By Zik Gbemre

Recently, we wrote a small piece on the Warri Refining and Petrochemical Company that is now working and has been projected to hit 80 per cent of its installed capacity 125,000 bpd, after nine months of “phased rehabilitation conducted by its in-house engineers and technicians”, in which we gave the credit to the current Muhammadu Buhari administration for the said development. And as expected, some Nigerians and supporters/sympathizers of the past Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (GEJ) administration are making comments and asking why we are giving the Buhari government that is only less than three months old, the credit for our refineries working when the said in-house phased rehabilitation of the refineries started nine months ago. But they failed to take a broader look of the whole issue from past events to understand why we made such logical conclusion on Buhari getting the credit for our refineries now working.

Perhaps, we strongly hope the analysis below and recall of past events will be an ‘eye-opener’ to the ‘naysayers’ and critics on the above subject matter.  To support their line of argument, those who say Jonathan should be given the credit for our refineries working and not Buhari, often quote NNPC’s spokesperson Mr. Ohi Alegbe, who made the announcement about our refineries working and when he said that: “The turn-around-maintenance has been on for some time. We did not just want to make any noise about it. The refineries will start production as soon as they have delivery of crude oil for refining,”

The challenge for some of us now is to put the words of the NNPC’s spokesman to critical test of evaluation viz-a-viz what we were told by the same NNPC about our refineries in the recent past.

As at 2011, there were reports that about $1.7Bn was already spent on Turn-Around-Maintenance (TAM) of the four refineries in the country in the last 12 years before 2011. Yet, none of these refineries worked at reasonable capacity. Let us not even talk about what had happened before 2012 because in January 2012 when former President Jonathan removed fuel subsidy and everybody started protesting as the price of petrol skyrocketed. We are sure everyone remembers the huge nationwide protests that greeted that development. That was when the former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Deizani Alison-Madueke told Nigerians that they will sign a TAM contract that week with the Original Builders of the refineries. And that the said development will reduce the price of petrol, provide millions of jobs and spur the economy’s growth to greater heights. The former Minister even said the Original Builders had given them an “aggressive timetable” to get three of our major refineries to produce at 90% installed capacity utilization within 24 months. This was the announcement made by the former Minister in January 2012. And if we are to take the 24 months promised, that means by the end of 2014, our refineries were supposed to be producing at 90% installed capacity. This is a link to one of the reports on this: http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/fg-signs-tam-contract-with-builders-of-refineries/106886/

And what did Nigerians get about six months after this news report? A breaking news in July 2012 that two of the four refeineries in the country have packed up while the remaining two were producing at 25% installed capacity. So that means the former Minister and her Group never signed any TAM contract that they announced to Nigerians that they would sign at the beginning of 2012. Instead, two of our refineries went out of business six months after that announcement was made. Another link to this report: http://www.punchng.com/news/two-of-nigerias-refineries-pack-up-others-produce-at-25-of-installed-capacity/

The same year 2012 we had another breaking news that the NNPC plans to repair three of our nation’s refineries with N152Bn. This was in December 2012, and in one of the reports, the former Petroleum Minister – Madueke, told Nigerians that $32Million had already been paid for the materials needed for the said refineries repairs. Did our refineries work after that? No! Here are more links to justify what we are saying here: http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/fg-signs-heads-of-agreement-on-kaduna-warri-refineries/122284/, http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/fg-signs-heads-of-agreement-on-kaduna-warri-refineries/122284/

Two years after that, in October 2014, Nigerians were left speechless with another breaking news that our refineries operated at 10.5% installed capacity in June of the same year. Remember the above reference to their promise that our refineries will work at 90% installed capacity at the end of 2014; what then happened to all the money budgeted and allocated to fix our refineries? Only for Nigerians to be told that our refineries operated at an abysmal 10.5% of installed capacity. http://hotnaijaupdate.com/refineries-operated-at-10-5-capacity-in-june-nnpc/

And then in November 2014, there were reports that the same former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, told Nigerians that at this point, the nation has to keep importing fuel for the next 20 years. And in February 2015, while everyone was getting ready for the general elections, the former Petroleum Minister said they are no longer giving the TAM contract to the Original Builders of the refineries. This left many Nigerians like us wondering what happened since 2012 that she told us that they are signing the said contract. Only for her to now tell us that they are no longer signing any TAM contract with the Original Builders of the refineries because they are too expensive. And that it is now local Engineers that will repair our refineries and that it will cost the nation N99Bn. Yet, she never explained to Nigerians what had happened to all the billions of Naira that have been allocated to fix the refineries all these years. In the same February 2015, Madueke told Nigerians that the TAM had not taken place due to the level of decay at the plants. Another link:

http://www.punchng.com/business/business-economy/nigerian-engineers-to-repair-refineries-for-n99bn-nnpc/

And in March 2015, while everybody was getting ready for the general elections, when we suddenly had petrol scarcity, President Buhari accused Jonathan then that he was responsible for our refineries not working.  We did not hear Jonathan saying No! “I am not responsible,” or that “I am working on it and it will soon start working.” Neither did we hear the former Petroleum Minister –Madueke, saying anything or that they are working on the refineries and that they will soon start working. Instead, Madueke said in the first quarter of 2016, the nation’s refineries will start producing refined petroleum products. This was obviously a strategy to indirectly tell Nigerians to vote for Jonathan so that he can complete the so called ‘good work he has started.’ The election came in March 28, 2015 and Jonathan and his government lost. So are we now saying that it was after Jonathan lost the election that he started working on the refineries to get them working? Knowing how the PDP was flaunting every achievement of the Jonathan administration at the time of the elections, it is interesting how they mentioned little or nothing about the refineries. How could they have forgotten that if really they were working on the refineries to work? More links for those interested: http://nationalmirroronline.net/new/refineriesll-be-back-on-stream-2016-nnpc/ , http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/2015/06/nigerias-refineries-to-resume-production-next-month-official/ , http://thenationonlineng.net/new/nnpc-to-repair-refineries-with-550m/.

In case if many of us have noticed, since May 29, 2015, it is as if everything in Nigeria has been given a ‘serious push’ to start working. Perhaps Buhari might not have physical changed or done anything, but the knowledge of his kind of person being at the helm of affairs in Nigeria, has practically made every government institution, including the anti-graft agencies, to suddenly seat up and start getting serious with their work. This was not the case during the Jonathan era.

All of this goes to justify one fundamental truth and principle that practically explains where we are, what we are, and where we will be as a nation. And that truth is the fact that “the dominium usually assumes the (real) character of its ruler.” That is, every nation, State, society and entity usually assumes the character of its ruler/leader. For instance, Nigeria under Abacha is different from Nigeria under Obasanjo. Nigeria under Yar’Adua is different from Nigeria under Jonathan, and so on. And that is because the ‘character’ of these rulers/leaders are different from one another. There are things you can do in the Nigerian polity during the Jonathan administration and practically get away with it, which you cannot do and easily get away with it now under the Buhari government or even in the time of some past leaders like Obasanjo.

The bottom line here is that the Jonathan administration made sure that our refineries did not work because their ‘friends and cronies’ – Oil Marketers especially, will not make money if the refineries were working. When President Buhari came in, the Department of State Security (DSS) was reported to have probed the Crude For Petroleum Products Exchange Agreement & The Offshore Processing Agreement that was signed by the NNPC and Oil Marketers between 2011 and 2014, and the report alleged that all of them (Oil Marketers) were friends of the former President, the former Minister of Petroleum Resources and the former Minister of Finance, and that they were alleged to have made billions of dollars.

Interestingly, these Oil Marketers knew that once President Buhari gets into power that the refineries will start working and they would no longer be patronized. That was why they insisted on getting paid before the inauguration of President Buhari – which had led to weeks of petrol scarcity at the end of May 2015. Are we the only ones that recollect all these things? It is sad that many Nigerians suffer from “short-term-memory syndrome” or that we are simply “plain ignorant” of the happenings, and behind the scenes dynamics, and manipulations that go on the country’s political landscape in relation to the extractive industry – which is the mainstay of the Nigerian economy and where the ‘free’ money is to steal.

We are only trying to be objective and logical in critically looking at the happenings in the polity to explain why we are where we are as a nation. That is the basis upon which we made our earlier write up this issue that gave the credit of our refineries now working to President Buhari. The above analysis was also noted by “Passing Shot in Nairaland” and “Keeping It real with Adeola” on Youtube, one of which asked these questions:  When has TAM of plants become an action conducted in secrecy? When was the TAM awarded and to which company? If local engineers were used, who paid the N99bn that was reported to be needed as recent as last February 2015?

Some people are of the opinion that former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (GEJ) was completely fooled not only by Mrs. Diezani and her cohorts but also by the sycophants he surrounded himself with. The fact is that Jonathan was too loose with his government because his ‘true intentions’ at the seat of power were not right. The man must surely be biting his fingers wherever he is currently. In not making our refineries work, the oil cabals saw a huge avenue to corruptly enrich themselves and they seized the opportunity through oil subsidies. It is not unknown what President Muhammadu Buhari’s stand on fuel subsidy is. He has consistently maintained that the oil subsidy was a fraud and that he would look into why our refineries have not worked. President Muhammadu Buhari (PMB) recently rubbished the fuel subsidy scam when he said “I don’t know what fuel subsidy means”-

http://dailytrust.com.ng/sunday/index.php/top-stories/20804-i-don-t-know-what-fuel-subsidy-means-buhari.

The president has also been reported to be set to probe NNPC N30trn unaccounted oil revenue under GEJ – http://www.nationaldailyng.com/news/latest-news/4116-buhari-set-to-probe-nnpc-n30trn-unaccounted-oil-revenue-under-jonathan.  The fact of the matter is that, NNPC’s executive top shots are aware of what President Buhari knows. They know him to know the workings of NNPC and our refineries having been a petroleum minister and a former Head of State. As such, it is reasonable to expect the corporation (NNPC) to act differently with him than what they did with GEJ. The famous quote by Abraham Lincoln is very apt here: “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.”

As always, we will continue to condemn that which is not good in the interest of Nigerians and praise that which is worthy, without fear or favour and irrespective of who or what is involved.

Zik Gbemre, JP

National Coordinator

Niger Delta Peace Coalition (NDPC)