Tinubu’s oily mess, NNPC’s absurdities and the mendacity of Mele Kyari

By IFEANYI IZEZE

    For God’s sake, the fact that these people are in government or in charge of our public institutions does not mean they love the country more than all of us. And the idea of thinking they always know what they are doing more than the rest of us is what is almost running this country aground with the current mess.

    How can you run the most important agency that carries the nation’s entire economy in such arrogant, reckless, and opaque manner?

    The vexing arrogance and impunity we are seeing the Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), Mele Kyari, display in running the affairs of the nation’s apex oil concern was birthed “small small”. He experimented this callousness with Buhari and nothing was done to either call him to order or outrightly ease him off. And now he is emboldened to do more heinous things as if Nigeria belongs to him and the evil spirits beating the drum he is dancing to.

    The President could not have said this nation is not paying subsidy and then one entity under this federation that does not have powers to run but has been running as if it’s a government would come and tell us that we have been buying the fuel and augmenting shortfalls in cost even though they don’t want to use the word ‘subsidy.’ So who is in charge of our government – the President or Mele Kyari, the NNPCL Chief Executive Officer?

    It was still this Kyari’s tenure in the NNPC during the immediate past administration that we first heard in this country that Nigeria did not make a dime selling over 1.5 million barrels per day of its crude oil, condensate etc.  This was not once, it was not one month, it was not three months and nothing happened. The whole nation moved on as if that was the normal thing to do. How do you explain that? And Kyari usually had the temerity to tell the sitting President and the Council of State that there was no single Kobo to pay into the Federation Account for the states to share and dumbishly, all of them accepted such explanations as if they were under a spell.

    Now under Tinubu’s government he has even been more emboldened obviously because he must have been part of the president’s election campaign funding using whose money – NNPC’s money, our money!

    This is the same person who has been going to raise billions of dollars from foreign credit agencies in exchange for produced and yet-to-be produced nation’s share of the joint venture crude oil, as he said “to defend or rather stabilize the Naira”. Is it the business of NNPC to go abroad and borrow money for Nigeria to stabilize the Naira/economy or that of the CBN? Absurdities everywhere and those who know and should ask questions have all gone deaf and dumb. The judgement/punishment of Almighty God is real and ‘God case, no appeal’!

    Whether anybody wants to hear this or not, as said in one of my analysis in 2023, this same Mele Kyari actually engineered the current ‘owigiri’ dance in prices of food items and almost every other commodity in the market particularly our domestic fuel pricing template following Tinubu’s reckless pronouncement at the Eagle Square during his inauguration. Immediately the President made his ‘kai kai’ pronouncement that “subsidy is gone and gone forever”, the NNPC man came out to contend that the new president has no right to just stop subsidy payment without consulting him to know what’s on ground on the issue.

    As if that was not enough, also without consulting the president, NNPC jacked up the price of petrol overnight from N195 to N557 per litre and that was how this journey of ever-increasing prices started. Now we are at N897 per litre only at NNPC/OVH retail outlets. Elsewhere, a litre sells for between N950-N1, 300 in and around Abuja.

    Buhari’s two tenures (2015-2023) saw petrol price move from N87 to N195 per litre (124% increase).

    Tinubu’s slightly over one year in office has already seen the NNPC move petrol price from N195 (2023) through N557 (2023) to N617 (2023) and now N897 (2024).

    “Subsidy is Gone” snowballed into ‘no dime’ to pay into the Federation Account for the states to share in addition to an outstanding debt/bill of over $6.8 billion. Haba!

    The question is: Whose interest is Kyari protecting?

    Saudi Aramco is the NNPC of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Now close your eyes and imagine that Saudi Aramco lied to the people of Saudi Arabia. Not once, but four times. “Lie to Nigerians” was what the NNPCL have done.

    The NNPCL told Nigerians that they raked in N3 trillion in profits. Guess what? International oil traders are refusing to discharge PMS, until they are paid the $6.8 billion owed to them by the same national oil company.

    The initial denial of debt by the NNPC is a clear indication of an attempt to cover up and deceive the Nigerian people. It is unacceptable for a state-owned corporation to engage in such blatant deception, and Mele Kyari must be held accountable for this betrayal of public trust.

    This man has to tell us where he derived the power to on his own appropriate our monies. On his own, he goes ahead to spend money without appropriation and comes back to tell us he used the money to make up for cost ‘under-recovery’. Haba, bros! Who authorized you to do that and the monies you are spending, was it appropriated because it’s our collective national wealth? Even if you claim to be a private liability company, you are sitting down there on behalf of the Nigerian government and the Nigerian people.

    How can a limited liability company (NNPCL) run our nation at its whims and caprices as if there’s no government in place? The main resource of the nation’s foreign exchange earnings is oil. How do you explain that this resource is being managed anyhow by this so-called private company without the control of state agencies?

    Is NNPC, whether privatised or not, running our own national assets – crude oil, natural gas, LNG, etc – on its own whims and caprices? And is it spending the monies it makes from our resources on its own whims and caprices? Where do they derive the authority to do so?

    How come they told us there was no subsidy and now coming out to tell us that not only had there been subsidy but that they are owing to the tune of over $6 billion and the only solution they have is to jack up the fuel price to almost N897 per litre? Is this not outright provocation of the Nigerian masses?

    The Presidency says they do not know anything about this and that Nigerians should ask NNPC. Can you imagine what the President who is also Nigeria’s Minister of Petroleum is saying about the daylight callousness and fraud in a ministry he superintends? It’s inexplicable that the President has the temerity to be telling us that NNPC has been spending that much money. The question is: on whose authority and by whose approval? The President himself has some explaining to do to us on the recklessness of this NNPC chief executive officer.

    It’s very unfortunate that the NNPC has been allowed to grow to this monster that believes it can do whatever it likes while the country and its economy continue to suffer unnecessarily.

    Shouldn’t any reasonable National Assembly representing the voices of the people be calling Mele Kyari, and everybody involved in this heist with impunity, to question them and answer to Nigerians on these issues of impunity and sleaze in our oil business? Actually a serious National Assembly should be calling the President who doubles as Minister of Petroleum to come and answer charges. Appropriation is a very serious issue and no individual has the right/power to go spending humongous amounts of monies that were not appropriated.

    The NNPC guys that speak from all angles of their mouths came out of the meeting last week with the Vice President Shetima to say that Dangote’s fuel price will depend on Naira exchange rate. “Foreign exchange (forex) illiquidity has been a significant factor influencing the fluctuation in prices of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), which are governed by unrestricted free market forces, as provided for in the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), 2021.”

    As said by the company/corporation, “The market has been deregulated, meaning that petrol prices are now determined by market forces rather than by the government or NNPC Ltd. Additionally, the exchange rate plays a significant role in influencing these prices.”

    And these free-market forces are solely determined by NNPCL reason they did wake up in the middle of the night to adjust the price of PMS from N617 per litre to N897 per litre?

    So as ‘Naira no get standing, sitting, or squatting rate – N1500 today, N1650 tomorrow, petrol price will now join it in this acrobatic gwo gwo gwo ngwo dance, right? What they are saying in other words is that, on some days it could be N900 on others it could be N1500 or more. Is that how they run a productive economy?

    In all these back and forth, what is the President’s position? Unknown exactly! The silence of the President who is also the substantive Minister of Petroleum is just not only too golden, it smells more of complicity in the rubbish by the NNPCL since the inception of this administration.

    .Izeze writes from Abuja and can be reached via iizeze@yahoo.com or +234 (0) 803 304 3009

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