At last, the Dangote Petroleum Refinery has begun production with the receipt of about six million barrels of crude oil. What a\u00a0pivotal\u00a0moment for Nigeria!\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s the triumph of the resilience of one man, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, whose audacity to dream big, coupled with his unparalleled determination and unrelenting doggedness in bringing\u00a0those dreams to fruition, has seen him climb every mountain and cross every ocean on his path to achieve the seemingly impossible.<\/p>\n
It is only a man with a steely determination\u00a0that will not break under the strain of massive cost overruns, an unforgiving,\u00a0hostile business climate, policy inconsistencies, serial\u00a0currency devaluations\u00a0and currently the worst performing\u00a0currency\u00a0in Africa, forex scarcity, multiple taxation, high cost of capital, etc. that could pull this off.\u00a0\u00a0Nigeria will defeat you, if you are not made of steel.<\/p>\n
That Dangote was able to complete\u00a0his\u00a0petroleum refinery is a testament to his superman capacity to ride the waves no matter how high they may be. Many of us\u00a0continue to\u00a0marvel at this prodigious project, no matter what a few naysayers\u00a0have to\u00a0say.<\/p>\n
You see, this country would not have\u00a0been in this precarious state if we had more of such projects driven by supermen like Aliko Dangote. Again, Nigeria would have been the pride of Africa, living up to its potential and promise as the beacon of hope and the powerhouse of the black race if such men were in political leadership.<\/p>\n
Our incompetent and inept leaders have failed Africa. All they know how to do is loot the commonwealth\u00a0and display it in our faces. They have become the biggest obstacle to the continent\u2019s progress, the ones underdeveloping Africa from within its borders.\u00a0So, for the richest man in Africa and a few others to pick up the gauntlet, doing what Nigeria as a country has failed to do for Africa, then\u00a0the black race deserves to be applauded. And the world is taking notice.<\/p>\n
At the last count, the Dangote\u00a0refinery located in Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos, covering a land area of approximately 2,635 hectares, had gulped over $19.5billion. You would agree with me that, that is a prodigious figure. Not often do we hear of such figures ploughed\u00a0into projects even in\u00a0the\u00a0Western world, let alone in Africa. At best, it is the type of project that multi-national consortia come together to undertake. But in this instance, an individual from one of the\u00a0most challenged\u00a0countries in the world, conceived and executed it, in spite of the very hostile business environment that is squeezing investors out of business. This, to me, is a feat worth celebrating.<\/p>\n
It is the world\u2019s largest single-train petroleum refinery, with\u00a0a\u00a0capacity to process 650,000 barrels per day with a 900 KTPA Polypropylene Plant. It is a thing of pride that a project of this magnitude is located in Nigeria. But even more enthralling is that it was conceived and built by an individual in a country where bad government policies by inept leaders remain the bane of doing business. Policies that are more often than not driven by malice.\u00a0At full production capacity, the refinery can meet 100% of the Nigerian requirements of all refined products and also have surplus for export. How many of us truly understand what that means? Moving from being a net import-dependent country for all our petroleum needs to exporting locally refined products? Can you imagine the foreign exchange\u00a0this will save for Nigeria?<\/p>\n
This surely is a game changer for our bleeding national economy long crippled by forex shortages and organised oil theft with all the imprimatur of officialdom.<\/p>\n
The country\u2019s four refineries have been grounded for several years and may remain so, not because they cannot be fixed in a realistic sense but because those in charge of making them work are\u00a0the\u00a0ones sabotaging all efforts to fix them. The state-owned refineries have become a cesspool of corruption and organised crime.\u00a0Where hundreds of millions of dollars regularly voted for Turnaround Maintenance, TAM, have only served to enrich a few fat cats in\u00a0the\u00a0Nigerian\u00a0National\u00a0Petroleum\u00a0Company\u00a0Limited\u00a0and their collaborators in government. That is the sad situation Nigeria finds itself in.<\/p>\n
And for those who may not know, crude oil export is the source of well over 80% of Nigeria\u2019s foreign exchange earnings. Now, if we can\u2019t protect our production volume from organised syndicates who have perfected the art of stealing the crude from the pipelines before it gets to the terminals for export, how would we earn enough forex for the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to make available to importers of other goods and services?\u00a0The bigger questions are: how do these syndicates get the stolen products to the international market ahead of Nigeria? Who exactly are the members of these syndicates? Why has no one been named publicly? Who is covering up for them in government? Surely, someone or some people who are high up in the government know\/s something.<\/p>\n
Two years ago, the country spent 40% of the foreign exchange it earned from the little it was able to\u00a0generate from export earnings\u00a0on the importation of petroleum products as well as petrochemicals which put a lot of pressure on the exchange rate, according to the former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Godwin Emefiele who did everything he could to help the Dangote refinery come to fruition. Yes, you heard me clearly, he had said 40% of all forex earnings went into the importation of petroleum products. This has created a vicious circle of perennial shortages of forex for other import-dependent sectors.<\/p>\n
In the land of my fathers, there is a saying:\u00a0\u201cA nation that cannot feed itself is not free.\u201d<\/p>\n
So, one can begin to understand the relief the Dangote refinery is set to bring to Nigeria.\u00a0Officially going into production of refined petroleum products is an incredibly important milestone that should be celebrated.\u00a0 It is the last chapter of a checkered journey that began with the acquisition of the Port Harcourt and Kaduna refineries in 2007.\u00a0I think a brief history will suffice here if for nothing but to refresh peoples\u2019 memories.<\/p>\n
In May 2007, the then outgoing Olusegun Obasanjo administration took the bold decision to sell the government\u2019s majority stake in the\u00a0 Port Harcourt and Kaduna refineries to Bluestar Consortium promoted by Aliko Dangote, Femi Otedola and Transnational Corporation of Nigeria, Transcorp for a whopping $750 million with the Port Harcourt refinery selling for\u00a0$561 million. It was Nigeria\u2019s largest refinery, a 210,000-barrels-per-day (bpd) facility, while the\u00a0Kaduna refinery had an installed capacity of\u00a0110,000bpd.<\/p>\n
That transaction triggered an avalanche of wild criticisms from many ignorant Nigerians and labour unions who sprang into action, doing their utmost, to frustrate the sale. And they did. But today where are we on the matter? Is the country better off than it was then before the sale and subsequent revocation? Where are those who opposed the sale then purely on emotional grounds than the economics of the transaction? They have all been put to shame. And the country is the loser for it. I don\u2019t need to remind anyone of the fights at filling stations, the endless hours wasted\u00a0in queues, sometimes overnight at petrol stations just to get fuel\u00a0for our cars.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0two main oil unions in the sector \u2013 the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) and the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) were up in arms, claiming that the two refineries were wrongly sold by the Bureau of Public Enterprises, alleging that \u201cthe sale of the two firms was completely lacking in transparency\u201d. They also stated that no due diligence was carried out and that the Port Harcourt refinery was worth close to US$5 billion, about nine times the amount it was actually sold for. For those who still remember, the sale of the refineries to Bluestar was one of the reasons for the general strike that paralysed the Nigerian economy for four days in June, 2007 during the government of the late Umaru Musa Yar\u2019Adua.<\/p>\n
The then NNPC and the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) joined the clamour for the transaction to be revoked, claiming that they were\u00a0\u00a0capable of running the refineries \u00a0in contrast to Bluestar, which had no actual experience of operating refineries. Really? The surprising thing was that so many Nigerians were sold on the NNPC narrative.\u00a0Following Bluestar\u2019s eventual pull out\u00a0of\u00a0\u00a0the transaction, the then Group Executive Director of the\u00a0Refineries\u00a0& Petrochemicals Department at NNPC, Abubakar Lawal Yar\u2019Adua, was reported by THISDAY to\u00a0have stated that if given the necessary support, the NNPC had the capability to run the refineries efficiently.\u00a0He forgot to mention that it was years of inefficiency and corruption by NNPC\u2019s management that forced the Obasanjo government to sell the government\u2019s majority equity stake in the refineries in the first place.<\/p>\n
Not done, he argued that the solution to the nation\u2019s petroleum shortages would not be found in the sale of the refineries, but in conducting proper turnaround maintenance on them as well as building new ones. The then DPR director, Tony Chukwueke, on his part, said that the nation had not exploited all the models that could ensure that the refineries worked optimally and that Nigeria could invite foreign technical partners to run the refineries, or conduct repairs whenever the need arose. Where is he now? He did not tell us the model that was better than outright sale of the refineries. He just went into a long rigmarole to deceive the nation.<\/p>\n
Well, where are we today?\u00a0Nearly 14 years after Bluestar Consortium\u00a0pulled out of the transaction and the refineries reverted to NNPC\u2019s (now NNPCL) control, they have become as good as dead wood. They have not produced anything of value to this country, not a pint\u00a0of petrol, despite the huge sums pumped into their maintenance\u00a0and associated costs. Who are the gainers and losers in this unholy alliance of individuals against\u00a0Nigeria? The same entrenched interests at NNPC or NNPCL as it is now known. And of course, the labour unions who prefer their workers earn wages for doing nothing.<\/p>\n
Just last December,\u00a0the Senate signalled its intention to open an investigation into what senators perceived as a sabotage of the federal government\u2019s effort to revive the nation\u2019s refineries, in spite of N11.35 trillion, excluding costs in other currencies, which include $592,976,050.00 dollars, 4,877,068.47 euros, and 3,455,656.93 pounds\u00a0sterling\u00a0spent on the renovation of the refineries from 2010 till date, yet they remain unproductive.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t forget that\u00a0 just recently, the federal government awarded another contract worth a mind-blowing $1.5billion \u00a0for the\u00a0 rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt \u00a0\u00a0refinery \u00a0to an Italian Company, Tocnimont SPA, spanning three phases of over 18, 24 and 44 months.\u00a0Let me ask the frequently asked question on the streets: who did this to our country? Only in Nigeria will\u00a0you\u00a0find bizarre rationale for doing stupid things like this. I can bet an arm and a leg that more than half of that $1.5billion will end up in private pockets. Our penchant for inflated cost of contracts will make allegations of corruption in other climes look like\u00a0petty\u00a0pick-pockets.<\/p>\n
I challenge anyone to do the\u00a0maths. In 2007, the Port Harcourt and Kaduna refineries were sold for $750 million. In March 2021, nearly 14 years after the sale fell through due to\u00a0the\u00a0organised public outcry, the federal government after wasting billions of dollars on several maintenance\u00a0programmes, awarded a contract for the rehabilitation of\u00a0the\u00a0Port Harcourt refinery alone for $1.5 billion.<\/p>\n
Fellow Nigerians, may I ask again: who are the losers in all of these? And who are the gainers? Nigeria is a country that gives and keeps on giving. Everyone is milking her but no one wants to feed her.\u00a0Knowing how these people have consistently scammed this country, I am not enthusiastic that the $1.5\u00a0billion for the rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0refinery will bring about the expected results.\u00a0It is a complete waste of taxpayers\u2019 money, part of which will be repaid to Afrexim which partly financed the rehabilitation.<\/p>\n
Now, with the rehabilitation purportedly nearing completion, NNPCL announced it had begun the search for third-party managers to run the refinery.\u00a0Instead of spending $1.5 billion on rehabilitating the refinery and now looking for third-party managers to run the place, why didn\u2019t the government just sell the scrap and the buyer or buyers can turn it around with their money, thereby saving that $1.5 billion taxpayers\u2019 money expended on the rehabilitation and \u00a0deploying it\u00a0in\u00a0other urgent infrastructure needs? No, because those who profit from Nigeria\u2019s failure to function optimally only ask: \u201cWhat is in it for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is not a surprise therefore that Dangote decided to build his refinery from scratch. However, the Eureka moment for Nigeria following the commencement of production by the company is tempered by NNPCL\u2019s inability to meet its crude feedstock\u00a0required\u00a0to enable uninterrupted production. Interestingly,\u00a0the visionary\u00a0Dangote saw it\u00a0coming and\u00a0prepared for any eventuality.\u00a0 The factsheet about the refinery is very impressive. It was\u00a0designed for 100% Nigerian crude,\u00a0with a flexibility to be able to also process a large variety of crudes, including many of the African\u00a0crude\u00a0grades, some of the Middle Eastern\u00a0crude\u00a0grades\u00a0and U.S.\u00a0Light Tight Oil.<\/p>\n
So I was not surprised when news filtered\u00a0in\u00a0that Dangote had purchased\u00a0two million barrels of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) Midland from the United States-based oil trader, Trafigura Group, for delivery at the end of February. You see, the irony and contradictions of our situation are not for the lily-livered. And again, I asked, who did this to us?<\/p>\n
Here is a nation blessed with enormous crude oil resources,\u00a0once a\u00a0major\u00a0producer of crude oil,\u00a0but imports all its refined petroleum needs because it pays some corrupt officials for the country to\u00a0export jobs overseas\u00a0rather than\u00a0add value by exporting refined petroleum products. And here is a country where an individual just built the largest single-train refinery in the world\u00a0of\u00a0650,000 barrels per day capacity, now having to import\u00a0feedstock from the United States of America or elsewhere because of NNPCL\u2019s inability to supply it with enough crude for refining.<\/p>\n
As I have been made to understand, only a\u00a0minute\u00a0fraction\u00a0(if any)\u00a0of\u00a0Nigeria\u2019s current\u00a0crude\u00a0oil output\u00a0is unencumbered by one loan facility or the other. The repayment of the recent $3.3 billion loan taken by NNPCL\u00a0from Afrexim\u00a0on behalf of the federal government to stabilise the failing naira is guaranteed with 90,000bpd\u00a0for five years.Then there\u2019s the\u00a0forward sale agreement\u00a0entered into by NNPCL\u00a0with the Lekki Refinery Funding Limited (Project Bison)\u00a0in September 2021\u00a0to supply 300,000bpd\u00a0of crude oil for the settlement of the balance US$1.036\u00a0billion funding received for the financing of the US$2.76\u00a0billion investment in\u00a0the\u00a0Dangote\u00a0refinery.<\/p>\n
All these, mind you, preclude the fantastically corrupt domestic crude allocation regime operated by NNPCL under its Direct Sale-Direct Purchase (DSDP) arrangement with international oil traders, not to mention the modified carry agreements that the state-run oil firm has with the IOCs, which have all eclipsed Nigeria\u2019s oil exports and shrunk the country\u2019s oil forex flows.<\/p>\n
Indeed, a recent review by Dr Jekwe Ozoemene, a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria, of NNPCL\u2019s 2022 audited accounts showed that the Group has\u00a0total\u00a0contract\u00a0liabilities on\u00a0forward\u00a0sale\u00a0agreements\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Projects Falcon, Santolina, Panther and Bison, and NLNG SPDC, NLNG TEPNG and DSDP\u00a0customers\u00a0\u2013\u00a0of N2.615\u00a0trillion.\u00a0Forward\u00a0sales \u2013 implying\u00a0crude oil commitments for which NNPCL has received value but is yet to deliver\u00a0crude oil.\u00a0Is it any wonder that NNPCL, a minority shareholder in the Dangote refinery, cannot supply the crude feedstock needed by the plant?<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, can\u00a0anyone point to what the last administration did with the massive borrowing it embarked on? This administration has now begun its borrowing to save the naira.<\/p>\n
Just recently, the operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), raided the Lagos Head office of the Dangote Group of Companies in search of documents relating to their purchase of dollars in the last 10 years.\u00a0Please can anyone tell me what this was about? What did they need such documents for?\u00a0\u00a0Why didn\u2019t EFCC just ask the CBN\u00a0for the documents since they were so critical to its investigation? I find it curious and laughable that any serious crime-fighting body would ask the person they are investigating to come with the evidence of their guilt. Where in the world do you ask someone you are investigating to give you evidence to nail him? Does it make any sense?<\/p>\n
Before that raid, there had been whispers that this government was not well disposed to Dangote for whatever reason. Then it found a nebulous pretext to launch its harassment of his companies.<\/p>\n
Strangely, after storming the companies\u2019 headquarters and disrupting workflow for hours, the operatives left without taking any document.<\/p>\n
But this same government did not see the need to launch an investigation into all those who got forex at concessionary rates to perform Muslim hajj or Christian pilgrimage to Jerusalem.<\/p>\n
As I have already stated, it was all about intimidation and harassment, to settle old scores. Nothing more, nothing less.<\/p>\n
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu\u2019s EFCC must be condemned for the gangster-like manner it raided the Dangote head office. For sure, Dangote or his companies are not above the law, so if there is any need to launch an inquiry into any suspicious activity, please, do so. But it must be done in accordance with due process and civilised standards.<\/p>\n
The manner\u00a0by which\u00a0EFCC\u2019s operatives stormed the Dangote head office sends the wrong signals and lends credence to the word on the streets that the president has an axe to grind with Dangote.\u00a0As far as 1 am concerned, it\u00a0did grave damage to the elusive quest for foreign investors.\u00a0Those investors this government is looking for all over the world would pause and think twice before venturing here. If the country\u2019s biggest investor, the largest employer of labour in the private sector, owning\u00a0one of\u00a0the largest listed companies\u00a0on the Nigerian Exchange group and one of the highest taxpayers in the country\u00a0and major contributor to its GDP, can be so harassed by people in government positions who have never earned anything by enterprise, then it makes sense for other investors to keep away.<\/p>\n
In other climes, where leaders have sense, they would do everything to protect and support Dangote\u2019s massive investments in the economy, rather than hound him.\u00a0Maybe, I should state here without mincing words: It has got to the point where the Dangote Group of Companies can be classified as a national security asset with business presence in cement, fertilizer, sugar, salt, petroleum refinery, rice production, construction, port operations, automotive, real estate, mining, transportation, \u00a0logistics, agriculture, etc. Indeed, what TATA is to India is what Dangote has become to Nigeria. It is Nigeria\u2019s own answer to India\u2019s TATA. It projects\u00a0Nigeria and Africa to the world\u00a0positively regardless of our\u00a0\u00a0bad leaders.<\/p>\n
The late Lebanese-American poet and philosopher, Kahlil Gibran captured the Nigerian tragedy so succinctly in his poem,<\/p>\n
The Garden of The Prophet:<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cPity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion. Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero, and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful.<\/p>\n Pity a nation that despises a passion in its dream, yet submits in its awakening. Pity the nation whose sages are dumb with years and whose strongmen are yet in the cradle.<\/p>\n Pity the nation divided into fragments each fragment deeming itself a nation.\u201d<\/p>\n Indeed, this country deserves to be pitied.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At last, the Dangote Petroleum Refinery has begun production with the receipt of about six million barrels of crude oil. What a\u00a0pivotal\u00a0moment for Nigeria!\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s the triumph of the resilience of one man, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, whose audacity to dream big, coupled with his unparalleled determination and unrelenting doggedness in bringing\u00a0those dreams to fruition, has seen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3713,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[35,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-this-republic"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shakamomodu.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3710"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shakamomodu.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shakamomodu.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shakamomodu.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shakamomodu.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3710"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/shakamomodu.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3710\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3716,"href":"https:\/\/shakamomodu.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3710\/revisions\/3716"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shakamomodu.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shakamomodu.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shakamomodu.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shakamomodu.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nPity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave
\nand eats a bread it does not harvest.<\/p>\n
\nPity the nation that raises not its voice save when it walks in a funeral, boasts not except among its ruins, and will rebel not save when its neck is laid between the sword and the block.
\nPity the nation whose statesman is a fox, whose philosopher is a juggler, and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking
\nPity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpeting,
\nand farewells him with hooting, only to welcome another with trumpeting again.<\/p>\n