THE LINGERING FUEL CRISIS, THE WAY FORWARD

Apart from the economic dislocation caused by the perennial fuel scarcity nationwide, Nigerians are also subjected to the psychological trauma of having to spend endless hours on fuel queues, traffic jams, needless injuries, damage to limbs, loss of properties and deaths as a result of the fuel crisis which seems to defy solution.

The reason why Nigerians must ever than before, be pained and focus their attention on the oil industry which has become a pain in our neck and ask questions is because, it is our collective patrimony and it will be a great disservice, irresponsibility and eternal shame to the memory of our founding fathers and generations unborn if we surrender it to a cabal or cabals as the case may be, who have repeatedly been accused of being in control of the collective wealth of the people, which is totally unacceptable.

If we recall, the issue of a cabal controlling our oil industry and appropriating the collective benefits which our oil is supposed to provide for the citizens gained grounds and confirmation as a result of the comatose state of the nations four refineries, which forced the country to rely on wholesale importation of refined petroleum products using private concerns. This led to what the government commonly referred to and we as citizens came to understand as fuel subsidy which is explained as the amount of money which the government pays to the fuel importers or marketers in order to keep the prices of petrol low and affordable by the citizens.

Thus, the issue of fuel subsidy became a drain pipe on the nation’s resources and a recurring decimal in the life of the country as a result of the non functioning of the nation’s refinery for processing crude oil into petroleum products. According to records, the total amount of subsidy that have been approved and certified by PPPRA for the period of January 2012 to December 2014 was N2.34 trillion, while an additional N7.96 billion subsidy claim is still under reconciliation.

However, with time, the fuel subsidy became a conduit pipe for corruption being perpetuated by those in charge of managing our oil industry and was eventually exposed when the citizenry resisted the then Federal Government arbitrary and unilateral increase in the price of fuel prices in January 2012 despite calls for debates and dialogues on the propriety of the fuel subsidy regime which had been described as a fraud before then.

The consequences of the peoples revolt known as “occupy Nigeria” in 2012 necessitated the representatives of the people in the legislature setting up an inquiry into the subsidy regime and low and behold, a lot of irregularities were discovered at the end of the day, which required criminal prosecution of indicted persons and corporate organizations by the government in the court of law, which is still ongoing, even though public interest in it has waned.

On assumption of office, President Muhammadu Buhari just like he stated during his campaigns, distanced himself away from the fuel subsidy controversy by emphatically stating that his government was going to eliminate it, which they successfully implemented in the first quarter of 2016 after a lot of painstaking reforms carried out in the oil sector by the Minister of state for petroleum, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu and his team.

Also, the reforms of the oil sector by the present administration has resulted in the repositioning and restructuring of NNPC to reduce the losses incurred in its operations as well as enhance its efficiency in the delivery of its core mandate. As at today, the NNPC depots are being revitalized and supply of products to depots at Calabar, Warri, Port Harcourt, Mosimi, etc has begun after over a decade of non functioning, this is a big kudos to the new NNPC management.

However, these reforms of restoring sanity to the oil sector for the collective good by the President Buhari administration cannot be expected to have a smooth sail in view of vested interest and cabals who are too entrenched in the system and want the status quo of business as usual to remain.

Thus, it is not unexpected that the cabals will illegally and criminally resist change of the status quo through acts of economic sabotage by oil pipelines vandalization, diversion and hoarding of products which can be explained in the manifestation of endless queues and scarcity of the petroleum products nationwide and this for us as citizens, is unacceptable and in need of a call to duty by patriots to cooperate and collaborate with government against those who are profiting from our collective pains and the time to act is now!

Thus, the time has come to admonish the Federal Government which seems to be facing stout resistance in eradicating the lingering nationwide fuel scarcity through massive importation and distribution of petroleum products to the fuel stations than the number of trucks required per day in the states in recent times, to convoke a summit of stakeholders, security agencies, labour, professional bodies, manufacturers associations, civil society groups, youth organizations, religious and traditional leaders, etc to identify and proffer immediate and lasting solutions to the gaps in the distribution network which has contributed in no small measure to this national embarrassment of fuel queues.

S


tate governments must also realize that part of their responsibility to the welfare of the citizenry dictates that they should be involved in monitoring and distribution of petroleum products to their states by the NNPC and the marketers, since any shortcoming has negative effect on the economy and security of the state.

We must also encourage Nigerians to realize that we don’t have any other country apart from Nigeria and like the saying goes, the way we make our bed, is the way we will lay on it. Therefore, it behooves on us to awaken our patriotic consciousness to take our destiny in our hands by asking questions from the relevant authorities so as to be better informed on the fuel situation and know where the problem of this scarcity lies with a view to proffering solutions. People must stop playing politics and engaging in profiteering at the expense of the economic well being of the citizenry and country.

Nelson Ekujumi is a public affairs analyst.