By Zik Gbemre
It was only a few weeks ago that I wrote a piece to advise and try to dissuade the President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government from wasting taxpayers money on any of the country’s moribund and dilapidated refineries after reports revealed that the President Buhari-led Federal Executive Council (FEC) had approved a whopping $1.5 billion to rehabilitate the epileptic Port Harcourt refinery, which many well-meaning Nigerians and I consider a national tragedy and a shame to our nation. I noted the fact that it is really a pity that they are still wasting money to maintain them because these refineries were established and installed when technology was not as developed as it is today. So, doing any sort of so-called Turn-Around-Maintenance (TAM) will be like pouring water inside a basket.
As noted by another concerned Nigerian, “the Nigerian refineries can be compared to as a beat-down, broken-down, not-serviced, engine-knocked Peugeot 404, leaking oil, rusty, corroded, I mean nothing working. And even if we were to find the parts, to change and upgrade, to make it mobile again; it is going to be extremely expensive, and most of the parts will be difficult to find. And should they work? The quality of refined products from these refineries will be less than desired. The standard will be way less than what is internationally accepted. So, am wondering, what are they doing?”
It is in the light of all these, that I consider it necessary to stir the hearts of the relevant Government authorities concerned, and appeal that they look at this subject issue from another angle, and realize that there is the need for Nigeria to buckle their belts and follow the trend and changes taking place across the globe when it comes to energy supply.
According to a concerned Nigerian, Kesiena Gbemre, he noted that: “As of 2021, Norway has announced a planned ban on sales of all gasoline/petrol-powered vehicles. The United Kingdom (UK) and Ireland will implement the same ban by 2030. The State of California and the Canadian province of Quebec will implement the same ban on petrol vehicles by 2035. France plans to implement a ban on diesel- and petrol-powered vehicles by 2040. Essentially, petrol vehicles will become obsolete in the future, and this will drastically reduce the global demand for fossil fuels and further reduce oil prices in the global market.
“Why then is the Federal Government of Nigeria about to invest $1.5 billion in rehabilitating a refinery? With the recent progress made in the electric vehicles industry, it is counter-intuitive to invest such a sum in an evidently dying industry. It would be more pragmatic for the Federal Government of Nigeria to invest such valuable resources in RENEWABLE ENERGY PROJECTS and the general efforts of providing SUSTAINABLE ENERGY for Nigerians. As a signatory to the Paris Climate Change Accord, which aims to combat ‘Global Warming’ and promote ‘Green Energy,’ the Nigerian Government spending billions of Dollars on a refinery repair, directly opposes the aim of that agreement.”
Nothing could be further from the hard truth. This is the harsh reality that is facing Nigeria in the future as a country that is solely dependent on fossil fuels as its primary source of energy. A few years ago, I saw reports that Nigeria may be turned into a dumping ground for petrol and diesel engines that are now being phased out in Europe and other developed countries following the adoption of vehicles that use clean energy. And I noted how Nigeria may not only be facing the problem of becoming a trash bin for ‘hazardous technology’ and the environmental implications that will come with it but that the country will also be facing a forced cut supply of oil to the international market by at least two million barrels a day by 2025.
As a matter of fact, energy analysts at the Grantham Institute of Climate Change and the Environment at Imperial College London and Carbon Tracker think tank corroborated the claim and, in a way, warned countries like Nigeria of the danger ahead in the country’s over-dependence on oil. Already, the costs of solar panels have fallen by 85 percent in seven years in the international market, with battery costs dropping by 73 percent over the same period as demand for electric vehicles increases by 60 percent each year.
The latest report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) says “the world is on the verge of an electrifying change that would have a cascading effect on the entire global energy industry”. It adds that within as few as eight years, “electric cars in Europe and North America would be cheaper to buy and run than traditional vehicles, which are powered by internal combustion engines”. While the experts said at least eight out of 10 cars plying roads globally would be Green before 2030, Nigeria and other developing countries were marked to become dumping grounds for the old technology, a development which was projected to leave a serious environmental impact.
Without a doubt, this development should be a rude awakening for our political leaders, lawmakers, and industry players to start putting on their thinking caps to making policy adjustments and take proactive steps to prevent the above stated inevitable in Nigeria. The said $1.5b earmarked for the Port-Harcourt refinery repair can be channeled towards addressing some of these challenges in the country’s energy source and supply. We also need a holistic instrument in the form of regulation that enables investors and the private sector to drive Green Resolution and enforce carbon emission reduction. The Nigerian Government could set stringent standards that would gradually phase out conventional internal combustion, particularly imported second-hand cars. Also, our political leaders at all levels must be very “proactive in diversifying the nation’s economy not to be caught unawares by a projected reduction in the demand for oil.”
One vital point that should be noted here, which we have to take seriously, is the fact that, for us to pursue green vehicle revolution like South Africa, we need to address the issue of power supply in the country, which will encourage Nigerians to buy green vehicles. The green revolution vehicles will be useless if we do not have a steady supply of power. Sadly, and for as long as we can remember, all we have witnessed from Nigeria’s political leaders are promises to do this and that to improve the nation’s power Generation, Transmission, and Distribution sectors. But rather than the power situation in the country to improve, it has gone from bad to worse. Yet, other countries like China, have gone light ahead to innovate more efficient and reliable sources of energy for their population. A few years ago, it was reported that China has announced that the largest floating photovoltaic (PV) facility on earth has finally been completed and connected to the country’s local power grid.
Conclusively, the political leaders of Nigeria at all levels, especially the Federal Government and the Federal lawmakers, have these problems facing the nation in the near and far future: the problem of preventing the country from being a dumping ground of used vehicles from Europe as a result of their adoption of green vehicles, which will further put at risk, the health of Nigerians; the problem of diversifying Nigeria’s economy away from oil, which will soon crash beyond what we had experienced in the past in the international market due to the developed nations’ quest for green/cleaner energy source; and the problem of attracting investments in/to Nigeria to partake in the ongoing global green revolution so as to improve the nation’s power supply. These and more, are the reasons why we believe the Nigerian Federal Government under President Buhari, should not waste another penny on Nigeria’s existing moribund refineries. We should be thinking ahead in this twenty-first century and thinking and doing things that would keep the nation backward.
*We Mobilize Others To Fight For Individual Causes As If Those Were Our Causes*
