Say No To The Campaign Against Fuel

By Abdu Labaran Malumfashi

There is an ongoing campaign urging Nigerians to say ‘No to fuel’. But the campaign is ill-motivated, because the target is the North. It is not being waged to save Nigeria from the short lifespan of Fossil Fuel, and prepare the country as for life after.

If the campaign is sincere, why did the present regime of Bola Ahmed Tinubu ‘spend billions of naira to repair’ the comatose Port Harcourt refinery, if it actually did. The doubt arose because of the instant collapse of the refinery soon after its alleged repair. Plus the declaration by many tanker drivers who went to the ‘repaired’ refinery and returned empty, because there was no fuel to load, as claimed with fanfare by the regime.

I am not supporting fossil fuel to remain the country’s primary source of income ad infinitum, but when the government’s campaign against it came immediately after it has supposedly spent billions of dollars to effect the repair of a refinery, then more questions will be raised about the motives behind the move.

The federal government wants every owner of fuel-driven vehicle, be it a truck or a Keke-NAPEP, to use gas engines. That may be alright for such users in Lagos and other places in the South, but certainly NOT alright for those living in the North. While the South has the gas filling stations dotting the place, the whole of such stations in the North can be counted on the fingers of the two hands.

Where, then are Northerners going to find the gas to use in their tanks if they stupidly agree to ‘say no to fuel’?

The whole scheme, it appears to me, is aimed at Dangote who has spent $22b+ to build his gigantic one stream refinery, which the government wants to waste at all cost. It has tried many times in the past, including claiming falsely to repair the Port Harcourt Refinery, without success.

There was a piece I did on 28-11-2024, soon after the announcement of the commissioning of the ‘repaired’ Port Harcout refinery, with the title of ‘Dangote And Nigeria-owned Refineries’. In it, I reported the President of the country, Bola Ahmed Tinubu as commissioning “the repaired government-owned Port Harcourt refinery, where he was reported to have given the marching order for the repairs of the remaining three refineries owned by the federal government.

“My worry is that the Tinubu-led federal government is only now bent on repairing the erstwhile comatose refineries, which have gulped untold billions of US dollars over the years in the name of repair. But the repair never came to be, despite the billions of dollars spent by the government.

“But Alhaji Aliko Dangote came to the rescue of the country by spending over $20 billion to build a state-of-the-art refinery. Presently, many attempts have been made by the government, through the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC), to kill the newly built Dangote 650,000 barrels-per-day capacity refinery, after it finally saw the light of the day, and sought for NNPC’s permission to start production for sale.

The government alleged that the products, particularly petroleum, were sub standard, which quality ‘was not up to international standard’. But laboratory tests showed that the Dangote refinery products were among the best in the world. When that ploy failed, they tried other tricks, including hiking the price of one litre of petrol to more than one thousand naira, claiming that the price was ‘determined by market forces’.

When that and other shenanigans of theirs too failed, repairs of the refineries remain the last option, hence the serious repair of the refineries, which kick-started with the repaired one in Port Harcourt.

It is very well, except that, would the president have ordered the repairs of the refineries if Aliko Dangote had not built his Lagos-based multi-billion dollars, one-stream refinery, which was said to be the largest of its kind in the world? Or would Mr. President have ordered for the repairs of the government-owned refineries if Aliko Dangote happened to be his tribe’s man? I very much doubt so, because of apparent tribal bigotry.

Besides Alhaji Aliko Dangote, another Northerner, who is also a very big entrepreneur, Alhaji AbdusSamadu Rabi’u, the founder of BUA, is also building a 200,000-barrel per day refinery in Akwa Ibom state. The two have chosen to make the South, particularly Lagos, the Headquarters of their group of companies, even as the bulk of their customers are in the North.

“It is therefore, little wonder that the federal government under President Tinubu, would undertake to repair the four refineries now, when Aliko Dangote has sunk billions of dollars to build the ‘Dangote Refinery.

Not easily giving up on his evil plot to undermine the North, the Tinubu regime has now cunningly employed the services of many unions in the oil sector to do the dirty job for a price.

The National Union of Petroleum And Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), the Petroleum Products Retail Outlets Owners Association (PETROAN), the Independent Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) and Deport and Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (DAPPMAN) promised to shut down filling stations nationwide over Aliko Dagote’s decision to transport his fuel to the filling stations in the country, since the reductions he usually makes allegedly never reached the targetted.

These unions used to fight the federal government for not providing enough fuel in the country. Now that a Northerner is trying to fill the gap by purchasing 1,000 fuel transporting gas trucks, he is being fought dirty by the compromised lot, which includes DAPPMAN, which criticises Dangote for reducing the price of fuel.

Finally, let me share this rather long article by SM Ingawa which appeared on the internet for your reading pleasure, especially those who have missed it already.

Quote: Dangote and NUPENG, PETROAN and IPMAN – “Dangote’s market entry into the oil and gas industry has disrupted many market dynamics not only in Nigeria but even on global stage. On the import side, Dangote has diverted over 30m liters of petroleum products daily from the global market—and of course, from the importers—activating big market threats to both the producers and importers.

“Such market disruption comes with stiff resistance from the affected parties. This disruption cuts across the entire oil and gas value chain. From hijacking the market of 650,000 barrels of crude per day to hijacking the market of tens of millions of liters of petroleum products per day and to now diverting the logistics market in a more competitive manner.

“4,000 CNG-powered trucks rolled out into the oil and gas logistics market will definitely take many existing players out of the market. This is even on ideal market conditions—without considering the mode and manner Dangote is planning to enter the market.

“He has the refinery, he has the trucks and he will do door delivery—covering the entire value chain—making it cheaper and safer for marketers to deal with him than doing every aspect of the market independently.

“Additionally, Dangote’s trucks will be powered by CNG, at a cost almost 2 times lower than the conventional diesel oil used by marketers. In terms of capacity, Dangote is coming in with far more fleet capacity than any company in the market on individual basis.

“As at 2020, NBS had it that Nigerian Oil and Gas Logistics Market has a cumulative fleet capacity of 30,000 trucks, 23,000+ for PMS distribution, 5,700+ for AGO distribution and just about 300 for other petroleum products. But despite that, no company has upto 2,000 trucks individually.

“NNPC has the highest with little above 1,000 trucks. Dangote coming in with 4,000 trucks—CNG-powered—makes him the biggest and perhaps the deciding player in the value chain. No matter how much the unions will push, Dangote will win this battle for his capacity advantage and control of the entire value chain.

“There are so many ways to solve problems but threats can not solve this particular one because the threatened has undue advantage over the one making the threats. It’s either to dialogue with Dangote or gather money to build their own refinery and do what they want with it.

“From the side of average Nigerians, all we need is cheaper and consistent supply of petroleum products irrespective of who does it. All the unions have been in existence for so long without making life easier to the Nigerian people. If this arrival of Dangote will make life easier so be it. We will deal with the monopoly issue later. I really register the concerns of the unions but there’s practically nothing anybody can do about this. After all it’s a private business.” End quote.

May God God help whoever assists others in order to save them from the evil design of some sharks.

Malumfashi writes from Katsina