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By Olakunle Olafioye
The crisis rocking the nation’s oil sector may continue unabated unless the government decides to take the bull by the horns by doing the needful. 
This is the view of an energy expert, Dr. Tayo Bello, who is also an associate professor and lecturer in the Department of Private and Property Law, Babcock University.
According to him, the importation of adulterated PMS is not only yet another exposé of the ills in the sector, insisting that unless the government musters the courage to diligently implement the Petroleum Industry Law, the nation may not make any headway economically. He spoke more in this interview. Excerpt:
Nigeria is enmeshed in another fuel crisis following the importation of adulterated fuel into the country. What signal does this development indicate considering the recent moves to reposition the oil sector?
The development has again exposed the ills in the sector. It has revealed the unprecedented level of corruption in the economy. The development has further worsened the hardship in the country. Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) is a functional impetus for everything in Nigeria including transportation, electricity. The crisis has also revealed that the agencies responsible for the monitoring and regulating the importation of the product have failed in their responsibilities. And more importantly, it has once again portrayed us as unserious people. There is an agency saddled with the task of checking what is imported into the country from the country of origin and when it gets into Nigeria. Curiously, however, the agency failed to discover that anything was wrong until the oil got into circulation and began to damage people’s engines and other machineries. Vehicles owners whose engines have been damaged will not be compensated. Another problem is the environmental impact of the adulterated fuel on the environment cannot be quantified. I understand we have to pay about N280 billion to even evacuate it. So, it has created another economic problem.
There are those who are insinuating that the fuel crisis could be part of government’s scheme to carry out its plan of total deregulation through the back door considering the fact that it is coming weeks after the government was forced to shelve its plan to remove subsidy totally?
I don’t believe that. The truth is that the current government does not have the political will for total deregulation. But this is what we need to do if we are desirous of normalizing the situation. Look at telecommunication sector that we are all enjoying in this country now, until the government summoned the courage to deregulate the sector, Nigerians kept complaining about the services of NITEL. The same thing happened during the time of Nigerian Airline. In those days if you wanted to travel you would have to sleep overnight at the airport to be able to make the trip either the second day or the third day. In saner climes, officials that are responsible for this chaos would have resigned. Even if they don’t resign the government would have fired them. The problem is that the oil is being imported by very powerful people in the country. These are the same set of people that own the refineries where our crude oil is being refined in different part of the world. This might be one of the reasons the government is yet to wield the hammer.
Before the Petroleum Industry Law was enacted we were made to understand that the PIA was the antidote to the problems bedeviling the nation’s oil sector. Why is the sector still enmeshed in crisis almost a year the PIA has come into being?
Have they implemented PIA? One of the inputs in the PIA is that NNPC will be commercialized. It’s now NNPC limited, but do they allow the NNPC to work as a limited liability company? What do you call a situation where you’ll be contributing about three per cent to the host communities? Part of it is total removal of subsidy; do they allow it to work? So now that they have said subsidy will continue how can PIA work? If the PIA is properly implemented it will be very good for the economy. Mention any country where subsidy is operating persistently, where you know the government is paying trillions of naira and they are borrowing trillions of naira. Do we even know the consumption rate and pattern of the fuel in Nigeria? They said we are consuming about 100million litres daily, is it possible? We shouldn’t consume up to 35 to 40 million. As we are talking now government is importing fuel and immediately the fuel lands it is smuggled to neighboring nations. I cannot say we should be looking for revolution but there is a need for total overhaul. We must be able to re-engineer and re-position so many things in the country.
Why do you think the government has failed to pay due diligence to the implementations of the Petroleum Industry Act?
The first thing is, if subsidy is totally removed, the fuel price will go up but government doesn’t want a situation where people will be protesting. Most of the protests in Nigeria are sponsored, and the government doesn’t want that. They know that election is fast approaching, and they know that if they do that the opposition party will use it as a tool to campaign against them. So the PIA, as it is, is perfect but the implementation is the problem. Another issue is that those behind the smuggling of the fuel will not allow it to work because what is smuggled is more than what is being consumed in the country. They claim we consume 100 million liters of fuel on daily basis but internally we are only consuming 35 million, while 65 million litres is smuggled into neigbouring countries.
In view of all these, what hope is there for ordinary Nigerian to hang on; what is the way out?
The bottom line is that Nigeria as a nation cannot create an illusionary island for herself. Why? Check what’s going on in other countries and that’s what we are going to use if we don’t do that we are just deceiving ourselves. If care is not taken we will borrow to the extent that we will not get anybody that will be ready to lend us money again. At the end of the day, we will be seeking for debt forgiveness, does it make sense? What the government should do is to seek the understanding of Nigerians. The government needs to counsel the citizens on why they have to take certain decisions and the benefits of taking such decisions. For example, it will get to a level whether we like it or not, the government must increase the school fees in tertiary institutions.
Once the government decides to do the necessary, things will change. There’s something known as multiplier effect, a multiplier effect will make it work. It is like when you are boiling water it will evaporate and immediately you put off the gas it will come down, that is what is going to happen. If everybody does what should be done things will gradually normalize.
