Ikeddy ISIGUZO
We humour ourselves so much that we cannot for a reasonable length of time take ourselves serious. What is the furore about crude theft?
Is crude oil theft new? No, at least the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, said it wasn’t. By its most modern account, the thievery had been going on for at least nine years. We should also remember that seven of those years were under President Muhammadu Buhari, who ably combines his responsibilities as president with being the Minister of Petroleum Resources.
We are honoured to have Buhari as president. Without him the stolen country would have collapsed. We are grateful for his rescue mission that has laid before us a Nigeria that we could never have imagined.
NNPC was quick in absolving the President of any role, in failing to stop the theft in seven years, at least let us deal with the present times. We are all responsible for the theft of crude oil, an item that many of us are unlikely to ever know what it looks like.
The security agencies with all their intelligence units were not to be blamed for the theft which was only admitted following years of increasing reports of drops in Nigeria’s revenue from oil. What do the security agencies do around our oil?
“When a fire outbreak happened in one of our pipelines, we discovered that some of the pipelines were actually connected to individuals’ homes. And not only that, and with all sensitivity to our religious beliefs, you know, some of the pipelines and some of the products that we found, are actually in churches and mosques,” Mele Kyari, NNPC’s Group Managing Director told Nigerians last August. Was it a coincidence that he spoke from State House, Abuja, seat of power?
Kyari, leader of a world class company, as he constantly tells us, hints at the futility of trying to stop the theft that has been democratised to accommodate our religious beliefs.
Kyari claims everybody is involved. “There is no way you will take products, bring in trucks in populated neighbourhoods, load them and leave without everybody else knowing about it. That everybody includes members of the community, religious leaders and also and most likely government officials of all natures, including security agencies personnel,” Kyari said.
Our crude oil is stolen so we do not have enough revenue to share. Our refineries, whose staff we maintain at great costs, do not work. We borrow money to import refined petroleum products – and they are stolen. Finally, we created a petroleum subsidy regime that has become one of the biggest heists in the nation.
Nigeria lost at least $1 billion in the first quarter of 2022, according to the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, NUPRC, to oil theft and illegal artisanal refining.
Was it for all these spectacular performances that Kyari got the national honour in the rank of Officer of the Federal Republic, OFR?
It is important to note that the Commander-in-Chief of the security agencies, who is also the Minister of Petroleum Resources, is satisfied with the performances of our security agencies. There is no difference in this satisfaction whether the agencies are confirming release of kidnap victims or burning a vessel reportedly arrested for stealing crude oil.
NNPC reiterates the closure of the matter by its disclosure that crude oil theft was a religious matter in which members of the two major faiths freely participated.
As in all matters in Nigeria, exclusions are common.
Kyari did not find a single shrine with a pipeline yet all of us are to blame. Does he think our religions are only in mosques and churches?
While Kyari was mostly discussing theft of refined products, the attitude is the same. Distractions like religion and officialdom are used as if they constitute adequate explanations for not punishing oil theft.
How many were arrested for the pipelines discovered in their mosques and churches? How many government officials and security agents are on trial for oil theft? Kyari’s answer could be that we are all on trial except the Minister of Petroleum Resources.
An important reminder is that years before he got into office, President Buhari had said petroleum subsidy was a scam. He was prophetic.
What is pathetic is his periodic, practised preachment on subsidy.
We are approaching the full circle of oil theft. Crude oil taken in legal manners that approximate thievery for the laws care nothing about the lives of those that oil production circumscribes, is stolen by those who dare, and like the mangled lives in the Niger Delta, governments are feeling the heat of their prize being prised from them.
The wonder is that in a nation where children, lives, elections, budgets, subsidies, future, justice are stolen, we feign surprise at crude oil theft. If we do nothing about those who steal our nation and stall our lives, they feel entitled to burden us with complaints about stolen oil being stolen from them.
Finally…
WHO is the owner of the gold mined in Zamfara State? Is there a law divesting its ownership from the Federal Government contrary to the Minerals Act? Why are the earnings from Zamfara gold not in the Federation Account or is it?
.Isiguzo is a major commentator on minor issues.
