FUEL CRISIS: Nigerians brand petrol marketers ‘economic terrorists’

It is still unclear exactly when the fuel crisis will abate. The persistent nature of the scarcity and huge pricing disparity suggests a plot that may have been brought forward, while the scale of brazen black market deals suggests it must have been in the pipeline for some time.

The Independent Petrol Marketers, IPMAN, major marketers and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, all say they are not responsible. The bigger issue, however, is not who is to blame for this atrocity but rather how determined the federal government will bend to address an acute ‘economic terrorist’ threat with every single entity involved in petrol management and distribution in country apparently able to hold the citizens of the country hostage and the economy in shackles on an increasingly regular basis.

The federal government on its part have failed to woefully focus on the most germane question, which is when they will finally fully hands-off from petroleum sales and marketing.

For most Nigerians BDSUNDAY spoke to, the fuel crisis fit the narrative about the need for full petrol subsidy removal and complete hands-off from the sector by government who seemingly have failed to justify their continued involvement.

At least it’s common knowledge how often in the past 3 months they have defended their inability to manage or sanction petrol dealers who now wantonly sell the product at black market price direct from the station pumps.

But some experts believe that any such suggestion by this All Progressives Congress Party (APC) led federal government is already tainted by their stanch kick against the Jonathan Goodluck led PDP government in 2013 when Goodluck sought to ditch the albatross called subsidy.

“They rode to power disguised as the peoples’ defenders when the APC led opposition denied Nigeria the opportunity to exit the subsidy shackle,” says Jude Mordi, an engineer living in Lagos. “They fought against subsidy removal, so it will be so shameful and disastrous for them to think of it now,” he added.

“The hypocrisy not withstanding, the removal of the subsidy is key to resolving the inefficiencies in that sector irrespective of what they have done in the past,” says Clement Ofuani, a PDP stalwart in Delta State and chairman of the state’s capital development authority. “Who is the subsidy paid to and who is claiming it,” he qurried.

“This is the only country in the world where the president signs off on the volume of petrol imported, determines who imports and determines the product price,” says a European wealth manager visiting the country, who spoke to BDSUNDAY weekend. “Your country is a difficult contrast and full of parallels,” she adds.

The parallels she speaks of are the foreign exchange parallel, the petrol parallel market or black market, the parallel and duplicated tax regimes across the country as well as the duplications of the federal ministry functions-a minister and a minister of state in the same ministry.

“It is not only wasteful, it also very strange,” she said.

BDSUNDAY investigations reveal that the network of crooked petrol marketers with links to twisted government officials and hardened economic criminals straddling the sector continues to hold sway against subsidy removal and petrol scarcity. In turn the petroleum minister of state, Ibe Kachikwu, have flip-flopped policy direction because of pressure from the ranks of the ruling party members who are hands deep in the murk.

“Kachikwu deals with pressure from within the party, he also has to face blackmailing by major marketers who horde and charge sometimes as much as N130 per liter at their depots,” says a petrol station owner at Mowe, along the Lagos-Ibadan expressway.

The National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, in their March 2016 report say the average petrol price across states is N137 per liter, confirming our sources’ claim.  NBS report indicates also that in Cross River State, the average price during the same period was in the range of N160. In February, it averaged about N100 per liter.

In March 2016, Kachikwu was on his knees begging IPMAN executives to help end the scarcity. He set up a 14-man committee whom he begged to do everything possible to bring sanity within the association at the national, zonal and depot levels. IPMAN controls a chunk of the market. IPMAN national secretary, Danladi Pasali gave his assurance that things would normalize shortly after the meeting when he met with the Senate Committee on Petroleum Downstream. Since that meeting nothing has changed. It is even gone from bad to worst.

“They just went there to drink the ministers tea and scoff at his ignorance,” our source says. “Go and see how much have been spent to import fuel and check how many liters of petrol have been imported since he met these rouges,” he added with a distinctively angry voice. “They are not ready to give up looting Nigerians who incidentally don’t know what their rights are and therefore can’t demand justice.”

From various releases, the federal government spends $1.8 billion importing fuel every 90 days. The NNPC Group executive director upstream, Bello Rabiu, confirmed that NNPC spends between $16 million and $20 million on imports daily. That sums up to the $1.8 billion quarterly import. Last week the NNPC said it distributed 1,194 truckloads of premium motor spirit nationwide and gave the breakdown of distribution. Our sources say at least 90 percent of those trucks have vanished into thin air or horded as usual to continue the perpetration of evil against hapless Nigerians.

“You are in Apapa, go to the depot there. They are empty. The petrol won’t get there. These people are economic terrorists,” our source at Mowe said. “Rabiu can release all the numbers he wants, it won’t sway these terrorists and incidentally, they have their cells embedded in NNPC, DPR and all the other agencies handling petroleum product distribution in the country. The crisis will stay with us long, unless the government do what the US government do to terrorist-they hunt down their leadership, the source of their breath and kill it.”

Everybody you ask, their fingers are not only pointed squarely at the petrol marketers but they angrily call them ‘thieves and terrorists’.

Ibrahim Musa, acting general secretary, West African Civil Society Forum (WACSOF), & executive director, Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), called them “the oil thieves President Muhammadu Buhari must deal with decisively.”

“They are punishing Nigerians because of their greediness. Major oil marketers are the corruption fighting back because they can no longer manipulate the system to suit their whims and caprices. They were bent on sabotaging current effort to sanitise the industry, rather than embrace changes being introduced for common good. Otherwise, how do you explain the persistent scarcity despite the announcement by Kachukwu, that the NNPC last week allocated 1,118 trucks of PMS nationwide? The time has come for Nigerians to rise against oil major marketers for hoarding products”, he said, rather angrily.

He explained that many officials of the: Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), Pipelines and Products Marketing Company, PPMC, owners of Farm Tanks, Depots officials and criminal elements in the NNPC were collaborating with the major oil marketers; hence, arresting the situation is becoming increasingly difficult for the federal government.

“The marketers are the ones creating the problem, especially those holding franchise with the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation,” laments Bamidele Faparusi, a member of the seventh House of Representatives.

“When they load the product at the depots at the controlled price, they either took it to a private petrol station and sell at about N250 or hoard for no just cause. This is a product they should sell for N86 to Nigerians going by franchise arrangements.”

Kenneth Gbagi, former Minister of Education and Chieftain of the PDP echoed similar sentiments, “looking at the issue of fuel scarcity, we can see that this is caused by a marketing cartel. It is all a temporary situation to arm-twist Mr President”

In truth, the inaction by the federal government agencies involved in petrol distribution nationwide to enforce the rules and sanctions on petrol dealers is only one manifestation of a wider scourge straddling the economy. Besides, it is not so much the strength of these petrol rogues that allowed the situation go haywire, it is as much as the weakness of the Buhari led government.

For now, the federal government has no holding strategy to contain the foraging of the petrol marketer who have a more expansive options in their deadly stand-off against the populace.

“I think they still can do something,” says Ofuani. “The NNPC should not be the sole importer of petrol into the country. That monopoly has in-built inefficiencies that is inimical to the market. There should also be proper macro-economic policies that supports growth not create loopholes like the foreign exchange controls that most of these people rail about to support the scarcity.”

 

CHARLES IKE-OKOH