It is equally at the petrol station that the mask covering people’s faces slip and you see the real creature beneath… the well-dressed man who drops by on his way to church and roundly curses everyone in government and their children for his plight; the scary looking tout hustling and looking for the opportunity to steal something in the distraction of the struggle at the pump head…
Since President Jonathan lost the last election, Nigerians have being experiencing the triple whammy of not having fuel to power generators or cars, while still getting stuck in horrendous traffic every day. Each of us has had to adapt to the situation in our own way. For example, a petrol station at Ikoyi has become my Sunday morning destination, replacing my church attendance in Ikeja. I have recently reluctantly come to accept the place as the location for my Sunday services. For the past 3 weeks, I have regularly worshipped on a queue there, as I have discovered the best time to buy fuel is when all the good Christians are in church and the roads are free. This method is practical and effective but detrimental in the long run to my Christian faith. But that’s just being my own way of getting around the scarcity.
The funniest thing about fuel scarcity is how the petrol station attendants become like our church ushers and the petrol station manager becomes our prophetic Pastor, answering our fuel and electricity prayers. People we obey without questioning. We are also willing to take an astounding amount of abuse from these attendants as long as they let us in through the station gates and sell us our own share of the crude oil byproduct. It is equally at the petrol station that the mask covering people’s faces slip and you see the real creature beneath. The pregnant woman clutching little kids and verbally abusing the driver in front of her because of his perceived slowness to leave the pump; the well-dressed man who drops by on his way to church and roundly curses everyone in government and their children for his plight; the scary looking tout hustling and looking for the opportunity to steal something in the distraction of the struggle at the pump head; and the petrol station attendant with tribal marks who refuses to sell unless N200 is added to the price. But can you really blame them? When the blazing African sun is beating down on one’s bald head for hours, sanity quickly flees.
The specific reason for the lingering fuel scarcity has been firmly established. The federal government imports fuel through NNPC and independent marketers authorised by the same. Marketers are paid by government only after actually importing the product, so they get loans from banks to acquire the product and repay banks after receiving payment from the government. Now, with the advent of a new administration, the marketers are not confident that government will settle all their claims, including claims with regards to forex fluctuations (which should be their burden) and equalisation claims, and are refusing to import without receiving sovereign debt instruments that cover what they are owned.
There are a number of ways to resolve this situation quickly. The Jonathan administration could simply issue sovereign debt instruments, knowing fully well that they won’t be around to pay the piper when the bill comes due. A bit of that has been done already. Or, another option is for the president-elect to come out and state that he will pay all the outstanding arrears when he gets into office, thus reassuring the marketers. Not sure how well that would be taken though.
The most important thing to remember about this current petrol scarcity imbroglio is that it is completely self-inflicted. Petroleum subsidy ballooned astronomically under this administration because the process was opened up to suitcase companies who then worked assiduously to subvert it.
However, I would propose this option: that when Mr. Buhari takes over on May 29, he compels the NNPC to flood the market with its reserves (the NNPC maintains a 32-day strategic reserve of about 1.08billion litres) while purchasing a commensurate supply for another two or three months. He should then appoint a renowned Nigerian (I would propose either Mr. Fashola or Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili) to head a taskforce to verify all importation claims by independent marketers and NNPC, identify the amounts actually owned and pay the marketers off. Simultaneously, the taskforce should ascertain how much fuel Nigerians actually consume. After which the NNPC should be named as the only importer of petroleum under the supervision of the task force for a one year period, to ship in exactly the needed amount.
During the same period, the president-elect should personally supervise the renovation and modernisation of our three refineries. Ecuador recently shut down its largest refinery, the 110,000 barrel a day Esmeraldas refinery for 2 months for renovation and modernisation. With the president-elect or his representative supervising the refinery renovation and the Nigerian Army guarding the refineries, we might be able to conclude a complete turnaround by December 2015 and wean ourselves off petroleum importation.
The most important thing to remember about this current petrol scarcity imbroglio is that it is completely self-inflicted. Petroleum subsidy ballooned astronomically under this administration because the process was opened up to suitcase companies who then worked assiduously to subvert it. It is clear that petrol scarcity can be a thing of the past but only truly if Nigeria becomes petroleum producing without any need to import the product at all, at which point we can remove the subsidy.
Oluwafemi Akinfolarin, a Lawyer, writes in from Lagos.
