Artificial scarcity of premium motor spirit (petrol), which became noticeable in the first week of December 2017, and persisted for about seven days into the new year, brought in its wake, fresh fuel queues in all filling stations across Nigeria, and the poor citizens who depended heavily on this crude oil byproduct on daily basis for business/domestic use, suffered tremendously as all their commercial motor-bikes, grinding machines and manufacturing/industrial equipments for Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMSEs), which depended on electricity grounded to a halt!
As the masses languished on the streets, day and night in desperate quest to acquire the scarce product at all costs, and Federal Government and its agency, the NNPC seemed helpless in restoring sanity in the downstream sector of the petroleum industry, black market vendors flooded the entire nation with the precious commodity and sold ONE LITRE for as high N400.00, and an orchestrated and very loud agitation rang across the nation that, President Muhammadu Buhari should resign as the substantive MINISTER OF PETROLEUM RESOURCES!

How was the Black Market flooded with large quantities of the PETROL which were not available in filling stations and vendors could freely merchandize them in plastic containers without apprehension by any arm of the law-enforcement agencies and how come the hue and cry for the resignation of the President who had ensured regular distribution of petroleum products (especially the PMS which could not be substituted, unlike Kerosene), for over ONE YEAR without any lapse?
ONE SALIENT TRUTH IS VERY GLARING AND THAT IS: NIGERIANS HAVE BEEN SO CRUELLY MIS-GOVERNED AND DOWNTRODDEN TO BREAKING POINT BY PAST ADMINISTRATIONS THAT THEY HAVE BECOME HIGHLY SENSITIVE AND ARE PRONE TO PROTESTS AT ANY GIVEN PROVOCATION!

GENESIS AND PROGRESSION OF THE PRESENT CRISIS!
(1) On Wednesday, 11th May, 2016, the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA), announced an upward adjustment, from N87.00 to N145.00, which turned out to be a TOTAL REMOVAL OF SUBSIDY BY GOVERNMENT ON THE PETROL - since it was not even captured in the 2016 Budget by the out-going PDP Administration!

(2) Between then and now, the international crude oil price further nose-dived to about US $30 dollars per barrel and though now rising to an all high US $70, the ripple effect of the downturn, hit the exchange rate and made the NAIRA to further depreciate against the United States dollar, from about N196 then to about N360 to one dollar now in 2018, for importers of PETROL - one of the subsidiaries of crude oil!

(3) In view of this development, according to major stakeholders in the Nigerian Petroleum Industry, the landing cost of imported PMS rose sharply from N126.5 in 2014, to N171.4 in the second quarter 2017, and the importers pushed for pump price increase from N145 to about N180 per litre, - which would nullify the 2016 removal of subsidy and total deregulation of the downstream sector - inclusive of Kerosene and Diesel Oil - which had long been deregulated! Government resisted and sidelined them for NNPC to have monopoly of PETROL importation but agreed to sell the imported commodities to the marketers who still complained that the marginal profit extended to them was insufficient and their covetous attitude led to HOARDING AND DIVERSION OF THE FINISHED PRODUCTS TO NEIGHBOURRING COUNTRIES FOR ILLICT GAINS!

(4) However, government's moves in the above direction has indicated that the difference between N145 pump price and the present landing costs of N171.4, - a difference of N26.4, - which represents a NEW "SUBSIDY REGIME", is being paid by NNPC - which is about to generate a fresh rift between it and the Senate Committee on Petroleum, which has queried the authority of Federal Government for paying fresh subsidies after total deregulation of the downstream sector in May, 2016!


PRESIDENT BUHARI IS MOST QUALIFIED TO SANITIZE THE PETROLEUM INDUSTRY!

(1) The Petroleum Industry which he superintended over as Military Federal Commissioner of Petroleum and Natural Resource, between 1976 - 1979; had acquired a negative identity as the most corrupt government agency, a drain-pipe/liability to the economy, in view of the magnitude of the ROT (corruption with impunity, mass robbery of the BLACK GOLD), in all management cadres - upstream, middlestream or downstream!

(2) Under Buhari's watch, the Warri and Kaduna Refineries were initiated to promote local production of finished products of crude oil and save the much needed foreign exchange to support the economy and he was the first Chairman of the NNPC which was created in 1977.

(3) He was instrumental to government's investments in pipelines and petroleum storage infrastructures which as a result facilitated the construction of 21 petroleum storage depots across the country from Lagos to Maiduguri and Calabar to Gusau, including a pipeline network that connected Bonny Terminal and the Port Harcourt Refinery to the depots.

(4) President Buhari, who was appointed by Military Head of State, General Olusegun Obasanjo, was also responsible for the contract of pipelines to connect from the Escravos Oil Terminal to Warri and Kaduna refineries had been very disturbed about the fact that NNPC he once chaired was turned into a cabal for economic saboteurs where monies which accrued from crude oil sales were unaccounted for; where there were no existing records or inventory of crude oil lifted on daily basis, where no one bothered about ANNUAL AUDITING of the Corporation's accounts; where OIL BLOCKS were distributed as political dividends to the inner caucus and all who worked for NNPC at all levels of administration were millionaires and where past Ministers of Petroleum Resources and NNPC GMDs became Billionaires in US dollars and some kept unspent dollars in abandoned cottages and others acquired massive edifices in quantum!

The Group Managing Director (GMD), of NNPC, Dr. Maikanti Baru, was quoted by the Nigerian Press to have told the President on Christmas eve, 24th December, 2017, that the "major reasons for PMS scarcity were hoarding and diversion of products to neighbouring countries"!
During that meeting, Baru was said to have also alleged that about 1,456 fully-loaded trucks with PMS meant for distribution to designated parts of Nigeria were among those that found their way out of the country without a trace thereby aggravating scarcity of the products during Christmas 2017 and New Year, 2018 festivities, respectively!

The economic loss throughout those agonizing weeks when man-power hours were spent in night vigils at filling stations by both public and private workers, whose productivity diminished drastically for as long as the scarcity lasted, was better imagined than quantified; but from Baru's revelation, a treasonable crime of ECONOMIC SABOTAGE BY A CABAL OF PETROLEUM MARKETERS WAS ESTABLISHED!

Hoarding and diversion, (whether to Black Market or neighbouring countries), are very serious economic crimes under the recently endorsed Petroleum Industry Act but, are the law enforcement agencies, including the CUSTOMS/IMMIGRATION SERVICES, who watch over movement of people, goods and services at Nigeria's borders aware of the existence of the PIA or did they connive with the Cabal to rubbish and discredit all democratic dividends which the masses had benefited from since 29th May, 2015, when the APC Administration came on board through artificial scarcity of PETROL?

With the hind sight of his experience as a Military Federal Minister of Petroleum, President Buhari did not waste time to order all the security agencies to increase vigilance and tighten border patrols around the country and to institute immediate investigations to unveil the saboteurs and deal with them judiciously!
The Ministry under his supervision now has been sanitized of MASSIVE FRAUD of the past. ACCOUNTABILITY IS NOW THE WATCHWORD IN NNPC under the President's watch as the substantive Minister of Petroleum and with some patience, the refurbishing of the existing refineries through Public/Private Partnership (PPP), which is already underway, and construction of NEW REFINERIES - already on stream both by government and private entrepreneurs, would soon come on board and PETROL SCARCITY would disappear into thin air!
NO ONE CAN TAKE AWAY FROM MUHAMMADU BUHARI HIS ANTECEDENT AND PEDIGREE WHEN IT COMES TO PROBITY, FAITHFULNESS, HONESTY AND DILLIGENCE IN GOVERNANCE! TALAKAWAS WHO ARE IN THE MAJORITY SHOULD HAVE FAITH IN GOD AND IN HIS ANOINTED SERVANT - PRESIDENT BUHARI WHO WILL DELIVER THE TRUE DIVIDENDS OF DEMOCRACY TO THEM CONSISTENTLY UNTIL YEAR 2023, WHEN HE MUST HAVE EXHAUSTED HIS SECOND TERM IN OFFICE!

As at the time of this publication, fuel queues had resurfaced in some filling stations in Abuja! But NNPC has urged motorists to desist from panic purchases and insisted that there was sufficient stock of petrol to serve the nation for more than a month.
The Oil Corporation also enjoined Nigerians to report petroleum product hoarders or greedy marketers who sell above the N145 per litre to the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), which is statutorily empowered to handle such complaints through their offices nation-wide. As it is written, "Righteousness exalts a nation; but sin is a reproach to all people."(Proverbs. 14:34).



I am, yours sincerely, Dr. David B.A. Olufon. 08130669886, 08098194390. 08080243066. g-mail- dvdolufon@gmail.com.

Unfortunately, I'm not in the mood to read long epistle. Simply put, God punish the dullard and whoever that supports him.

jesse8048:
Unfortunately, I'm not in the mood to read long epistle. Simply put, God punish the dullard and whoever that supports him.

Make effort to read the "epistle" friend; the dullard is the person who is too lazy to read and as such cannot have knowledge

Buharri must rule Nigeria till 2099, any afonja who doesn't like that should take a flying jump into the lagoon

you cannot continue to judge a person based on past glory, one should even be careful of friends from the past, things have changed and multiple water have gone under the bridge.

the cumbersomeness of the NNPC and the FG regarding oil is too much. this things are not rocket science now haba!!

Let him go and rest abeg. he done try reach.

Buhari must stay if he decides to contest

Anything Buhari touches, he destroys.

Petroleum ministry, presidency, Nigeria's unity, economy.