After all the stress my poor wife went through yesterday in search of fuel, I had gone to the office resolved to write something about the persistent fuel scarcity in the country. But I soon discovered that nothing better captures the situation than this anonymous text from a reader of Daily Sun. It read: “Can someone please, inform the NNPC that we are not looking for the ‘missing’ $20 billion again. We are sorry. We just want fuel. Abeggi…Biko” Having spent much of Monday night getting stuffs ready for the children to take to school the next morning, it was well into the wee hours of Tuesday before the poor woman eventually went to bed. She would barely get three hours of sleep before it would be time to wake and get the kids ready for school. But she did not even get that much sleep. It was barely 6:00am when a contact of hers called to ask that they meet at a nearby filling station if she ever hoped to get any fuel for the day’s use. We had barely scrapped through the night without the generator. She could not imagine another night of having to fan kids, who, by the way, do not know whether PHCN has been privatised. Innocent little things, who do not know what you mean by GENCOs and DISCOs or mega watts but who must watch Cartoon Network. Children whose only response to discomforting night heat is to cry and make everyone miserable. Yes, they can understand that ‘NEPA has taken light’ but they have come to know that the generator comes on as soon as NEPA goes. So, they don’t seem to make any sense of your talk about not putting on the generator because there is no fuel. They will only cry the more. So, probably, with that on her mind, my poor wife rushed off, dragging half-sleeping children with her. She would not return for another two hours – of course, with the priceless liquid in two of the jerry-cans she went out with (I won’t bore you with how much she paid for all of that). Suffice it to say, however, that having already done more than enough to qualify for a full day’s work, the poor woman, already exhausted, still had to go to work – as if what she had been doing all morning was no ‘work’. I think Okonjo-Iweala and her fellow World Bank economists must have to find a way of capturing the informal job housewives and mothers do at home in their productivity statistics and putting some financial values to them. And capture all of that in the GDP, GNP or whatever. Back to the fuel situation, like my little children, who don’t have to know how petrol gets to the generator, I also don’t want to know how NNPC brings it in. We do not only pay them jumbo salaries to bring in the fuel, we also pay for the fuel so brought in from our federation account. And when they bring it in, we do not demand that they give it to us free, having bought it with money from our collective purse; we actually pay again to take the fuel home or into our vehicles. So, why, in spite of these sacrifices, would the NNPC always put us through this suffering? One story said it was because one document was not quickly signed. So, the importers could not place order on time and that it would now take almost three weeks to make up for the shortfall. So, why was the document not signed? Or, as that anonymous SMS text claimed, is this NNPC’s way of punishing us for prying into their books? Are the oil men not satisfied with the sack of Sanusi? Do they want us to make them a human sacrifice to appease them? Haven’t we already sacrificed enough? So, on behalf of myself, this Nigerian and many others like us, let me, hereby tender our sincere apology to NNPC. As they say in my place, na small pikin dey worry us. Clearly, at a time we thought we had seen the last of long queues and fuel scarcity, the queues have suddenly returned, as if to remind us of where we are coming from. Honestly, it’s as if we are now being punished for asking too many questions of the NNPC. How could we possibly have the effrontery to ask NNPC to account for the monies they are collecting on our behalf? Did the auditor-general’s office not tell us that it is constitutionally impossible for it to audit NNPC account? Have both the EFCC and the ICPC not told us that NNPC’s books are too complicated for anybody to look into, not to talk of probe? that is why even the CBN governor could not fully understand it. Yes, just as we ended up with a Central Bank Governor whom we could not sack (and landed ourselves in big trouble with our only suspending him), we also have an NNPC, which for all intent and purposes, is not accountable to anybody. And NNPC that could, in spite of very clear constitutional provisions, unilaterally decide what to pay into the federation account and what not to pay. What to account for (and how to account for it) and what not to account for. An NNPC that does not need the president, the petroleum resources minister or the National Assembly to impose or withdraw kerosene subsidy. An NNPC that single handedly decides how much to spend on kerosene or petrol subsidy, irrespective of whatever was appropriated by the National Assembly in the budget (or if, in fact, the legislature appropriated anything at all). Clearly, NNPC does not need the National Assembly to function. They can spend whatever money they want without bothering with the long grammar about ‘budget’, ‘appropriation’, ‘misappropriation’ and all the attendant headache that comes with defending your budget at the National Assembly. Since they are the people that make the money, they might as well spend it as they like. They know that even if they appear before the lawmakers, it is just for formality sake – so the legislators don’t feel insulted and begin to call for anybody’s sack. But, even at that, what happened to the last person they wanted sacked? Was she sacked? And when they refused to appropriate money for that agency in last year’s budget, did the agency close shop? Did it not continue to function and to meet all its financial obligations? I just love this country!! Of course, I like the way the NNPC people are rubbing this insult into the faces of our lawmakers. If these same lawmakers had been smart enough to take the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) seriously, they’d have passed it by now and this NNPC monster, as we know it today, would long have been past tense. Unfortunately, it is the same NNPC – which on one hand pretends to be championing the cause of the PIB, who would go behind to collude with the IOCs and other reactionary elements to fund the campaign to frustrate the passage of the PIB. It is the same lawmakers that these NNPC and IOC goons would ‘lobby’ to stop the bill. But I don’t want to talk too much about NNPC – lest I provoke them again and invite their wrath on Nigerians. Yes, as first cousins of NUPENG, PENGASSAN, independent marketers, major marketers and tanker drivers, everything that they’re not happy about can easily be escalated into a nationwide strike. That is why they have, today, constituted themselves into a coven of gods and deities, which all of us in Nigeria must worship if we ever hope to have any measure of peace and comfort. So, let me just stop here before I bring the wrath of the ‘gods’ on us all. We resolve that as from today, we will never ask anything about Kerosene subsidy. We won’t ask NNPC what quantity or how much they bought it, we won’t ask marketers at what price the product was supplied to them. We will just pay whatever amount they ask us to pay for a litre of fuel – be it N200, N250 or even N300. So, our dear NNPC bosses, you have made your point. We now know that your word is law in Nigeria. We know you people are more powerful than everybody here, including even our ‘powerful’ president, but please, have mercy on us. We will not do so again. We will never question your powers to do as you wish with our money but, please, just give us fuel. We have learnt our lesson. Next time, in fact, come 2015, instead of wasting our time, voting for a president, governor, senator or rep, we will just ask you people at NNPC to be rulers over us. Don’t bother with all these explanations about importing 30 million litres and 100 million litres. We’re too daft to understand the calculations. Just give us fuel. And continue with whatever peculiar accounting system you operate. Don’t mind those who say it is voodoo accounting. If the auditor-general, the EFCC or the ICPC want to understand it, they should go back to school.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Mar 2014 15:46:02 +0000
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