Which Way Nigeria?

And let there be no doubt about it, in this country, during the weekend of of 14th and 15th of January, we were at such a cross road. If our protests had continued and deepened into the following week; the regime would have had to either completely reverse itself or risk losing power! Such were the concrete choices facing the regime; such was the underlying basis of the panic within the regime, and its decision to wage a full scale psychological war on what it had discovered to be the weak link in the Labour-Civil Society Coalition prosecuting the struggle: the leadership of organised labour, the leadership of the two trade union centres - NLC & TUC! 

From the moment this weak link was discovered considerable effort was made to blackmail the coalition, and drive a wedge between the coalition partners [NLC & TUC on the labour side; and UAD & JAF, on the civil society side].

However this is not the issue at stake for now; this analysis is necessary in order to properly situate what is required to set new agenda for the current phase of our uprising.

Why did we Occupy Nigeria? Because we had become tired of ineptitude, incompetence, insensitivity, stupendous corruption and impunity in governance? The straw that broke the proverbial Carmel’s back was the unconscionable hike in the price of petrol, the impunity with which such a gravely devastating decision was taken and implemented, the complete lack of understanding of the parlous conditions of existence of the people, and the contemptuous and disdainful dismissal of popular outcries on the issue of so-called subsidy removal!

Thanks to our uprising, which is now in a reflective phase, we now know that a gigantic and monumental fraud had been taking place in the petroleum sector for a period of over half a decade; we now know that this fraud entered a qualitatively new phase in 2011.

Thanks to our uprising we can now confirm that we were right not to trust this government, that they were lying to us to push the case for fuel price hike, and that they have been lying to us since they unilaterally hiked the price of petrol on Jan 1st 2012.

So we are finding out that the national daily consumption rate for petrol is not calculated on the basis of empirical evidence, but allocated on the basis of the whims and fraudulent caprices of anyone interested in cutting their own share of the national cake! 

We now know that the list of 'fraudulently approved importers' of fuel has been growing endlessly, that briefcase corporations benefit, that established corporations claim more than actually import etc.

Interestingly too, we have also now been informed that the 1.3 trillion naira figure bandied around to justify the removal of subsidy, was supposed to include 300 billion naira for subsidy on kerosene, as well as substantial arrears for subsidy payments for 2009 & 2010. Laughably too, there is no agreement between all the different relevant MDAs on this matter with respect to daily consumption rate [is it 35 million litres per day, 49 million litres per day or the 59 million liters per day that we are actually paying for?]; and with respect to the amount paid in 2011 for the so-called subsidy [is it 1,3 trillion naira, 1.4 trillion naira, 1.7 trillion naira or over 2 trillion naira actually paid according to CBN?]. What is more, no one has been able to justify or explain why a subsidy payment bill that ranged between 300 billion naira and 600 billion naira per annum in the previous 5 years suddenly ballooned to over 2 trillion naira in 2011; or why and how daily consumption rate which purportedly averaged around 28 million liters per day in the previous 5 years suddenly mushroomed into the 59 million litres per day of 2011!

From the forgoing a few things are very obvious: First a large scale fraud, or historic and monumental proportion has been taking place in the petroleum sector under the direct watch of the petroleum minister and the indirect watch of the minister of finance and coordinating minister of the economy; secondly, this grand scale mega fraud - SUBSIDYGATE, has involved the NNPC, the PPPRA, and must have come under the gaze of the CBN and the Federal Ministry of Finance; Third, every significant minister/official, and ministerial department or parastatals involved in this case including the ministers of petroleum and that of finance; as well as the CBN, PPPRA, NNPC and Customs have given clearly contradictory data and information with respect to these issues; no data or information given by any one department or official has corroborated that given by others. The implication of this is that both the economic team and the role of the coordinating minister of the economy have been superfluous and redundant: no coordination of this economy has been taking place whatsoever, except perhaps in the coordination of the mega looting of the treasury.

In the light of the foregoing our previous demands must be reaffirmed; while we must now include new demands:

1. Independent and thorough going probe of processes in the petroleum sector, in particular the fuel import and subsidy payment regimes by a special task force with investigative and prosecutorial powers.

2. All those indicted in this grand scale fraud must be prosecuted and upon conviction given exemplary punishment to serve a s a deterrent to others

3. A time bound [24 months] and funded strategy to ensure self sufficiency in domestic refining capacity of petroleum products must now be put in place immediately. We must cease importation of refined petroleum products within 24 months.

4. The actual daily consumption rate of the country must be immediately determined through strict monitoring of tanker loading at depots and sales of products at filling stations across the country. Defaulters must be immediately punished.

5. The actual existing production capacity of existing refineries must be immediately ascertained. From the determination of this production capacity and actual daily consumption rate, we can work out exact quantity of products we need to be importing to meet the gap if it exists during the 24 month transition period.

THE NEW DEMANDS:

6. Both the ministers of petroleum [under whose watch these frauds have taken place] and the minister of finance and coordinating minister of the economy [under whose watch absolutely no coordination of the economy has taken place] should either both resign or be sacked immediately.

7. The boards and managements of both NNPC & PPPRA should be immediately dissolved and the agency & parastatals completely overhauled.

8. Independent commission of inquiry into the murders of more than 20 citizens during the protests by a special task force with powers to investigate and prosecute; and payment of compensation to the families of the murdered and injured, alongside exemplary punishment to the culprits [both those who gave the orders and those who carried out the orders.

IF WE ARE EVER GOING TO STAMP OUT IMPUNITY AND TACKLE CORRUPTION IN GOVERNANCE OF OUR COUNTRY WE MUST INSIST ON THIS DEMANDS AND BE PREPARED TO ONCE AGAIN OCCUPY NIGERIA IF THEY ARE NOT MET.

Our Revolution Continues! Its Our Country, Lets Take It Back!!