercial quantity in Oloibiri in 1956. This is moreso, given the fact that successive governments since its discovery either do not know what to do with it for the betterment of the people; are naïve about how to make this product work for the nation or are completely drowned in the cesspit of corruption which this all-important product attracts.

According to the Corruption Perceptions Index, some of the most corrupt countries have large extractive industries. These include Sudan, Iraq, Libya, Venezuela, Angola, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, and others. Petroleum revenue mismanagement in the Niger Delta is a typical case.

The Anti-Corruption Research Centre summed it up in an article when it wrote that countries with abundant reserves of non-renewable natural resources are more often cursed than blessed. This resource curse phenomenon is also known as the paradox of plenty. It means that resource-rich countries are prone to suffer certain disadvantages: They are often poor with slow or negative economic growth, have non-democratic governments, and experience civil war. Corruption prevents resource revenue use that benefits economic growth and social welfare.

The resource curse effects are clear in the stark welfare gaps in two petroleum-rich countries: Norway and Nigeria. Norway has managed its oil and gas reserves and revenues to benefit society and future generations. Nigeria has experienced negative economic growth despite its extensive oil and gas industry. Grand corruption explains much of Nigeria’s problems.

The article also summarised the perfect scenario of corruption as when: a few individuals hold all the power to make certain decisions, public information about decision-making is scant, procedures to hold decision-makers accountable do not exist, and decisions can yield personal (private) rewards for decision-makers.

Because the management of this resource in Nigeria is shrouded in secrecy there is too much room for shady and underhand deals. All of these are as old as the discovery of the resource itself.

However, with the tripod mantra of fighting corruption, taming insecurity and revitalising the economy, the Nigerian people gave the All Progressives Congress (APC) a rare opportunity of replacing a sitting president in the hope that things would change for the better. Now they know better.

On assuming office as President and commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, Muhammadu Buhari also assigned himself the portfolio of the Minister of Petroleum. For many, that decision amounted to an overburden on a president who already had an overwhelming task of leading the nation as president given the huge expectations on him.

For his acolytes, they claimed that given his many years in the saddle within and around the petroleum ministry, it would allow for easy and effective supervision of the troubled sector.

We had carried on like it was not an issue. Now, Nigeria is broke and the Federal Government can no longer meet its obligations including servicing its huge debts and we have suddenly realized that the long-existing theft in the sector is killing the nation.

The inability of the nation to meet its OPEC quota pegged at 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) meant that in the last few years, the country has struggled between 1.3 and 1.4 million bpd. The implications being that there is less money to spend.

With this reality, some fatcats and their collaborating bureaucrats who feel threatened by these dwindling fortunes have suddenly realized the need to check the haemorrhaging going on in the sector.

One of such measures was that the federal government through the National Petroleum Company Limited, awarded a pipeline surveillance contract reportedly worth N48 billion annually (N4b per month), to Tantita Security Services Limited belonging to the ex-militant warlord, Government Ekpemupolo, otherwise known as Tompolo.

Like magic, Tompolo and his men have suddenly discovered major tapping points on the Trans-Forcados/Ramos Pipeline in Delta State. By last weekend, 58 illegal tapping points in Delta and Bayelsa through which International Oil Companies, security officials, oil bunkerers, and locals have colluded to bleed the country, over the years.

Trust government bureaucrats, everybody is feigning ignorance and pretending like those long-rusted pipelines were laid a few days ago. Everybody is falling over one another to visit those points. That is how we roll.

Tompolo discovered the breaches but he took time to investigate to find out those perpetrating the act. We are told he has information indicating those behind the breaches. That will be the end of the story.

His preliminary findings are top-secret information for the Chief of Defense Staff, CDS, General Lucky Irabor, and Group Managing Director, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited, NNPCL, Alhaji Mele Kyari, both of whom flew in from Abuja to Delta State to inspect the several violations.

NNPCL and security officials counted 16 breaches on the pipeline operated by Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC, at Yokri community and environs in Delta state. The pipeline runs from Otumara and ends at Forcados Terminal.

General Irabor, who spoke to reporters after inspecting the breaches, vowed that the Ministry of Defence would not leave any stone unturned in fishing out the culprits.

In sane climes, the top hierarchy of the oil management bureaucracy will immediately resign. This is indisputable evidence of their incompetence, if not collaboration.

Already, signs that this whole drama would end in anti-climax are already rearing their ugly heads with the reported torching of the MT Deima vessel caught with illegal crude oil by the Tantita Security Services Limited in Delta state, while still in the custody of the military. The vessel with International Maritime Organisation (IMO) number 7210525, was set ablaze on Monday by the Nigerian military.

The vessel, whose owners are yet to be identified, was loaded with an unspecified quantity of crude oil at the Escravos River in Warri South West Local Government Area of Delta State with eight crew members when it was apprehended.

Recall that sometime in 2004 a Russian oil tanker, MT African Pride, disappeared in the custody of the Nigerian Navy. The tanker laden with crude oil, with 13 Russian sailors disappeared with some 30,000 barrels of oil.

Since the president supervises that ministry and it’s obvious that what he cannot achieve as commander-in-chief of the armed forces,  Tompolo and his ragtag security outfit has done, it goes without saying that he has failed on his assignment and should relieve himself of that duty.

The president has only entrenched his clannish and parochial interests in that ministry such that the group managing director of the then NNPC (now NNPCL), relates with the president in total disregard to the minister of state.

All key appointments in the sector are reserved for a tribe or two and for Muslims only. The administration of the ministry remains opaque leaving it in a situation of complete disarray, lack of accountability, indiscipline, ineptitude and unbridled sleaze.

Buhari must quit that ministry in the few months left of his administration and appoint someone in the mould of Mohammed Buba Marwa to urgently arrest the situation before the nation dies of haemorrhage.

 

Subscribe to our newsletter for latest news and updates. You can disable anytime.