₦airaland Forum

The Coke advert where staring at a coke billboard gives a guy sudden inspiration to freestyle. Another is Karen Igho(?)'S advert for SuperSports

By TheNEWS

 Professor Tam David-West, Petroleum Minister during the era of General Muhammadu Buhari, and Mines, Power and Steel in the General Ibrahim Babangida government, spoke with GBENRO ADESINA on the controversy over oil subsidy removal.

For the layman on the street, does oil subsidy exist?

There is no oil subsidy in Nigeria. It is a lie and fraud. After the regime of General Buhari, I challenged government after government, from General Ibrahim Babangida and Chief Ernest Shonekan to General Olusegun Obasanjo and President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, to appear on national television with me to justify their subsidy.

Let me introduce you to the basics. Let us say a particular commodity like gari is sold for N10 per bag hypothetically and the farmers are producing to make us self-sufficient at N10. But at a time, they can’t produce enough because of either bad harvest or natural causes, the government now says since garri is a staple food, the government goes to another country where gari is produced and buys it at N20 per bag and brings it to Nigeria to sell at N10 per bag. The government now writes off the extra N10 –– that is subsidy. The extra N10 the government pays on behalf of the people for them to still buy at N10 is the subsidy paid on that commodity.

No government should exist if it can’t serve the people because government is a trust. They are trustees for the people. Edmund Burke, the great British philosopher, said that government is a contrivance of human wisdom and the wisdom should be used to satisfy people’s needs. Any government that can’t satisfy the need of its people is irrelevant and must be overthrown and kicked out.

Coming to petroleum, there is no oil subsidy. Oil subsidy in Nigeria is fiction, it doesn’t exist and it is a fraud. During Buhari’s time, we had three refineries. When necessary, I mean, whenever there was shortage of oil, we embarked on offshore processing. If at a time, the production of oil couldn’t satisfy our needs, we selected oil companies like Shell and others that we would give crude oil to refine abroad, sell at foreign exchange and pay to our account. We got quantum of barrels of crude oil and gave to these companies and after they might have refined it, let’s say they got one million litres and we needed only 200 litres, they would give us the quantity we wanted and sell the remaining and give us foreign exchange. We only took our fuel back, never imported fuel.

This time what do they do? These fraudulent people will take our oil, refine it and bring it back and sell it at foreign exchange. This is fraud in the highest places. Why is it that during Buhari era, with three refineries we were self sufficient but at their time, with four refineries we are now importing fuel?

I personally signed the contract of the fourth refinery which we call new Port Harcourt Refinery in 1984. It was one of the best in Africa, with a capacity of 160,000 barrels per day. The first refinery, in Port Harcourt, was built in 1965; Warri refinery in 1978, and Kaduna refinery in 1980. A newly constructed refinery can’t have major problem for about 30 years. The problem they will not tell you is that after Buhari, every Minister and Head of State became an oil sheikh, except General Abdulsalami Abubakar.

Some ministers have petrol stations and oil blocs. You can’t serve the nation and serve yourself at the same time because you can’t serve two masters at a time. One must serve his country and the dividends of doing this is satisfaction. Total capacity of our four refineries is 445,000 barrels per day. If the refineries are working even at 80 per cent, we will have more than enough product. They did not do that but sabotaged our refineries.

I have been shouting since 1995 and I wrote that they are killing Nigeria and poor men. And in 2009, the House of Representatives corroborated me by saying that refineries were sabotaged. Abdulsalami as head of state, reacting to the state of our refineries, said he didn’t want to open a box of scandal. Why did they do this to the common man? Who are the importers? Big people!

A senator said this year, Nigeria spends N860 million on fuel importation and they projected that by the end of the year, over N1 trillion will be spent on importation of fuel when our budget is N4.3 trillion. Insanity! Dan Etete said they needed $250 million to repair the refineries but the same minister said Nigeria is importing fuel at $900 million. Is that not insanity? If you need this huge amount of money to repair refineries, why don’t you build new refineries? The money you are using to import, use it to build refineries.

Why do you think Obasanjo did not repair the four refineries we had and build four extra for petroleum to be sold at N20 as he analysed when he was in power?

Olusegun Obasanjo is a great liar. They will not do so in order to continue to import fuel for selfish reasons.

Is it true that Nigeria has the lowest prices of refined products among oil producing countries?

Forget Jonathan! He doesn’t understand what he is saying. He is only parroting what they told him. He talks like a parrot. Can he remove what doesn’t exist? Can’t we build our own refineries to serve us and remove the untold hardship they want to impose on us? Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said the subsidy goes to the wrong hands. If they remove it, will people not suffer the more? Everything will increase. The new minimum wage of N18,000 will become N2,000.

But Obasanjo said because it is built in phases, it will take about five years to build a refinery?

It is a lie. I told you Obasanjo is a liar. It took just two years to build the fourth refinery. I signed its contract. It is between two and three years. The problem is that there is intellectual laziness and physical indolence. In developed countries, the president will not just talk without being well quizzed. But in Nigeria, at a media chat once, Obasanjo shouted on journalists or talked to them as a teacher. They kept quiet. It doesn’t take five years to build a refinery.

Okonjo-Iweala talked about cushioning the effect of the removal of oil subsidy?

Rubbish! She is sermonising to seduce people to accept the callous oil subsidy removal. Things she promised are palliative, nobody should agree. Labour and Nigerians should make it impossible because you don’t take away what doesn’t exist. We don’t need oil subsidy to build roads, provide water and electricity; vote for capital projects has taken care of that. Degrees don’t guarantee good governance.

I'm short-sighted and use em. From experience tho, I don't think there's anything like corrective lens.

^^^the question now is, how is it a sign of disrespect? What of left-handed people?
One day I went to purchase something and used my left hand to touch the stuff. You need to see the way the seller yelled at me. In 2011! Its a tradition but that doesn't mean there aren't stupid traditions.

^^nope. Did you go to school?

They had no rivals

mikuz:
Illumnatic money!!
E go purge Dem!

Fo.ol

Wtf are you guys on about?

Abegi, make person rest jor. Next thing you know, she has a show in Gambia and she's sure her roots would be traced back there.

Bump!!! Big game today, u guys can like to say something.

YNWA. Suarez, Caroll, Kuyt on the scoreboard noni

Azzin, Just hoping his eyes go just leave Britain this January, Hazard or something

^^ shey? How else can one explain why team selection begins with Henderson, then Reina before others when Maxi didn't even make the bench.

Job done, ynwa

Walahi, this thread haff spent months on the same page. Dolphins' fan thread would move faster.

Thread update: We got trounced at Spurs and had games of two halves at both Brighton and Wolves managing 2-1 wins at both. Steve Gerrard is back. KK has started making a few tactical blunders(?)

^^dude, I cut cap for you oh.
Meanwhile, Stoke is gonna be a really hard game. We can use 3 centre backs like last year. Coartes will be ideal for their aerial challenge. Skrtel at right_back if Kelly or Johnson aren't back yet.

Er, typical Nollywood movie scenario but I have witnessed a confession in a church. During prayer sessions, the girl, around 14 or so started screaming and confessing to several 'atrocities'. She wasn't pressured into it or anything. Her mistress was just standing there with mouth agape. Just stating what I saw oh, nobody should use me to practise wack comedy skills.

Dammmnnn!!! Dunno why I think so but eating a CAT is, plain wrong. Haba!!! And the pics sef,

Downing, Henderson, Doni, Charlie Adam, Enrique. Best transfer season in a while

^^yup, of course, unlike lazy walk_about fans of other clubs who post on their threads

^^ dulling fans

kasiem:
It's quite obvious that lagos harbors most of the igbos, since his gov't is fashioned in line with the interest of the masses, he has to put in place measure to ascertain the needs of his people. So, it's not a vacuous step to appoint a person through which u can connect to that people. Okay, are we saying that if we had gotten a special adviser on northern affairs, our governors will be delaying on taking actions in light of killing of their citizens? Since lagos harbors highest number of imolites, there's need to pay adequate attention on that place.
On uche's appointment, he said that it'll help in jettisoning the cost of hiring m.c's anytime the gov't have functions. Also, uche will help in building new talents in his area. Reminisce, rochas minimized the salary of all the appointed officials to cut spending, and his deputy was made the commissioner for works. So, dont miscontrue rochas as the extravagant type, cos he's being remoted by any god-father.

Maybe you are one of the Special Assistants? He has done a lot for the state, granted but I fail to see how you can justify that mammoth list of appointees. SA, Lagos Affairs. Kmt

Topic says it all. The Imo State Government released the list of 50 Special Assistants to the Governor. The juicy actress gets a 'special' new post. Na wa!!

I hope KK doesn't guarantee any MF a starting place not even Gerrard. Its a good dilemma for a coach- having many players to choose from. Not too good for the slacking players tho

Downing is a decent signing but it will break my heart to see Aston Villa sign N'Zogbia for half the amount we signed him. Both are virtually the same kinda players but N'Zogbia is two years younger.

About the left-back, who do you guys prefare btw Cissokho, Baines and Jose Enrique?

So if Nigeria were to divide, along which lines would it do so? Would it break into two or three or even four countries? Do the Yorubas go with MASSOB or do they form their own state? Niger-Delta? Smh, this will never happen, especially as Chongaiman said, when all those clamoring for it are cyber-rebels.

Ahn ahn, what's wrong with it? Are you sexist?

You go old sha

I'd tell her I love her and get her a football to prove it

I cannot for the life of me understand why people should be clamoring for Nigeria to separate when it's very possible for there to be a peaceful resolution to the problems affecting us. Is that the only way out?? Haba. And some people from the North are even going with the idea. Wtf?! Your country would be poor and underdeveloped forever

Where are you guys sef Haba !!!!!!!!!