Last week a group in the name of Niger Delta Avengers blew up the Chevron oil platform, signaling the return of militias. They made some demands, including the blighted Niger Delta oil spills that require remediation. In January, there was a similar bombing of a similar oil facility. There is an upwelling of unauthorized quasi-military group using weapons, arms and ammunition in the Niger Delta.
President Muhammadu Buhari has propelled defence forces and the police with a fillip to crush outlawed groups that take up arms to vandalise critical infrastructure. Tackling insecurity is part of his three cardinal programmes, including corruption and unemployment which he promised in his campaign for the presidency. Criminality in whatever guises including the bombing of critical petroleum infrastructure and looting of the economy by corrupt officials are unacceptable. Some demands of the Avengers appear outlandish; indeed bizarre and extremely unusual.
Economic losses are colossal as government spends more money for pipeline repairs. The greater problem is the damaged environment from oil spills. The President who is the Petroleum Minister in his fatherly disposition should consider the howitzers, corruption and mismanagement in the oil sector. Last Wednesday the Federal Government withdrew petroleum products subsidy on gasoline or premium motor spirit (PMS). With the militias bombings and the President’s withdrawal of gasoline subsidy the people that have been battered in the last few months are in for a raw deal. Is subsidy withdrawal now in line with the President’s disposition when last year he said, ‘’I have received many literature on the need to remove subsidies, but much of it has no depth.” He said that lack of security, sabotage, vandalism, corruption and mismanagement, not necessarily subsidies, are the most serious problems of Nigeria’s oil sector. According to the President: ‘’ When you touch the price of petroleum products, that has the effects of triggering price rises on transportation, food and rents. That is for those who earn salaries, but there are many who are jobless and would be affected by it”.
One’s belief is that he should intensify the fight against corruption and economic insurgency which really are our bane. He needs a lot of work here. The Chatham House of United Kingdom Think Tank in September 2013 reported our crude oil was being stolen on an industrial scale with ready buyers in the Gulf of Guinea, the United States, Europe and several Asian countries. The Report said that Nigeria loses $8 billion a year to theft by politicians, security forces, militants, oil industry staff, oil traders, and members of local communities, most of who have no interest in stopping it. His request for the repatriation of about $150 billion illegal oil proceeds stolen and laundered in global financial hubs including London, New York, Geneva, Singapore, British Crown Territories and elsewhere is the way to go. President Buhari last year in India said Nigerians are corrupt. His government had said that 50 persons embezzled N1.4 trillion in Nigeria.
In Addis Ababa the President said the Judiciary was part of his problem in fighting corruption. The Vice President was quoted as saying that it was $15 billion that was stolen in the security funds palaver. Halliburton offenders involved in corrupt practices were sanctioned in their respective countries while the Nigerian collaborators are free. Secret recruitment in government departments and agencies are carried out without due process and without sanctions. The most recent was at the CBN where over 900 employment letters were distributed to children of the rich and influential in the society. Reports have it that both PDP and APC in 2015 spent almost N5 trillion of public funds in electioneering campaigns. Twenty seven state governments were bailed out for inability to pay staff members’ salaries after the 2015 general elections. A prominent politician recently said N950 million of the people’s money was shared in his house in Kano for election.
That is our corruption profile. In syllogism if A = B, B = C, then A = C. It was a deductive reasoning that the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Mr. David Cameron described Nigeria as fantastically corrupt, i.e. Nigeria is extremely corrupt. Should we vilify Mr. Cameron? No! It was an adverbial modification of that noun corruption. Corruption is dishonesty for personal gains: i.e. dishonest exploitation of power for personal gain. Again our corruption profile; the United Nations very recent release was that Nigeria was losing $1.5 billion monthly to piracy, armed robbery at sea and fuel supply fraud. That we sell crude and import products into Nigeria is for corrupt tendencies. That we cannot manage the petroleum subsidy regime here is a result of corruption.
President Buhari address at the summit on anti-corruption that just ended in London was on why we must tackle corruption together and demanded that all stolen funds in Britain be returned. But we must be more serious in the war against economic insurgency especially in the petroleum sector where the much talk about corruption seems to be impressionistic. One year on our resolute President should recover funds from economic insurgents to enable him provide good governance? He must enlist all Nigerians in the crusade against economic insurgency.
Some highly placed former government officials stole public funds and deprived many Nigerians including agitators’ innumerable opportunities and privileges. Government should plan development programmes for communities hosting critical energy infrastructure who live in abject poverty and squalor alongside opulent and affluent oil companies’ settlements. We implore the government to invest in the construction of refineries and petrochemical plants in the Niger Delta region to diversify the economy.
Several ad-hoc government interventions programmes have not impacted on the rural dweller. Many managers of these ad-hoc agencies, who mostly are from the Niger Delta, saw such funds as their share of the national cake. Unfortunately governments acquiesce to it with little or no monitoring of such programmes. Mr. President owes Nigerians the sacred duty to bring corruption war to the doorsteps of all Nigerians that stealing public funds is evil. With dwindling fortunes of petroleum in the international market danger looms! With wrong timing, government’s withdrawal of imported products subsidies would make people hopeless, helpless, dejected and possibly restive.
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