Viewpoint
As a national leader of All Progressives Congress, Mr Bola Tinubu, begins to reconcile warring sides in the ruling party, his wife, Mrs Oluremi Tinubu, a senator, has decried that her husband was “trashed” after the party won the 2015 elections.
President Muhammadu Buhari had mandated Tinubu to reconcile aggrieved party members ahead of 2019 general elections, an assignment the former governor of Lagos State has since begun.
But his wife, who is representing Lagos Central Senatorial District at the Senate, on Monday featured on Your View, a breakfast show of Television Continental, where she alleged that Tinubu was sidelined despite his efforts towards ensuring that APC won the polls.
Mrs Tinubu, who disclosed that she was forced to discourage her husband from his continued loyalty to the Presidency and APC, said the party leader was always harping on the development of the country.
She said, “He was campaigning, I did too. We were running three campaigns in my house. And for him to be trashed like that? But I saw somebody who has love for this country. I hate to speak because when I stand in front of God, I don’t want to, because of this man, go to hell.
“Occasionally, I would chip in and I would say, ‘You’re still helping out? Why are you helping out?’ He would say, ‘This country matters to me more.’”
Wife of Mr Buhari, Aisha, had lamented that those who worked for her husband to get into power had been sidelined in the scheme of things under the current administration.
Mrs. Tinubu however pointed out that despite that the Buhari-led administration was now under massive criticisms, the President remained “the candidate to beat” in the forthcoming poll.
She said, “Change takes only one person to champion. And you need leadership. For me, Buhari is still the candidate to beat. Leadership is inspirational. Management is technical. If you have all the degrees and you’re smart and savvy, it is not about leadership. How many people are you inspiring?
“And Buhari, how many years has he been there? I am not campaigning for him. I am not; because I have looked at the dynamics; the poor still trust him. I will tell you: when it comes to integrity, Buhari has it. I don’t know about now.”
Punch
The Catholic faithful began this year’s Lenten season last Wednesday, February 14, 2018, to commemorate and follow the footsteps of Jesus Christ , who in His ministry, engaged in self-mortifying 40-day prayer and fasting. This is a period of self-denial, ostensibly from food, in order to dedicate oneself to the will of God and to meditate on the moral and spiritual lessons of the Christian faith.
The season began with the ceremonial Ash Wednesday as many Christians of Catholic persuasion thronged to their places of worship to have ashes pressed upon their foreheads to demonstrate their recognition and acceptance of their humanity as expressed by the Almighty God in Genesis 3:19, thus: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
Speaking to Catholic faithful on this year’s Lent, Pope Francis, while celebrating Mass at the Domus Sanctae Marthae chapel at the Vatican on Friday, February 16, 2018, said “Fasting weakens our tendency to violence; it disarms us and becomes an important opportunity for growth. On the one hand, it allows us to experience what the destitute and the starving have to endure.
On the other hand, it expresses our own spiritual hunger and thirst for life in God. Fasting wakes us up. It makes us more attentive to God and our neighbour. It revives our desire to obey God, who alone is capable of satisfying our hunger.”
He said further, “Love can also grow cold in our own communities… The most evident signs of this lack of love: selfishness and spiritual sloth, sterile pessimism, the temptation to self-absorption, constant warring among ourselves, and the worldly mentality that makes us concerned only for appearances, and thus lessens our missionary zeal.”
The message of the Pope is relevant to the Nigerian Christian in this season of distrust, mutual suspicion, religious acrimony and open hatred that has spread across the country as a result of multiple social disagreements.
From the North to the South of the country, bloodshed has become common place and revenge, instead of forgiveness, has become the order of the day. It is high time Nigerians harkened to the Pope’s call for mutual love as this is the way to go if the country must attain lasting peace and unity.
We call on, not only Catholics, but Christians of all denominations, to follow the footsteps of Pope Francis to preach the message of love and peace in this Lent season. This is because in recent times, some Church leaders have embarked to preaching revenge, almost inciting their followers to take up arms against their perceived enemies, instead of encouraging them to work for the peace of the country. Violence and revenge cannot solve the besetting problems facing Nigeria.
Furthermore, Christians should use this Lent period to pray for Nigeria. There is no gainsaying the fact that the country needs divine intervention. Over the years, our leaders have experimented with ideas proffered by experts in different sectors, but their wisdom has not yielded the desired results. We therefore call on Catholics to pray for the country in this moment that they have decided to humble themselves and seek the face of God.
The Holy Bible is replete with instances of how God intervened in human affairs when they prayed to Him. Therefore, the Catholic faithful should intercede for Nigeria’s redemption from hatred and violence as they fast and pray to the Almighty God in this Lent Season.
Daily Trust
South Africa made us proud last week by throwing Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma under the bus. Finally. After putting his countrymen and women through so much stress in the dying days of his presidency, the redoubtable party organiser eventually kicked the dust when the African National Congress gave him the boot.
Power, the aphrodisiac; the cocaine of authority, the N-bomb, the Krokodil, the Grey Death, the oxycodone, and heroin of life. The delusional wielder of power flashes a permanent grin at the world like a cunning hyena until the world rises up as one to say, enough!
It was tragic that a man who joined the ANC in 1959 and served in various capacities through the years till he assumed the ultimate prize in 2009 would end up in disgrace as he did. He had served 10 years in jail during the liberation struggle and helped in no small way to establish the ANC at the grassroots. The mistake he made was thinking that his rich past of service to the cause of liberation entitled him to blur the line between state and personal coffers.
There was a tinge of irony in Zuma’s disgraceful end. After his dismissal from office as Deputy President to Mbeki (1999-2005), he rallied his forces to defeat Mbeki at the party elections in 2009 and forced the President to step down on the advice of the party. The same party was to give Zuma hemlock to save South Africa from further shame in 2018. Karma?
Zuma played the cards adroitly to the very end. It is doubtful if he would ever have agreed to resign if not for the vote of no confidence waiting to bury him in parliament. The permanent grin for which he had become famous to the chagrin of my South African friends was wiped out; in its place was a stone face uglier than his statue in Owerri. (What ‘noble’ qualities informed the decision by Governor Okorocha to mount a statue of Zuma in Owerri? Birds of the same feather?)
It was fitting that Fate chose Valentine’s Day to give South Africans and the rest of us who wish that country well the gift of a new beginning. In the run-up to the denouement there was a hint that Zuma was prepared to play dirty, splashing dung at past heroes and other notables. His guardian angel must have whispered to him, “When you’re in a ditch, stop digging”.
South Africans are going to miss his dancing and chanting of Lethu Mshini Wami (“Bring me my machine gun!”) with which he often mesmerised the ANC crowd.
The litany of corruption cases aside, Zuma internationalised his level of depraved ignorance in his defence of the famous rape charge against him. A 31-year-old woman, daughter of one of Zuma’s comrades-at-arms, alleged that Zuma had raped her. Zuma said the liaison was consensual. He admitted that he didn’t use a condom despite knowing that the woman was HIV positive. He said he took a shower immediately afterwards to prevent the disease.
The laughter in the court had hardly died down when ace cartoonists picked up the matter. Jonathan Shapiro, the South African cartoonist known as Zapiro, created a standard Zuma character with a peanut head and shower. That image has stuck.
Corruption wrestled Zuma to the floor because he failed to nip it in the bud. Indeed he was an acolyte of the cankerworm. His opaque dealings with the Gupta family (Two years ago, Atul Gupta was named the seventh-wealthiest person in South Africa, with an estimated net worth of R10.7 billion, that is $773.47 million), sharply divided ANC’s supporters who were torn between sympathy for a comrade and loyalty to the nation.
President Cyril Ramaphosa now has the task to translate the dream of the majority of South Africans for a better life to reality. Daunting as it appears, Ramaphosa has what it takes to achieve success. He has been through the ANC mill; he is rich; he is streetwise. If he can create jobs by tackling the warts that stifle the economy and boldly marshal a plan to make access to education painless for the disadvantaged blacks, he would have started well.
Thank you, South Africa, for saving Africa the continued shame of a Zuma presidency. Coming after the well choreographed dethronement of Uncle Bob Mugabe and happening around the same time as the resignation of Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn amidst protracted anti-government protests, this is good news.
All through the turmoil, there was no recourse to tribal or religious sentiments! Africa is making a statement to whom it may concern: We can tackle our own problems with our internal structures and don’t need meddling of outsiders no matter how well meaning.
I cannot conceal my disappointment with Prof Ishaq Oloyede and JAMB management for failing, refusing or otherwise neglecting to include me in the committee they set up to determine the species, size, appetite, temperament, feeding habits and likely physiological disorientation of the snake that swallowed N36million at its Makurdi office.
I urge Oloyede to turn away the snake charmers that Senator Shehu Sani brought to assist in the investigation. I was once attached to a snake charmer for research purposes and for several weeks he failed to apprehend the puff adder we were looking for. I noticed that he had a crooked pinkie finger on his right hand. When I asked him how he got it, he looked at me intently and said, “bacin rana!” [A bad day; meaning he was bitten by a snake].
Just because I was a small lecturer while Professor Oloyede was a Vice Chancellor does not mean he should write off my experience as the teacher of UG 300 level course Chordate Biology. This very important course taught about the biology of lancelets, tunicates, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. Reptiles include turtles, tortoises, crocodiles, alligators, caimans, gavials, lizards, snakes and the extinct dinosaurs.
Since I am still hopeful that JAMB and EFCC will see reason and come looking for my expert services in this matter, I did not wait to sign a juicy contract but have already commenced my investigation in order to determine the attributes and motivations of this snake that caused such a national uproar. In the wake of this uproar businessmen, market women and politicians all over Nigeria are spreading bitter kola around their vaults and deposit boxes in order to ward off snakes.
Snakes bite for only two reasons: food and defence. Snakes bite people mostly when they step on them. If you step on a poisonous snake, it might decide to deliver to you a “dry bite,” that is, bite you without injecting the poison. This is because it has either squandered its poison elsewhere, made a mistake in coordinating between biting and injecting poison, or because it decided not to waste its poison on you because you are too big to be eaten. A snake is not foolish.
When it moves about shooting out its forked tongue, it is “smelling” for other animals and also detecting heat emitted by a warm-bloodied animal. The snake can determine both the direction and size of the animal nearby. If it is too big to be eaten, the snake will change direction. Now, for a snake’s forked tongue to detect either the smell or heat emitted by a sack of money, locate its direction and size, stealthily approach and swallow it suggests that something went wrong with the snake’s biological set up.
Mint naira notes have a sweet smell but they do not ordinarily emit heat, not being what we call homoeothermic or “warm blooded” in Biology. In fact naira notes do not have blood, as far as I know, apart from the single mercury strand that The Mint inserts in a note as proof that it is genuine. I suspect that the naira notes at JAMB’s Makurdi office were freshly minted. Naira notes rolling off the Mint are quite warm. It must be that heat that deceived our dear snake, which mistook the JAMB money for food and swallowed it. Since this event happened in Benue, maybe herdsmen had a hand in it. Benue is the Ground Zero of herdsmen’s activities; it could be that the naira notes were transported to Makurdi on the backs of cattle. A cow’s backside is very warm and the offloaded naira notes will be emitting heat long after the cow crossed back into Nasarawa State to feed and drink because of the Anti Open Grazing Law.
The puzzle is, most snakes in Nigeria feed on grasshoppers, mice and rats and could not possibly swallow a wad of naira notes. In any case, snakes first sneak up on a moving animal, strike it dead before they begin to swallow. If it is a python, it would first wrap the animal in a coil and squeeze it to death before it swallows. My fear for Mrs Philomena Chieshe’s account is if a python wraps a sack of money in its coils and it does not sense movement, it would simply uncoil and move on. After all, the Benue State Assembly has not yet banned open grazing by snakes in the Benue River valley.
We must now determine the snake’s size. The largest snake in Nigeria is the African Rock Python, sometimes called Sheba’s python because the biblical Queen of Sheba kept them as pets. I do not know if our sister Mrs Philomena Chieshe’s name was mentioned in the Bible, which could explain why she is attractive to snakes. Now, one Nigerian man has already stated that the size of a sack containing N36m depends on whether the money is in N1,000 or N500 notes. If it is in what Abeokuta market women call “one with two heads” [i.e. N1000], then N36m is only 360 wads of notes. A six foot python might be able to swallow this sack whole. If the money was in N500 notes then we are talking of 720 wads. A rock python may have trouble swallowing 720 wads, unless it fed fat on River Benue banks after the cows left.
Quite possibly, this JAMB snake was imported from abroad. It could either be a Reticulated Python imported from Asia,or a Giant Anaconda imported from Brazil’s Amazon jungle. Either of these pythons could grow to be as long as Dangote Cement truck. To them, JAMB’s sack of money is but a small snack. I really pity our sister Mrs. Philomena Chieshe because her racing to the Police Station to seek help will be of little use. Even before the current fuel scarcity, most police patrol vehicles that you see parked by the roadside have no fuel in their tanks. So, before the police can get a few gallons of fuel and race to JAMB’s office, the python would have digested the money.
A python has one of the most powerful stomach juices in the Animal Kingdom. Unlike a human stomach that could be upset by a meal of beans, a python’s stomach can digest bone, hair, horns and hooves. When a python swallows an animal, all that is left after some hours is a tiny drop of excrement. Such a stomach will make short work of JAMB’s naira notes including the paper, colours, pictures, wrappers and mercury. Sorry Professor Oloyede; your N36m is now but a drop of python faeces. And you must still pay me for this consultancy service.
Did you read Professor Ango Abdullahi in a national newspaper yesterday? If you didn’t, this is what he was quoted as saying on why Nigeria won’t stop grappling with herdsmen’s attacks: “The land belongs to Nigerians and herdsmen are Nigerians. If an Igbo man can go to the North and set up a business, why won’t herdsmen go to the South, including your village, to graze their cattle?… Where we come from, you don’t pay for land, you only ask for permission to use it. That is why I said you people are biased against other people and that is why the peace of this country will be very difficult…” That is from a member of the Fulani elite and spokesman of northern elders’ forum. Through him, we can now understand the enormous problem we have on our hands.
Muhammadu Buhari deserves our sympathy. It is not easy at all to be president of anywhere. Being president of Nigeria can be a punishment if your ethnic group is in the eyes of the storm. Those you back with everything are the first to stab you for doing nothing for them. President Buhari is easily a typical Fulani man. He loves his cow so much that he ignores every other thing. But in the last one week, at least two Fulani leaders have accused him of abandoning them. Chairmen of Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association in Kwara and Oyo states spewed bile.
They said Buhari had not done well for them, his kinsmen. They even threatened to report our president to God. Could it be that the God of herders is different from that of their victims? This is Fulani’s worst moment ever, they said. One of them did not forget to add that they won’t vote a Buhari in 2019.
They were right. This moment is the very worst for the Fulani and his costly cow. It is the scariest for the usual and the unusual victims of Fulani herdsmen — farmers, office workers and even air travelers. This is also the worst season for Buhari himself as he swims in his own beef pepper soup. Every strongman has a heel of vulnerability. Jonathan had his own in that far corner called Chibok. The bloodhounds called killer herdsmen appear to be this president’s own Chibok girls.
And it is shocking that both presidents’ response mannerisms are identical in tragedy. Jonathan felt the Chibok disaster was contrived to fight and stop him. He ignored the victims until it was too late. Buhari feels the noise about what herdsmen are doing all over is pure injustice. The herdsman’s ancestral paths – north to south – have been blocked. So, why wouldn’t they kill to clear their way? Ango Abdullahi said something like that. Buhari’s defence minister also said so. The president heard him; we heard him too.
There were cries for the sack of the minister who defended the aggressors. Buhari didn’t hear that; or he didn’t know what wrong the gentleman said (or did) that must take him out of his job. He ignored the calls. The man is there in the full glory of power, waxing lyrical, enjoying his fura de nunu. He will remain there until the market is over.
The Nigerian cow and its Fulani are the new lords of our manor. Runways and hallways are their conquered playgrounds. They get bolder by every official endorsement they get for their misbehaviours. They started deep in the bush, oppressing farmers and their luscious wives. Then they moved to the villages and took over harvests in communal barns; then to the towns, grazing in flustered palace grounds. They then, with the swag of conquistadors, marched into the cities and universities – even attempting the takeover of a local government.
Farmers and other victims of this new terror feel betrayed by Buhari. They say he is backing his kith and kin. Blood is thicker than water and it goes without saying. Herders too feel their Fulani brother has abandoned them. God will ask him, they vow. That is what you get when you are a hawk with forgetful talons. You must never have power and be very absent in your responsibilities.
A leader must never be indifferent in all moments. That has not been the case with Buhari. He has been visibly absent where decisive presence is demanded. And as we look up to the man who is our president to do something, he looks down on us and wonders why we are troubling his preparations for re-election. Goodluck Jonathan did just that four years ago. What we feel is called deja vu. We were here before.
Where I come from, the cow is just meat. It is nothing more than meat. And how much meat do we need to fill our contented cheeks? We do not think any hunger for beef should make us turn cow to an ancestor deserving veneration. But the Fulani thinks his cow is not second in command to any other creation. It is the god of his existence. That fact is in the Fulani man’s mythology. The first Fulani to be rich followed the direction of a water spirit to worship and water cows. He ended up with great wealth and others, till today, follow his example. There is also the Fulani folktale of “A man, his sons and a Cow” adapted into a book years ago by the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA).
It is the story of a man whose love for his treacherous cow made him disown all his three sons. That is the life of the Fulani. The cow has rights over the rights of any other creature. And I hope that is not the explanation for the cold shoulder victims of Fulani attacks have been receiving from those they chose as their leaders.
How long will the Fulani go with his current campaign for space and more space? He will go far unless he meets his match. That is his history. He is a celebrated king of marathons who rarely loses campaigns. Whether in or out of the bush, the Fulani is the wily snake that skins other animals. He is the timid leopard that takes over the forest with the sneaky smile of the powerless. Leopard is the patient aggressor, the ferocious great watcher of the idiocy of his victims. Someone said it is ‘the supreme hunter” with the “symbolic magic of nocturnal energies and creativity.”
Hear Ango Abdullahi again on why the herdsmen had to kill: “The truth is, if you want to kill me and I have a chance first, I will kill you; or do you want people to be killed and not defend themselves? By your reporting, you have denied them justice and government also has denied them justice by not going to arrest those that are killing them. So, they defend themselves.”
In its report on fiscal federalism, the All Progressives Congress (APC) Committee on Restructuring headed by Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State unequivocally acknowledged the demands of Nigerians for the restructuring of the country. The APC initiative was in response to the sustained public outcry over the current, grossly unjust and hypocritical system that negates the cardinal principles of federalism. Ordinarily, the idea of restructuring should not have warranted unnecessary debate and delay if successive administrations in the country had not played the ostrich while the roof of the Nigerian house was literally on fire, and refused to appreciate that every nation remains a work in progress. Indeed, if the governing APC had honoured the critical provision in its manifesto on restructuring which encompasses fiscal federalism or what some stakeholders in the Nigerian project have dubbed resource control, the country would no doubt have made significant progress since 2015. In the existing order, the constituent units of the federation run like beggars to the centre for mere handouts, whereas natural resources of high-yielding revenue potential are domiciled in their jurisdictions.
In the midst of the laissez-faire attitude at the centre, isolated efforts have sometimes been made by the states to contest some nagging issues concerning fiscal federalism. One of this was a suit by Lagos State challenging the Federal Government over the control of inland waterways, in which it was able to secure a favourable judgment. In the Second Republic, some states challenged the Federal Government over its plan to forcibly acquire land, a major financial and economic resource, under the Federal Low-Cost Housing Scheme. The action revealed the rotten underbelly of the convoluted federal arrangement in the country. Similarly, about 15 years ago, the 36 states jointly challenged the power of the Federal Government over issues bordering on the waterways. This led to the Supreme Court judgment on the littoral states, and the onshore and offshore dichotomy.
The subsisting revenue formula anchored on Section 162 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) is based on population, equality of states, internal revenue generation, landmass, terrain and population diversity, with special 13 per cent provision for oil-producing states. The formula is predatory and parasitic; it is all about resource sharing and not generation and management. It kills the initiative. It is no wonder then that petroleum exports, which accounted for only 10 per cent of export earnings in 1962, now account for about 90 per cent or more for a country that had ample opportunities to diversify its economy and restore the lost glory in agriculture, its economic mainstay at Independence in 1960. Therefore, the recommendations in the el-Rufai committee report, including the one on fiscal federalism, are instructive. They seek to empower states to control natural resources within their respective territories and only pay taxes or royalties therefrom to the Federal Government. It is only proper, as espoused by the report, to amend Petroleum Act, LFN 2004, Nigerian Minerals and Mining Act (2007), Land Use Act (1978) and Petroleum Profit Tax Act, 2007. However, the ghost of the onshore/offshore dichotomy must not be resurrected.
An upward review of the current revenue sharing formula in favour of the states through the amendment of the Allocation of Revenue (Federation Account etc.) Act (2002) should be regarded as sine qua non. The government must neither isolate nor distance itself from the popular wishes of the Nigerian people. We wholly align ourselves with other stakeholders in demanding the implementation of the recommendations, and urge the National Assembly to liaise and cooperate with the Executive in ensuring their quick passage, along with others on power devolution and state police. The ample gains of the First Republic when the principle of fiscal federalism held sway have bolstered the campaign for a re-ordering of the existing system that encourages lethargy, inertia and lack of foresight and ingenuity. Surely, an end must come to the absurdity created by military interregnum and sustained by a gluttonous ruling class so far. It is time to enthrone a system that guarantees fairness, equity and justice. This is the only way to stave off the impending implosion in the country.
Tribune
The Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, has been in the news for the widely rejected proposal to create cattle colonies in all the states of Nigeria. Soon, he and the President Muhammadu Buhari administration might be back on the front pages for another crisis which is rapidly building up unnoticed.
The threat of massive famine in 2018 and 2019 is becoming a reality to those close to Nigeria’s farmlands. In the past, food shortages had occurred on account of unfavourable weather or pest infestation. Low rainfall or excessive flooding as well as locust attacks had in the past also resulted in low food productivity.
This year, the country is likely to experience the first full blow of the crisis occasioned by armed herdsmen’s attacks on farmers nationwide which had resulted in losses of lives and property and the displacement of thousands of farmers from the rural areas to safe havens far away from their farms.
In most cases, these attacks were accompanied with the burning of the homes of the farmers, destruction or looting of their food storage facilities or the occupation and grazing on their farmlands by cows and herdsmen. Even if the ongoing military operations are successful, most displaced farmers will find it difficult to resume their farming.
Government’s tardiness to put a stop to the armed Fulani herdsmen atrocities has created a situation in which farmers are unable to harvest what is left of their ravaged farms because they are either in refugee camps or are on the run for their lives. Most of them are also not planning to return home soon to start planning for the planting season which starts anytime from now. With millions of farmers not harvesting now and not planting for the next season, it requires no prophet to predict a looming famine.
The blame should lie squarely at the doorsteps of the Federal Government which failed to mobilise the security forces to effectively provide security when the attacks intensified over the past couple of years. Media reports of these attacks were totally ignored, until the Benue State Government decided to conduct a state funeral for the victims of the New Year Day massacres on live television.
We are raising this alarm to enable the Federal and state governments to brace up for the food shortages ahead and plan to mitigate them. All efforts must be made to eliminate the herdsmen threat.
The nomadic livestock operators should be persuaded and assisted to accept the ranching option. There is no other way forward than this.
The armed foreigners and their local accomplices must be apprehended and dealt with. Special plans must be made to resettle, rehabilitate and provide special funding to enable our farmers go back to work in safety and security.
Vanguard
After decades of squandering the country’s hard-earned resources and scouring the whole area around the now fast-receding waters of Lake Chad in a frantic, but futile bid to discover oil in commercial quantity, the Nigerian government is shifting its attention to another bizarre, money guzzling venture. This time, it is a plan to build a refinery at an unnamed border town between President Muhammadu Buhari’s home state of Katsina and the neighbouring Niger Republic.
A recent statement credited to the Ministry of Petroleum Resources said an agreement had already been reached between the two countries for the erection of the facility, complete with the construction of pipelines from the Nigerien oil fields of Agadem, in Diffa Province, to the refinery site. Without doubt, this sounds like another wild goose chase, which should be discontinued. It is a badly-thought-out plan which, if pursued, will only result in Nigeria having her fingers burnt.
At a time when the world is tending towards a private-sector-driven economy, it is amazing that Nigeria is still stuck in the past by embarking on such a state-sponsored project. Even the sole refinery that is in Niger, Soraz Refinery, located in Zinder, is not a wholly government-owned facility, but one that has a majority Chinese interest. If the government of that country considers it imperative to involve foreign investors in the building of its refinery, why is the Nigerian government so interested in direct funding?
If the decision to build the new refinery in the Niger border is informed by the threat posed by militants in the Niger Delta region, what about the threat of terrorists that are swarming the whole of that region of Africa? Besides, how much supply can be expected from a country that reportedly produces only 80,000 barrels of crude oil per day compared to Nigeria’s 2.3 million bpd?
In fact, this is the time for the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, the inefficient state oil behemoth, to divest from the downstream sector of the industry to pave the way for competent and efficient private investors with the wherewithal to take over. The Nigerian state has shown over the years that she is not good at managing businesses, as exemplified in her failed attempts to run the steel industry and the losses that have been accumulated by the NNPC in its oil ventures.
Perhaps, it is in partial realisation of this that the government has been encouraging private investors to invest in critical sectors of the economy, especially in local oil refining, where the country, the largest oil producer in Africa, spends billions of naira on refined petroleum products import every day.
It is for this same political reason that it was announced recently that a 248-kilometre-long rail line would be constructed to the same country from Kano in Nigeria. The critical question to ask is, why the obsession with Niger Republic? Why use the scarce resources in an economy that is just recovering from recession – where many of the youths graduate from the university and roam the streets for years without jobs – to go and develop another sovereign state?
It should not be forgotten that, in 2012, the Katsina State Government funded the construction of a government house for the governor of the Niamey region – another profligate step by a state that parades some of the poorest human development indices in the world. The tame reason for this, it was reported then, was to “strengthen the bond of relationship between that country and the state.”
Prospecting for oil and building refineries are lucrative businesses that can easily attract private sector interests. If prospecting for oil in the Lake Chad Basin and, in recent times, the Sokoto and Benue basins, held bright prospects, private investors would have moved in long before now, and Nigeria would not have to spend its scarce resources on that venture. Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, for instance, decided to site his refinery in Lagos, close to crude oil source, simply because he is a businessman and knows where to put his money.
There are many things the government could invest in for the good of Nigerian citizens. The parlous state of the country’s education system is crying for adequate funding. So also is the health sector, which has deteriorated so much that the President had to seek medical care abroad the last time he took ill. Even in the area of infrastructure, there are many areas seeking attention. It is interesting to note that while the money for the construction of the rail line to Niger has been reportedly included in this year’s budget, the proposed rail track from Lagos to Calabar is still pending, just as the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and other important and economically-viable highways across the country remain in a very poor state.
Punch