By Farooq A. Kperogi Twitter: @farooqkperogi I wish I could say “Happy New Year!” to Nigerians, but it would be unfeeling and insincer...
By Farooq A. Kperogi
Twitter: @farooqkperogi
I wish I could say “Happy New Year!” to Nigerians, but it
would be unfeeling and insincere to say that to a people who are in clear and present
danger of being metaphorically and literally incinerated by an increase in the
price of inferior grade of petrol products imported to their country by
notorious international toxic fuel importers in the new year.
A reader recently called my attention to a widely read and
shared column I wrote on November 05, 2011 titled “Biggest Scandal in Oil ‘Subsidy Removal’ Fraud” in anticipation of the Goodluck
Jonathan administration’s fuel price hike in 2012 that triggered the massive #OccupyNigeria
protests. The circumstances that inspired the 2011 column are eerily similar to
what Nigeria is going through now.
By late 2011, several
Nigerians were apprehensive about an impending price increase in the coming
year amid a precipitous deterioration in the quality and standard of living.
But unlike in 2011/2012, critical segments of the Nigerian
civil society have now been bought and silenced and tyranny walks unchallenged.
Treacherous and compromised labor leaders make feeble, inaudible noises when
petrol prices are increased but do absolutely nothing to resist it. In all the
three times that the Buhari regime has hiked fuel prices, there has been no
single instance of resistance in the form of strikes or street protests like in
the past. This is unprecedented in Nigeria’s entire history.
Now you have labor aristocrats like Issa Aremu who used to pretend
to be defenders of the masses becoming nakedly shameless and irresponsible
government spokesmen and in fierce competition with Lai Mohammed for the title
of the loudest defenders of governmental incompetence and heartlessness.
Citizens who expect the mercenary know-nothings who
masquerade as “labor leaders” to fight for them are hopelessly naïve. The
collective conscience of Nigeria’s labor leaders has been bought and fully paid
for by the Buhari regime. Their public posturing that pretends to be opposed to
the impending fuel price increase is no more than carefully choreographed
histrionics designed to deceive unsuspecting people.
The current labor leaders learned from Adams Oshiomhole and
his underlings such as Issa Aremu who has been rewarded with a government
appointment as Director-General of Michael Imoudu National Institute for Labour
Studies for his years of “successful” treachery against the Nigerian people. As
I pointed out sometime ago, in the early 2000s, every petrol price hike used to
be preceded by negotiations with, and eye-watering palm-greasing to, debauched
labor aristocrats led by Oshiomhole.
If the price of petrol was, say, N10 per liter and the
government planned to raise it to, say, N20, it would increase it to N30.
Compromised and coopted labor bureaucrats would be encouraged to talk tough and
to go on strike to "protest" the hike. After "negotiations"
and other theatrics, government would "back down" and agree to “reduce”
the price to N20.
Both the government and labor aristocrats would win, and the
masses would lose. Nonetheless, the masses would be thrilled that they didn’t
have to pay N30 for a liter of petrol.
Unwary citizens would praise the labor leaders for
"fighting" for them—and the government also got brownie points for
being a "listening government." And everything went back to normal.
Until the next hike. And the same chicanery would play out.
But post-Oshiomhole labor leaders, particularly the current
ones, neither have Oshiomhole's criminally effective wiles nor his swaggering
gutsiness. Their dewy-eyed eagerness for financial inducement from the
government has caused them to botch every amateur theater they have staged since
Buhari has been in power.
Of course, the Buhari regime doesn’t even respect them
enough to plot the sort of painstakingly arranged melodramas that previous
governments hatched with Oshiomhole and his gang of depraved minions.
Professional “human rights” and “pro-democracy” activists
are also bought and paid for. So are previously critical segments of Nigeria’s
traditional media formation. In other words, the Buhari regime has provided an
effective template for how to subjugate a population effectively.
Nonetheless, although fuel prices may go up next year if the
real people who would be affected by this don’t ignore the swindlers cloaked as
“labor leaders” and revolt, like in 2012, the petrol for which Nigerians would
pay an arm and a leg is inferior and possibly toxic.
In the November 2011 column, I pointed out that the petrol I
use for my car in America burns A LOT SLOWER than the one I use when I visit
Nigeria. It turns out that it is still the case that Nigerians consume the
worst imaginable grade of petrol among the world’s oil-producing countries.
That means comparing fuel prices between Nigeria and other oil-producing
countries—or even countries in Europe and North America— is actually an odious
comparison.
Here are relevant portions of the column that should give
anyone a cause for worry:
“In 2010, a group of journalists from the UK, Norway, and
the Netherlands won a prestigious international journalism award for a series
of investigative reports they did on Trafigura’s barbarous dumping of toxic
petroleum waste on Cote d’Ivoire. The waste killed scores of people and
sickened thousands more. In July 2010, an Amsterdam court found the company
guilty and fined it 1 million euros. (The caustic petroleum residues were
dumped in Cote d’Ivoire on July 2, 2006).
“On June 24 this year, Afrol News, an Africa-centered news
agency, reported that it had been ‘given documentation’ that shows that the
same Trafigura that was fined for dumping deleterious waste on Ivoirians had
offloaded ‘dangerous and poor gasoline [i.e., petrol]’ in the ‘Nigerian port of
Lagos.’
“This toxic petrol, which Nigerians have been consuming for
years and which our governments ‘subsidize,’ according to the Afrol News
report, ‘is highly unstable, not enduring sunlight exposure, and will cause
damage to vehicles. It will also cause environmental damages due to high
sulphur values, and can therefore cause human health damages. The product is
strictly illegal in Europe and the US, but may in some cases be within legal
quality and environment standards in some West African countries.’”
Business Day of January 4, 2011 reported that the Jonathan
administration signed a multi-billion-dollar annual contract with the same
Trafigura that was notorious for importing toxic petrol to developing countries.
“Under the agreement with the Nigerian government, Trafigura is expected to
pick up Nigerian crude oil and in return, supply her with refined products,” the
paper reported.
It added: “Trafigura agreed to an annual contract with the
Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) on the basis of taking 60,000
barrels of crude oil per day in exchange for refined products such as gasoline
and gas oil of equivalent value estimated at around $3 billion a year.” It also
quoted an oil industry expert who said just “$1 billion of the amount would
have put the four refineries in proper shape.”
When I brought these revelations to light in 2011, a lot of
people were incensed and hoped that a change of government would usher in more
sensible and sensitive rulers who would give companies like Trafigura a wide
berth. Several years later, sadly, it is the same story.
On May 12, 2021, Reuters,
the British news agency, reported that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) “picked 16
consortia for its new crude-for-fuel swap contracts for one year starting in
August.”
Guess which company is among the 16? Trafigura! “Two sources
said each consortium would receive 20,000 barrels per day of crude oil in
exchange for products, making the combined total 320,000 barrels per day of
Nigeria's output,” Reuters reported.
So, Nigeria will still give tens of thousands of our crude
oil to international companies with a shady past in exchange for inferior and
toxic petrol that causes engines of cars to “knock,” tanks to run out of fuel
quicker than is usual elsewhere, and that endangers the lives of people who
power their generators with petrol.
I wish I had a better way to welcome readers to the New
Year. I really do.
Fuel Subsidy Removal: Time to “Occupy” Nigeria!
Petrol Price Hike: Time to Occupy Nigeria Again
Sad reality!
ReplyDeleteMay posterity and future be kind to you Original Professor,unlike...
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