“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles”, a striking line from Marx and Engels’ The Communist Manifesto, could be triggering. The work embodies a materialist interpretation of history based on surveys from the era of feudal lords to the 19th century capitalism. The literature carries a roadmap for a classless society enforced by the working class (proletariats). Though it has remained an uphill task despite the claims of otherwise by some zealots in Eastern Europe, the enduring legacy of the treatise is the prominence of class analysis in locating and explaining the dynamics of prosperity and power politics.
In Nigeria, the oil sector is bogged down by a mutating class war and high-power intrigues of international dimension. The discovery of crude oil reserves in commercial quantities in Oloibiri, now in Bayelsa State, made the community the first casualty of selective morality of international oil companies (IOCs). The environmental despoliation shifted to Ogoniland with new oil-fields after Oloibiri’s reserves were emptied. The IOCs refused to take responsibility for revamping the original ecosystem of the host communities. Buck-passing was rife. They hired local quislings and set the communities on a warring turf. As such, till date, class interests have marred a holistic cleanup of Ogoniland after the UNEP 2011 comprehensive report. The creeks and the farmlands have remained awash with hydrocarbons.
Evidently, factions of local youths took to arms struggle to defend their domains. Niger Delta became heavily militarized as successive ruling class deployed state power to ‘buy’ peace and protect critical oil infrastructure for national exploitation. The indigenous lower class who felt excluded from the oil wealth resorted to oil theft, pipeline vandalism and artisanal refining. Overtime, middlemen that included security operatives posted to guard the region, their accomplices in government, and overseas network, took the stealing of crude oil to a scandalous height of $700 million monthly. It was so embarrassing that in August 2022, a 3-million-barrel-capacity oil vessel, which took a whole month to load offshore could not be tracked down by our multiple security and technological checks except in far-flung Equatorial Guinea. The new class has remained in charge and invincible. Even our presidents are seemingly helpless and/or complicit alike.
Consequently, IOCs impressed it on former President Buhari that it was his inability to rein in crude theft that is the biggest disincentive to investment in the sector. Also, former President Obasanjo’s recent interview with Financial Times corroborated the elephant in the room. He had requested Shell to take equity participation and run Nigeria’s state-owned refineries but Shell rejected the offer because of hydra-headed corruption in the sector. Thus, Tony Elumelu’s insistence that government has a duty to reveal those stealing crude with vessels, is spot on.
The moribund four refineries led to decades of importation of refined products. The accompanying humongous sleaze in fuel subsidy regime brought the nation to its knees. Oil marketers became ‘provocatively rich’ and extended their foothold in economic and political circles. They smuggled government subsidized products to neighbouring countries where they are sold at higher prices. And with over 3,000 registered fuel stations in communities within Nigeria’s international land and coastal borders, smuggling thrived at night hours. Discreet investigations revealed that security agencies received hefty bribes and turned a blind eye to the economic sabotage.
In 2012, a presidential committee that verified the claims of oil marketers discovered that N382 billion ($2.5 billion) was fraudulently paid to 107 oil marketing companies. These oil industry mafia and soulless capitalists are so powerful and entrenched with criminal networks that their threats sent shivers down the spine of then government officers.
The mega Dangote oil refinery situated in the Lekki Free Zone near Lagos, covering a land area of approximately 2,635 hectares, about the six times the size of Victoria Island, and which promises a new lease of life to the majority of Nigerians, is a direct threat to those who held the country by the jugular . An energy expert explained that the N11.35 trillion spent on the turn-around rehabilitation of the nation’s three refineries from 2010 to 2023 (13 years) without result, is almost the equivalent of $20 billion used in building Dangote Refinery when compared to the foreign exchange rate in those years.
Thus, the 650,000 barrels per day (BPD) refinery, with a capacity to handle three billion cubic metres of oil annually, is inundated with headwinds from the economic oligarchs who turned Nigeria to a rich land of lost opportunities. They employed all forms of subterfuge to frustrate the new refinery. First, the IOCs refused to sell crude to the Refinery, or if they would, the price would be pegged at $6 more than global prices. The Nigeria Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) intervened and in part, secured oil supply for it. President Tinubu has also instructed that crude oil be sold to the refinery in naira, instead of dollar. Second, oil marketers decided to charge agency fees as high as $4, which is against global practices. Third, the fire incident in the refinery caused a month’s setback to the timelines of hitting Nigeria markets with PMS. Four, the class benefiting from endless importation of fuel engaged Aliko Dangote in a battle of attrition by calling him a monopolist and embarked on de-marketing of his product. Five, David Hundeyin’s expose of the attempt to hire him by foreign elements to smear the new refinery underscores the desperation to hold Nigeria down by goons.
Dangote Refinery is a national asset that must be protected with a spirit of economic nationalism. The audacity of David Hundeyin is inspiring. Netizens and enlightened Nigerians should take a cue from him and form a new class to rescue Nigeria from mindless primitive accumulation. It may not be immediate but by perseverance, Charles Spurgeon noted that the snail reached the ark. After all, in the words of Subhas Chandra Bose, “freedom is not given, it is taken.”