Special to USAfrica magazine (Houston) and USAfricaonline.com, first Africa-owned, US-based newspaper published on the Internet.
Ken Okorie, attorney and member of the editorial board of USAfrica multimedia networks, Houston
Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari described the April 22, 2022 explosion that claimed scores of lives at an illegal refinery in Ohaji Egbema in Imo State as a “national disaster”—as reported on USAfrica
Few months earlier, on January 9, 2022, Governor Nyesom Wike in Rivers State was embroiled in the issues of police officers that collaborate with, or provide cover, for operators/owners of “illegal refineries”. Imo State Governor, Hope Uzodimma, has also echoed Buhari’s sentiments on these activities.
In my opinion, the policy inclination of the Nigeria’s President and Governors’ pronouncements is wrong. It showcases absence of vision and lack of capacity or willingness for reforms to overcome the recurring domestic refining deficit, which has eluded Nigeria for the better part of nearly a century.
The Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) was established in April 1977 to manage the nation’s oil and gas reserves. Its mandate is to explore, produce, refine, and market and retail petroleum products. Twelve years earlier, the first refinery (a joint venture with Shell-BP) was built at Eleme near Port Harcourt in 1965. Four more government refineries were built in Kaduna (1980), Warri (1988), and Second Port Harcourt (1989). None of these facilities has had sustained operations or output.
Africa’s largest producer of crude oil, ranked 7th among global exporters (Google 2020 data), Nigeria hardly refines a drop of the nearly 500K barrels its citizens use daily (Google 2021 data). It imports most gasoline and other fuels for domestic, commercial and industrial use, because the NNPC refineries are routinely not producing, often for presumed technical issues that seem to defy correction. One wonders if the interests of beneficiaries of the heavily subsidized importation of refined products are tied to subdued domestic refining capacity?
Yet, without minimum results, Nigeria wastes an avalanche of resources yearly on never-ending never-successful programs to revive and maintain functional integrity of NNPC’s perpetually moribund refineries. This is what has created the opening for the illegal refining that is now widespread in the oil-rich Niger Delta. Question is has the government done anything to change this ugly course? Can it do anything? My answer is, with vision and will, it can.
“Illegal” refiners demonstrate an ingenuity that stands Nigerians out the world over. Private sector refining, if properly organized and regulated, will bolster the economy, create employment, and reduce the perennial hardship fuel scarcity imposes on Nigeria’s economy.
Given that regions surround Nigeria that can readily absorb every ounce of production beyond what it uses, the question of excess production capacity cannot arise.
Indigenous private sector refining should be recognized, encouraged and cultivated as a viable sub-sector in the oil and gas industry.
It is a sector government should cultivate and encourage with crude allocations, financial and budgetary support, and regulatory standards to ensure their operations are open, safe and efficient. Thus enabled, indigenous private refining could be a tool that controls vandalism, bunkering and other underground activities currently besetting the oil and gas industry and exposing Egbema and similar communities to untold danger.
On another level, refining is the conjunct of technology and science. There can be nothing illegal about practicing science or technology, even if as experiment or however crudely. It is a functional demonstration of skill, of gift the government should cultivate and nurture rather than proscribe or condemn. Properly supported, this sector likely will fill the woeful deficit of refined products and help to salvage Nigeria’s economy.
The value of this policy redirection is unquestionably high and far-reaching, both in the short and long terms.
Far from President Buhari’s sentiments, Nigeria’s national disaster (indeed all of Africa’s) is not the activities of “illegal refiners”, so-called. The real disaster is that Buhari’s clique (not qualified to be representative of government because it does not meet the most basic obligations of a government) daily demonstrates ineptitude and incapacity in all areas imaginable. It is routinely indifferent to the needs and hardships of citizens, especially in the sphere of security and public safety.
Nigeria suffers not from the adventurous spirit of refiner risk takers, but its development is stifled by absence of vision and lack of will/ability on the part of government to understand and accept their intrinsic value and potential. The country’s state of non-development is the result of failure to: (a) recognize the capacity and inventiveness of its citizens, (b) establish proper framework to enable, harness and develop human capital, and (c) regulate beneficial activities that improve society and citizens.
Ingenuity that refines crude oil into usable fuel in makeshift facility is testament to unexploited domestic intellect, creativity and acumen, all of which crave official and public support. It should be encouraged and promoted because these risk takers could hold the key to unlocking Nigeria’s technological advancement.
One is reminded that Nigeria wastes over two billion (USD) annually to subsidize the importation of refined products. From gasoline and diesel for personal, commercial, and industrial use to kerosene and jet fuel, Nigerians daily struggle at the mercy of foreign interests and hugely subsidized fuel-imports extortionists.
It is not rocket science understanding how Nigeria’s economy could benefit from supporting and promoting small-scale indigenous refiners, especially in the long run. For starters, it would be cost effective and provide employment. Japan is proof that human ingenuity develops and perfects from experiment, practice and experience; that from patronage expertise is gained. In the fifties and sixties, “Made in Japan” was synonymous with poor quality. Basic silverware was undesirable if it was made in Japan. But through patronage and supportive government policies, Japan evolved to the pinnacle of technological hub for products, basic and sophisticated.
On these matters, Nigeria is merely an example. The virus Nigeria suffers is also ravaging the rest of Africa’s economies. For Nigeria it is oil, for others it is platinum, gold and other precious metals and commodities. Their stories are similar.
The continent’s key problem is also not Europeans, Americans, or even recent-arriving Chinese. It is that Africans have fallen for a myth, a mirage. They are blinded by an illusion and delusion that they have leaders and governments. Truth is that those exist only on paper. Like Nigeria, hardly a government or leader in Africa does what leaders and governments are intended to do. Their dominant interest is to grab and keep power, but never to use it to improve their societies.
Despite the brilliance and creativity of its people, Africa doesn’t create enabling environment that grooms local know-how and expertise. Yet the vision and creativity of Africans visibly bloom in foreign lands. This is perhaps the greatest obstacle to the continent’s growth. A clear example is, Elon Musk. He is the richest trailblazer of our time and was born in South Africa. Elon migrated to Canada in 1989 and gained US citizenship in 2002. In under thirty years his creative genius blossomed all the way into Space!
With the approaching 2023 election, Nigeria has a chance for new beginning. Voters must choose leaders with vision and the capacity for creative policies and new approach to governance that work for the people. One doesn’t look beyond the examples of The United Emirates, Singapore, and Brazil for proof that it can be done.
The Buhari-style agenda that is backwardly focused on retracing cattle grazing routes and cow colonies of the1960s do not, and will not, work; not in this 22nd century. As Nigeria goes so does the African continent. Therefore, Nigerians must get it right both in governance and policy direction. That is the best leadership it can provide for Africa. That is a key the 2023 election can also unlock. Doing something positive with small-scale indigenous refiners would be great start.
