By Dr. Nurudeen Salahudeen
Associate Professor Department of Chemical & Petroleum Engineering
Bayero University Kano

Impunity and double standard syndromes are clear hallmarks of the Nigerian ruling class. They imposed IPPIS on ASUU claiming that Nigerian universities are not revenue generating agency.

However, subsidiaries like Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company (KRPC) are considered as revenue generating agencies and therefore, are accorded unparalleled privileges. KRPC has being in decades long operational comatose. For some decades, it has not only added zero value to the Government coffers and our national system but has also being a monumental liability to our already fragile economy. This situation is not peculiar to KRPC as the same can be said of its sister refineries across the nation.

For the first time over its 43 years operations, NNPC has made its 2018 financial audit public. Taking KRPC operations as a case study in the audit report released in June 2020, it was indicated that the company generated zero revenue but incurred N65 bn loss and N24 bn expenses in 2018. While in 2017 the loss was N112 bn against N2 bn revenue.

Notwithstanding, KRPC staff (like other refinery staff) are considered sacred lambs having unfettered privileges to all manners of salary structure and patterns. I will expatiate what I mean. As for the structure, the normal monthly salary of an average KRPC staff will pay half if not full annual earning of a university lecturer. Whereas for the pattern, they enjoy an unusual additional yearly financial benefits which they call salary upfront. The salary upfront of an average KRPC staff will pay annual salary of a university lecturer. These are just to mention a few, there are others such as the lofty furniture allowance for the fresh recruit, the juicy training allowance etc. All these official benefits and others that are not necessarily in the purview of public knowledge are drawn from our collective national treasure via choice access platform KRPC finds most convenient. The questions begging for answers are:

(1) Why the double standard?
(2) What are the sins of the Nigerian universities?
(3) What is our value system as a nation if we see our university system as no value addition component in our national structure.
(4) What future are we preparing for our children and the unborn generations of our nation?

The list of questions begging for answers are indeed endless. May God protect our dear nation against the consequences of the path of perdition we are already en route.