TUESDAY FLAT OUT
By Suyi Ayodele
You could not have noticed that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu came into the country on Sunday because he breezed in at night. Nigerians should be happy that our husband is back. We don’t deserve any explanation about how our husband, who told us he was going to China, ended up in the United Kingdom (UK). That is what a woman who married an Òrò, the nocturnal spirit of darkness gets. Òrò walks only at night; it tells no other spirits its movement. Not even members of his household.
Kollington Ayinla, Fuji lord, once sang about an adulterous woman. The woman, the musician sang, bade the husband goodbye on a trip to Kwara, but was spotted in Abeokuta; when she said she was going to Kano, she ended up at Ita Faji in Lagos. Yet she says she does not tell lies! Elders of our land say a woman who gets married to a socialite must add patience and perseverance to her virtues. We welcome back Mr. President from the land of the unknown, where he conducted unknown businesses on our behalf. We have rulers and ruiners here. We have never been fortunate to have a leader at the helm of affairs of the nation. And we can’t do anything about that. A man lives with whatever destiny is assigned as his portion.
Before our husband departed to China and surfaced in the UK, he approved a minimum wage of N70,000 a month for workers. That was when petrol was sold for between N700 and N750 a litre. But while away, the ones he left to tend to us increased fuel price to N868/litre. That was for the government-controlled NNPCL retail outlets. Other players in the market, especially the ubiquitous independent marketers, sold the products at N1,200. That is an average difference of N500 per litre, depending on the location. A few hours before the nocturnal arrival of our Òrò husband back to Nigeria, the NNPCL announced that it bought a litre of petrol from the expected ‘saviour’, Dangote Refinery, at N898/litre. That means the NNPCL will sell between N950 and N1,120/litre. The independent marketers will, no doubt, up the stakes and sell at N1,600 or more. Mr. President’s new minimum wage is no longer relevant. The take-home pay can no longer take anyone home. Now that the President is back, he must do something.
Before President Tinubu left for China, he set the tone for another layer of suffering for Nigerians. A litre of fuel he met at N198 when he took over on May 29, 2023, suddenly jumped to N896 at the NNPCL mega-filling stations across the country. Other marketers started selling at between N1,000 and N1,200 per litre in some states. In many other states, the price was higher than that. We had no option. We groaned under the big phallus of our husband, and we moved on.
Expectedly, Aso Rock Villa gave the usual explanation. The Presidency did not ask NNPCL to sell fuel at the new price. NNPCL replied that market forces determined the new price. Helpless and hapless Nigerians were left in the middle of two lying institutions. Nigerians know that it was not a spirit that gave the order. But nobody owned up. Nobody has ever owned up to anything in Nigeria. We are a country on autopilot. Anything goes here, just as our resilience increases anytime the bitter pill is shoved down our throats. We swallowed them without complaints, and we waited for the next mistreatment. Lucky rulers and ruiners they are. I mean those who superintend our affairs. They get away with many things.
Coincidentally, as our husband arrived from an unknown journey, the government decided to divert our attention. The handlers of Tinubu are experts in perfidy and diversionary tactics. They know some stubborn wives in the federation might want to ask how President Tinubu ended up shaking hands with King Charles III of England when we all held corporate prayers for his safe trip to China. They threw something new at us all.
The media became culpable this time around. Everywhere we turned, we were assailed by the news of NNPCL sending hundreds of trucks to load fuel from the Dangote Refinery. An incurable Tinubu apologist who had the temerity to send the video of the trucks loading the products at the Dangote Refinery to me has since not picked up my calls. His shame, I can understand. Hardly had he sent the video, in a celebratory mood, with the did-we-not-tell-you victory signature, than the show of shame between the NNPCL and Dangote began.
Nothing has been done in a transparent manner in this 16-month-old government of Tinubu. Since the day Dangote announced the readiness of its refinery, there has been one tale of mistrust, denial, and inefficiency between the refinery and the NNPCL. Nobody can say exactly the volume of crude oil the NNPCL has ‘sold’ to the Dangote Refinery. Nobody knows how much the nation has made from the transaction. We cannot say if we are running at a loss, or if we have made any gain. At a time, we were all about to shout, Eureka, the price of fuel went rooftop. Now, the controversy is how much Dangote Refinery sold the lifted products to the NNPCL. The confusion is so great that nobody remembered to ask Tinubu what he went to the UK to do or what he brought us from the trip when the president sneaked into the country like the proverbial Òrò.
The NNPC, through its spokesman, Olufemi Soneye, said it bought a litre of fuel from the Dangote Refinery at N898. The implication is that the corporation will not sell below the cost price. If we all go by that calculation, the NNPCL retail outlets will sell a litre at about N1,100, or more. The independent marketers and other fellow shylocks in the industry, who had before the N898/litre lifting price, been selling between N1,200 to N1,400/litre, will increase the price to between N1,500 to N1,600, depending on the location. The singular implication is more pain for the masses who will have to bear the brunt of the inefficiency of those we elected, or who elected themselves, to be rulers and ruiners over us.
The way and manner NNPCL announced the new cost price from the Dangote Refinery shows only one thing: shamelessness! How on earth did we get to this level that nobody in government has any modicum of decency? Should there be any controversy over a matter of this nature when the NNPCL has four refineries: two in Port Harcourt, one in Warri and another one in Kaduna? Who should be talking about buying from the other? Yet Soneye and the Corporation he speaks for are gloating over the fact that the Dangote Refinery is not being truthful about its selling price when the refinery put a lie to the NNPCL claim of N898/litre cost price.
The Dangote Refinery’s communications man, Anthony Chiejina, hours after the NNPCL announced the N898/litre cost price slammed the Corporation, describing the claim as “both misleading and mischievous, deliberately aimed at undermining the milestone achievement recorded today, September 15, 2024, towards addressing energy insufficiency and insecurity, which has bedevilled the economy in the past 50 years.” The refinery went ahead to ask Nigerians “to disregard this malicious statement and await a formal announcement on the pricing, by the Technical Sub-Committee on Naira-based crude sales to local refineries, appointed by His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu GCFR, which will commence on October 1, 2024, bearing in mind that our current stock of crude was procured in dollars.” It reminded the hapless people that the refinery “sold the products to NNPCL in dollars with a lot of savings against what they are currently importing. With this action, there will be petrol in every local government area of the country, regardless of their remote nature.” So, Chiejina and his Dangote Refinery expected us to clap for them with this statement?
Why is a simple matter of documentation becoming like the proverbial Akara which turns to bones in the mouth of the toothless man? If Dangote Refinery knew that it did not sell the products to the NNPCL at the claimed price of N898/litre, why can’t the company disclose how much it sold the products? Why should we wait for October 1, the almighty day of President Tinubu before Nigerians will know how much it costs the government to lift the much-desired products from the Dangote Refinery? Dangote Refinery said in its rebuttal that the NNPCL made “a lot of savings against what they are currently importing”, and we ask: how much, precisely? What is the Dangote Refinery hiding, such that it cannot put the controversy to rest by coming out clean with the actual cost price? If the notorious Adajoowu (unjust judge) were to adjudicate over this controversy, who would he pronounce as truthful? The NNPCL has said and reiterated that it had documents to back its claim that it bought the products at N898/litre. Where are the documents? All the Dangote Refinery is expected to do is to say, “No, we sold to you at XYZ naira”, end of story!
But should we blame Dangote and his refinery? When has the Dangote group ever acted in the interest of the Nigerian masses? From its forays in the consumable/edible markets to cement and now to petroleum, Dangote has only thrived whenever a monopoly is involved! The man has no capacity to play where other stakeholders can also hold their ground. That is why since the commencement of this latest venture, the Dangote Refinery, there has only been one controversy or the other. The endpoint is for Dangote to be the only fish in the ocean for fuel sales and distribution in the country. Our support for the refinery is just to ensure that the huge investment does not die off for the sake of those who earn their living from it. We knew long ago that no matter how one decorates the hog, its natural place is the mud.
I recall that on this page, on July 30, 2024, under the title: “Dangote Refinery: Blind man and his yam scrapers”, I wrote extensively about this Dangote-NNPCL shame. The Nigerian Tribune, in its Editorial of July 29, 2024, titled: “Dangote Refinery Issue”, also cautioned both the government and the refinery. But it appears that like the incorrigible Monkeys of the Pampas of Argentina, neither party has learnt nor forgotten anything. But that is not shocking to some of us. The truth about what is happening between the Dangote Refinery and the NNPCL is yet to be revealed. My inner mind tells me that it is deeper than what we are reading in the media, or we see happening. I believe so much that something messy is going on given that against all wise counsel, the NNPCL decided to sell our crude oil to the refinery in Naira when everything it put in place to get the crude oil is paid for in Dollars!
More intriguing is that amid all the issues confronting us, President Tinubu still finds it difficult to stay in the country and face the job he elected to do. This attitude of the president to our common calamity is what the Aare Ona Kakanfo of Yorubaland, Iba Gani Adams, said in his last week’s open letter to Tinubu, “is becoming indifferent, insensitive and unresponsive to the plights of millions of Nigerians who can no longer meet their daily needs.” The Yoruba generalissimo said of the NNPCL debacle on fuel price and the untold hardship it has visited on Nigerians as the handiwork of “the perverted, opaque, unintelligible, wicked, and corrupt handling of the petroleum sector.” He warned the president that the situation would not continue without a reaction from the people, as “using propaganda, power of coercion, and rough tactics to oppress Nigerians” would not last long.
I cannot agree less with the Aare Ona Kakanfo. The thrust of the open letter, in my understanding, is that Tinubu has not represented those who believed in him, and he should redeem his image. If the Aare Ona Kakanfo did not tell the President, it is not from my mouth that you will hear that the nation, under the watch of President Tinubu, has been taken over by blood-sucking demons, the worst of vampires, who have sucked us so badly that we have become anaemic. Just as Iba Gani Adams asked if President Tinubu thinks his foreign “counterparts treat their citizens the way you are treating Nigerians?” I wish that now that the president is back, and before he embarks on the next foreign trip, he should look at the issues that will make life seemingly comfortable for Nigerians and avoid a situation where all his “campaign promises have suddenly become failed promises,” like the Yoruba generalissimo pointed out.
This is my passionate appeal to the President. President Tinubu must save Nigerians from the Dangote Refinery and the NNPCL. The president must save us, especially our brothers and sisters in the North from bandits. While away, thousands of our compatriots in Maiduguri, Borno State, were rendered homeless by a collapsed dam. Many other dams are in the same condition as the Alau Dam which wreaked untold havoc in Borno State. Now that the President is back, he must save us from collapsing dams; they are all over the place. What about the unending construction of bad roads in the hinterland such as the Ibadan-Ife Road; and Sagamu-Benin Roads? He should complete the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and many others in the same terrible state across the country.
And most importantly, now that the President is back, he should amend the Minimum Wage Act and get the National Assembly to pass it immediately – the NA has the reputation of passing bills in under 20 minutes and he should sign the new Minimum Wage Act to the law immediately and pay immediately. The old rate of N70,000 was based on the old price of N700/litre. Now that the falcon can no longer hear the falconer, before things fall apart for everybody, the president should act and save the masses.