By Maiwada Dammallam
It’s no longer news that an estimated 100 million litres, almost twice Nigeria’s 55.99 million litres daily consumption, of contaminated petrol were imported into Nigeria and had been recalled by the Pipelines Product Marketing Company, a subsidiary of the NNPC. According to reports, the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority may return to the overseas supplier, the contaminated Premium Motor Spirit, popularly called petrol, which was imported into the country by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited.
Already, the impact of this avoidable mishap is sending shockwaves across the country. The recall of the contaminated product has caused severe queues in Abuja, Lagos and several other states precipitated by panic purchase to avoid the uncertainties ahead. This is needless and clearly avoidable yet, carelessly allowed to blossom and join the myriad of critical issues on the table of Mr. President which could further challenge the competence and credibility of the administration.
According to a statement issued by the NMDPRA, limited quantity of PMS with methanol quantities above Nigeria’s specification was discovered in the supply chain and to ensure vehicular and equipment safety, the limited quantity of the impacted product has been isolated and withdrawn from the market, including the loaded trucks in transit. This is repulsive and condemnable. One could only imagine how millions of litres of contaminated PMS could get loaded in vessels and sail happily from half-way across the globe, arrive Nigeria, get dumped and released for public consumption without any Nigerian monitor having inkling about the dangerous cargo only for trucks delivering the product across the country to get intercepted for the purpose of recalling the contaminated product. Is it not obvious that somebody did not have the common sense, commitment or patriotism to test the quality and standards of the product at the point of loading and unloading?
NNPC proved this deliberate incompetence by, according to NTA, “engaging critical stakeholders in Lagos on sustainable quality petroleum products supply.” It’s funny for NNPC to only become alive to its responsibility of ensuring sustainable quality petroleum products supply at this point as if Nigeria discovered oil in Olobiri only last month. Something is seriously wrong. Nigeria cannot be in 2022 and still be behaving like it’s 1956 when it discovered oil and was getting ready to join global oil politics.
It’s by similar carelessness that Nigeria was flooded with dangerous weapons that are now in the hands of assorted criminal groups with each group cutting a sizeable piece of the country to create individual criminal states with full powers and ferocious willingness to hold the rest of the country to ransom. It’s the assumption (mostly correct) for lack of proper checks by responsible institutions and or officials in our ports that emboldens criminals to load to the brim 40ft containers with dangerous weapons or illicit drugs worth billions of Naira and appoint any of Nigeria’s major ports as their destination. This is possible only because there’s nothing serious to discourage some idiots from attending to reduce Nigeria to somewhat Colombia or Afghanistan. Mostly the heads that should roll for this aberration, chopped off by a guillotine, go home wearing crowns.
NNPC’s watery assurance did little to help restore confidence. It assured thus:
“Our technical team in conjunction with the NNPC Limited and other industry stakeholders, will continue to monitor and ensure quality petroleum products are adequately supplied and distributed nationwide.”
It’s obvious there’s no monitoring in the first place much less, one which the NNPC promised to continue. If anybody is monitoring anything it couldn’t be the PMS being imported into Nigeria otherwise, we wouldn’t end up with 100 million litres of the contaminated products imported into the country which the so-called monitors couldn’t detect at the point of uploading and later, at the point of releasing the product for public consumption. It isn’t enough consolation that, according to NMDPRA’s statement, “The source supplier has been identified and further commercial and appropriate actions shall be taken by the authority and the NNPC Limited.” Why should identifying the culprit-suppliers be problematic anyway? Somebody should stop making it sound as if 100 millions of litres of PMS could be purchased by the roadside, loaded into a vessel and imported into Nigeria by anybody without proper description.
It will be more assuring for Nigerians if government will concentrate on identifying government officials who deliberately refused to do their jobs properly as a result of which 100 million litres (not 50 litres) of contaminated petroleum product slipped into the country thereby putting the integrity of this administration and especially that of the Minister of Petroleum, President Muhammadu Buhari, on the line. It will also be consoling to tell Nigerians how the administration intend to deal decisively with the culprits to discourage others from feeding fat on the laxity of government institutions and officials whose actions could translate into huge economic costs to the country beside endangering the lives and livelihoods of millions of Nigerians.
It’s bad enough that Nigeria is still unable to breathe life into its comatose refineries despite the obvious economic benefits of doing so and the billions being wasted for the maintenance of the redundant facilities. That corruption is behind the lucrative redundancy of our refineries is a fact people could only ignore to suit their sentiments. The truth however is, it’s inexcusable for Nigeria to be importing petroleum products at this point of its history. Worse, to be embarrassingly caught pants down trying to identify or deal with unscrupulous petroleum products importers.
Building a refinery — from scratch — is not exactly the “riding-a-bicycle-to-Mars” kind of business that should defy any country much less, an oil producing one whose economy is largely determined by the oil value chain. This much is what the Dangote Group has told anybody who cares to listen by building — in just 5 years (2017/2022) — a world class refinery that at full production capacity will be able to produce 50,000,000 litres of gasoline and 17,000,000 litres diesel daily, as well as aviation fuel and plastic products.
If Dangote as an individual, without the powers, authority and advantages of a government, could achieve this feat in just 5 years, who are the demons challenging Nigeria’s ability to duplicate similar feat after long years of trials, even with the history of achieving similar feat close to 50 years ago? And nothing is missing here. Incontrovertibly a dangerous cartel has taken the entire oil sector hostage and will spare nothing while going to any length to challenge any effort to make the sector fully operational in line with the economic development of both the country and its citizens because it’s not in tandem with the cartel’s criminal aspiration to corner the goose that lays the golden egg to have it all to themselves.
As the President and the substantive Minister of Petroleum, the buck ends on Mr. President’s table on all sides. He’s responsible either as the President with overall authority on Nigerian affairs or as the Minister of Petroleum with specific authority to supervise the oil sector. It’s imperative therefore, Mr. President, to make a very loud statement by making heads to roll as a measure to end this and other similar crass irresponsibilities denting the image of the administration.
