by Simon Kolawole

Many questions were still agitating my mind when stories started flying round the media that there was a pre-conceived agenda to sell the refineries to certain favoured friends of government. Names were being mentioned – including those who were indicted in the fuel subsidy probe. We also saw the names of people who have benefitted too much from the Goodluck Jonathan administration.

Good things take time. The journey of a thousand miles starts with a step. When the government of General Ibrahim Babangida deregulated the telecoms sector in 1992, it took nearly 10 years for us to start seeing the results – starting with the auctioning of GSM licences by President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2001. Today, Nigeria’s telecoms sector is an enormous success story. It has created a new generation of millionaires and billionaires, and generated millions of jobs directly and indirectly.

Imagine what the multiplier effect of telecoms wealth has been: the billion-naira businesses for engineering companies, software designers, handset dealers and accessory sellers; the sponsorship and endorsement deals for entertainment and sport worth billions; the advertising revenue for the media; the life-impacting projects in the form of CSR, and so on. It’s an entirely new economy. It’s one story you want replicated in several underdeveloped sectors of the economy.

Since evidence from the telecoms industry suggests that liberalisation and deregulation can be extremely beneficial to the economy, how come the National Assembly has been foot-dragging on the reform-loaded Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB)? Why has the bill been gathering dust on the shelves of the National Assembly? Why can’t the telecoms success stimulate our lawmakers to move fast on PIB? The answer is not that complicated – Babangida did not need 469 lawmakers to make a law. To liberalise telecoms, he simply promulgated a decree setting up the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC). No drama. No long debate.

No arm-twisting. But that is just one part of the problem of the PIB. The bigger problem is that there are too many interests to satisfy and too many lobbyists to deal with before it can see the light of the day. That is why we are stuck. There are so many controversies over the PIB: the proposal that the communities should collect 10% of the profit of oil companies operating in their territory; the fiscal regime which will be in favour of Nigeria but which the international oil companies consider to be against them; the provision for discretionary award of oil blocks – which potentially rubbishes the whole essence of competitive bid rounds; potential political interference in the operations of the successor companies to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), as the Minister of Petroleum will be anointed with awesome powers on the boards of those companies; and so on and so forth. Everybody is lobbying for or against one position or the other. Some of these issues are even generating tension among the lawmakers, often stoking sectional sentiments in the process. And so, we are where we are.

But while this trouble is still on – and, unfortunately, new investment in the oil sector has been hampered and tempered by the uncertainty over the PIB – the Minister of Petroleum, Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke, announced that the federal government was going to privatise the refineries in the first quarter of 2014. It came as a surprise to me and I concluded that maybe there were some bits I didn’t know yet. The process of privatisation is a bit lengthy, and there is no way the refineries could be privatised by March 2014. Luckily, the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) eventually came out to explain that it is the process that will begin in the first quarter of next year. The successful privatisation of the power companies should be an inspiration to the oil sector. But for it to be so, there must be little or no room for speculation and insinuation. That is why the proposed sale of the refineries still leaves some questions hanging.

We are in the process of passing the PIB into law. It is the all-encompassing bill for the petroleum industry in Nigeria, dealing extensively with structural, governance and economic issues in the upstream, midstream and downstream subsectors. All matters pertaining to deregulation and privatisation are adequately dealt with in the bill. This should be the operating manual for reform. Why then are we in a hurry to sell the refineries? What would it hurt to wait for the passage of the PIB so that we do not enter into another round of controversies, unrest and legal tussles that can hamper a smooth transition to a new life in the petroleum industry? In the power sector, we followed the reform step by step. We unbundled the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) before selling off the generating and distribution companies. That, to me, is a more systematic way of doing things.

Many questions were still agitating my mind when stories started flying round the media that there was a pre-conceived agenda to sell the refineries to certain favoured friends of government. Names were being mentioned – including those who were indicted in the fuel subsidy probe. We also saw the names of people who have benefitted too much from the Goodluck Jonathan administration. I am not saying the allegation is true, but this is the kind of controversy you don’t want to run into at this critical stage of reform. Already, unions in the oil sector are threatening fire if the federal government goes ahead with the sale. It may not just have to do with people resisting change and fearing for their jobs. It may be that there is something they are seeing that we are not seeing. Some of the union officials are talking about putting the refineries in a state that will make them more marketable, so that we get a better price from interested buyers. They are making allegations that the government wants to sell them cheap to “friends”, some of whom are well known for their wild parties in Dubai and Las Vegas.

If I were Jonathan, I would, for now, focus all my energies on persuading the National Assembly to pass the PIB. One thing the government wouldn’t want to do is walk into another huge controversy, after all the hoopla around the strike by university lecturers. Electricity workers resisted the privatisation of power companies for a long time, but a successful stakeholder engagement finally paved the way for the completion of the process. With oil workers already opposing the sale of the refineries, government needs to do its homework very well to avoid another crippling crisis. I would rather that the administration pursues the bigger picture of industry reform rather than take it piecemeal.

And whenever it is done, the privatisation must be transparent and credible so that there will be no side talk about a pre-determined outcome. That is very important.

Even as I ask President Jonathan to continue to engage with the lawmakers for the PIB to be passed, I know that there is a lot of politics in the air as 2015 approaches. Politicking is colouring everything. Governance is taking a hit as political gladiators align and re-align and flex muscles over who controls what ahead of the elections. If a routine budget presentation is being hampered by politics, how much more a landmark bill that has so many antagonists with different interests.

This is the time for the lawmakers to temporarily suspend politics and selfish interest in order to make laws that will impact positively on the development of Nigeria. The PIB is one of such critical laws. We must not allow politics to draw us back on such a very key legislative framework for the oil industry. The uncertainty over the PIB is hurting investment in the sector – and time lost can never be regained. For everyday that the bill is delayed, it has implications for our oil reserves – both prospecting and mining. The lawmakers must keep that in mind.

To be fair, President Jonathan is not responsible for the passage of PIB. He has done his part and sent the bill to the National Assembly. It is the lawmakers that are yet to take it as a priority.

But while I will not blame him for the delay, I still think that as President of Nigeria and leader of the ruling party, Jonathan should continue to nudge the National Assembly to expedite action on it. Ultimately, however, the National Assembly must on its own act fast, knowing that some of us are watching. The future of our oil industry – and the economic health of the country – is at stake.

The lawmakers must be aroused by a patriotic instinct, not the lure of filthy lucre, in dealing with the PIB. The ball is in their court. But taking the refineries away from the PIB, as the federal government intends to do now, will not address the problem.

In my opinion, this is not the time to sell the refineries. First things first. National Assembly must address the issues delaying the PIB and pass it as quickly as possible.
And Four
Other Things…

OBASANJO’S EPISTLE

Nigerians are so easily excited and deceived. That is why anybody will applaud ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo’s pontificating letter on corruption, one-term promise, etc. Compare his allegations against President Goodluck Jonathan with what he himself did in office between 1999-2007. You will laugh. Obasanjo developed and implemented the manual that is being used to rule Nigeria. We can get so carried away because of disenchantment with Jonathan. Let it be known that Obasanjo will change tune the moment he gets what he wants. I refuse to be swindled by hypocrisy.

JONATHAN’S RESPONSE

My disdain for Obasanjo’s hypocrisy and grandstanding, notwithstanding, President Jonathan owes Nigerians a response to the weighty allegations and rumours contained in the former president’s letter to him. Obasanjo accused him of clannishness, lack of honour, insincerity, encouraging corruption, raising a killer squad and handling Boko Haram with levity. This is not an occasion for the president to shy away. He must respond line-by-line, paragraph-byparagraph. Ignoring this damaging letter will irreparably hurt and haunt Jonathan.

For Jonathan’s information, Obasanjo’s tongue has brought down at least three governments in this country.

 

SANUSI’S LETTER

I am obviously one of the admirers of the CBN governor, Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi. His letter accusing the NNPC of diverting about N8 trillion from the federation account is quite disturbing.

But the NNPC has strongly denied the allegation and explained that other government bodies, such as DPR and FIRS, also remit revenue from oil directly to the federation purse. In the interest of 170 million Nigerians, we need an independent body to do a proper probe of this allegation. This is no joke and it will tragic if it dies like this.

MADIBA, GOODBYE
The more I think about Dr. Nelson Mandela, the more I see the picture of an extraordinary man. As he is laid to rest today, I remember the book written by his former bodyguard. In One Step Behind Mandela: The Story of Rory Steyn, Steyn quoted Mandela as instructing him: “Smile when you push the people.” Steyn further said of Mandela: “I have tried to learn from him that you don’t need money, you don’t need things, you don’t need position or power to be content and to be happy.” What a man.

 

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This post is published with permission from Simon Kolawole

 

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.