Fuel Scarcity And Bad Leadership

 By Dele Sobowale 

 “As a people normally gets the government it deserves, so a society normally receives the punishment it asks for.’’ Robert Ardrey in Social Contract 

Anarchy reigns in the Nigerian fuel sector today. Nigerians were warned in 2018 when President Buhari and Vice President Osinbajo launched their re-election campaign on the dubious platform of Next Level. 

Like most shallow thinkers, the All Progressives Congress, APC, politicians easily forgot that if you are in an elevator, going down on the tenth floor, the next level is the ninth floor. 

‘The Human Side Of President Buhari’

By Fredrick Nwabufo

The header of this article is the title of a 55-minute documentary on President Muhammadu Buhari.
 
The documentary has been scheduled to air on NTA this evening.

The presidency says “the documentary portrays the president in a light that majority of Nigerians have not seen him”.
 
I find this – ‘human side of Buhari’ – farcical and puerile. Does it mean the president has an animal side? What other human side could he have than his much vaunted “sense of humor”?
 
Buhari’s “sense of humor” has been elevated by his media handlers to a national diadem.
 
His media handlers are always quick to play on this harp – “Buhari’s sense of humor” – whenever there is citizen angst.

Between Bola Tinubu And Ibe Kachikwu

By Sunday Attah

The psyche of Nigerians has once again been need­lessly assailed by the altercation between one of the leaders of the ruling All Progressives Congress, (APC) Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, and the Minister of State for Petroleum, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu. The crux of the matter is Kachikwu’s reported comments about the lingering fuel scarcity in the country, to the ef­fect that he was not a “magician” to bring the scar­city to a quick end. He has since apologised.

*Bola Tinubu 

But, by Tinubu’s reckoning, Kachikwu insulted Nigerians by purging himself of any official burden, responsibility or sympathy over the persisting fuel scarcity. Tinubu was livid with anger that Kachikwu basically abused the intrinsic values of the “progres­sive agenda” of the incumbent government.

It all started from a statement credited to Ka­chikwu. After a meeting with President Muham­madu Buhari and the leadership of PENGASSAN and NUPENG, the two major labour unions in the oil industry, Kachikwu’s riposte to reporters that Nigerians would still experience two more months of fuel scarcity in spite of the nation’s function­ing refineries. This caused a stir, and was variously interpreted.

Kachikwu, who doubles as the MD/CEO of NNPC, submitted that oil refined by Nigeria’s re­fineries would rather be stockpiled in a strategic re­serve, obviously for some national exigencies. This drew the flaks. It attracted a rebuke from Tinubu. Indeed, Tinubu was more irked by Kachikwu’s comments to the effect that his numerous trainings excluded conjuring magical powers to solve prob­lems.

Obviously, Tinubu perceived the statement to mean an indifference to the plight of Nigerians and a relapse to the PDP old ways of running the coun­try. Tinubu was the first eminent Nigerian to react to these comments in a public statement he personally signed.

The spate of reactions to Tinubu’s outbursts on the matter is interesting. While some applaud Tinu­bu for the umbrage against Kachikwu, many see his comments as political.

Buhari, Tinubu And Anti-Kachikwu Hysteria

By Paul Onomuakpokpo  

Having crashed from the dizzy heights of the grand dreams of prosperity and equity of the All Progressives Congress (APC) government led by President Muhammadu Buhari, the citizens who are desperately in search of succour are faced with the danger of snatching whatever promises to ameliorate their plight. What is amply being demonstrated now is that the citizens’ straitened circumstances could blur their capacity to make a distinction between those who really love them and are genuinely committed to their well-being and those who would gleefully turn their blighted condition into a populist stunt to leverage their social and political capital.

*Tinubu and President Buhari

The citizens who have been left in the lurch by the APC government after winning the presidential election may agree with Bola Tinubu that what Minister of State for Petroleum Ibe Kachikwu owes Nigerians is a public apology and not smugly applauding himself from an Olympian height for how much he has deployed his ingenuity  to supply the citizens fuel amid highly discouraging odds.  Yet, the citizens must take cognisance of the need to avoid being corralled into a turf war that is not actually designed to benefit them. We do not need to probe how much love of the people Tinubu demonstrated while he was the governor of Lagos State. What we observe now from his position as a leader of the ruling party is enough for us. He was instrumental to the emergence of Buhari as president. It was apparently to avoid indicting himself that Tinubu would not like to blame Buhari for the failure of his government. For Tinubu cannot really say that he found in Buhari administrative genius that compelled him to recommend him to Nigerians as the best presidential material last year. In this regard, we are reminded of the attempts by former President Olusegun Obasanjo to divorce himself from the crises sired by the inability of  his successor Musa Yar’ Adua to govern effectively after being hobbled by an illness that he never recovered from.

To be sure, the nation’s fuel crisis is aggravated by the erratic supply of electricity. This is a sector managed by Babatunde  Fashola whom Tinubu imposed on Lagos State residents for eight years.  On account of Tinubu’s newfangled love for the well-being of the citizens, he should have  issued a statement bristling with rage at  Fashola’s abandonment of   his responsibility of providing the citizens improved electricity. Or does Tinubu not consider it revoltingly illogical for  Fashola to compel the citizens to pay more for electricity they are not provided? Which should come first, the provision of meters for the citizens or their paying more for electricity? Would the citizens not readily pay their bills if they were metered and they were convinced that they were paying for what they consumed?

President Buhari, You Are Still The Petroleum Minister

By Ogundana Michael Rotimi

Dear President Buhari,

I am addressing you not as the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, but as the Minister of Petroleum Resources, a post to which you appointed yourself on the November 11, 2015.

*President Buhari 

You seem to have forgotten that you are the Minister of Petroleum Resources and may have completely relinquished your responsibilities to the Minister of State of Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu.

You seem to have neglected the fact that you are directly answerable to Nigerians as the Minister of Petroleum Resources, and owe it to Nigerians to make the product readily available and affordable.

As a reminder of what you already know - fuel scarcity has fully gripped major cities in the country and is contributing negatively to an economy that is still struggling to pick its stand.

Pathetic as it may be, your Ministry has failed Nigerians over its inability to end the lingering fuel shortage, as this unabated scarcity of the product has contributed to the high cost of goods and services.

The Honourable Minister of Petroleum Sir, you are on your way to set the record for the longest reign of fuel scarcity in the history of the Republic under your watch. Since you have been sworn in, it has been from one scarcity to another.

Although, one cannot belittle or underestimate the efforts of the junior Minister of Petroleum Resources who also happens to be the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, in revamping the sector. But Sir, your unnecessary and unwarranted silence and carefree attitude before every short statement is issued on the lingering scarcity is worrisome. It suggests that you may have forgotten or may have become unconscious of the fact that you head the Ministry that is currently failing to make available and affordable the product that is key to the economy and the everyday activities of the people.

Nigeria: Farewell To Fuel Scarcity

By Chuks Iloegbunam

Through the ages, peo­ples, including those currently occupying the space known today as Nigeria, who are faced with seri­ous challenges, naturally devise ways of mastering them. Yet, Ni­geria continues to groan under the weight of multifarious prob­lems that are, in truth, not intrac­table. Of course, there are prob­lems and there are those of them that are unquestionably knotty, including the task of building am­ity and unity between disparate peoples lumped together by the invasion of trans-Atlantic greed. When, in such a setting, it seems like the signs of enduring con­cord are in the offing, local greed – the insidious variety planted and nurtured by the trans-Atlan­tic original – rises and wipes away every vestige of hope. That is un­derstandable.

When, however, the problem has to do with fuel shortages, or the acute shortages of other goods and services, there is a fundamental reason why things permanently bad – to the cha­grin, utter pain and peril of Nige­rian peoples. Take the perennial shortages of petroleum products – gas, kerosene and petrol – in the country. These items are not scarce because they are not obtainable. They are invariably scarce because those employed to guarantee their availability have, through time, either shirked their responsibility or failed to under­stand what that responsibility entails.

This disgraceful situation criti­cally questions the nature of the essence of Nigerian peoples. It indicts Nigeria. Despite being the biggest oil nation in Africa, it remains the only one on the continent in which the discord­ant woes of fuel scarcity are regularly emitted. It is shameful that the mournful riff of lack of fuel, and the sorry sight of end­less queues at gas stations are Nigerians trademarks. Non-oil producing countries, including those in the Sahel region, hardly ever experience fuel shortages. But it is the lamentable lot of Ni­geria. Countries engaged in wars or afflicted by other tribulations manage somehow to meet their fuel demands. But not Nigeria, a country said to be benefitting from “relative” peace.

The reasons behind this blight are all too obvious. Corruption is one of them, as are ineptitude and negligence. So, the peoples suffer. The peoples suffer because of the long queues in the blistering heat of everyday. The peoples suffer because of the contrived delays by those operating the distribu­tion channels and the fuel sta­tions. The peoples suffer because artificial scarcities hike pump prices, which automatically im­pact negatively on prices and the availability of other goods and services. Without fuel there can­not be locomotion. Without this essential product, there cannot be power in homes and hospitals and factories; without fuel, what remain are jaded peoples.