Fuel crisis and gang up against Kyari

By Adekunle Abass

It is disheartening to see many who know nothing to next about the dynamics and the workings of the oil sector turn themselves into industry experts in the wake of recent challenges facing the sector, particularly the logistics challenge on the distribution network. While many are genuinely ignorant about what is happening, sadly, many who are busy knocking the leadership of the Nigerian National Corporation Limited, led by Mallam Mele Kyari, are mischievous.

To start with, Melee Kyari did not create the problems Nigerians are currently facing as regard the availability, and the relatively high cost of petroleum petrol, as many of the mischief makers want Nigerians to believe. The crisis is the fall out of many factors, policy decisions and unbridled sharp practices by many players in the sector before the assumption of the NNPCL boss.

Again, as a man on a mission to rescue the nations oil sector from the cliff, and reposition it on the path of sustainable growth and profitability, the NNPCL on the watch of Kyari initiated a raft of interventions, programmes in the sector that will eliminate the widespread corruption in the sector, through phantom subsidy claims, deeper liberalisation of up-stream, midstream and downstream sectors, and the promotion of alternative energy sources aside Premium Motor Spirit, PMS. This led to the revamping of the nation’s gas assets, including the renewed campaign for the adoption of Condensed Natural Gas, CNG, as a credible alternative in the nation’s energy mix.       

On the CNG, he got to work with delays. In July, 2024, Kyari declared during simultaneous commissioning of 12 CNG stations in Abuja and Lagos that the journey to drive CNG initiative is on course, and irreversible. On this same thread, he added that many more CNG stations will be deployed nationwide, including three Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) stations that will come on stream in Ajaokuta.

His words, “There is simply no way to turn back on delivering CNG for all Nigerians. It is the right thing to do. Is it late? Yes, but we will make progress, we will cover the gap in order to ensure that the volatility we see with Premium Motor Spirit (petrol) does not apply to gas,”

The GCEO commended President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for providing the needed support to drive domestic gas utilisation aimed at delivering cleaner and cheaper sources of energy to Nigerians.

While assuring that the NNPC Ltd will focus  on the strategic plan to ensure continued energy security in the nation, through the Presidential CNG initiative vehicle, it was revealed that in the next one year, NNPC Retail would have launched over 100 CNG sites, including 16 NNPC Gas Marketing and NIPCO Gas JV sites.

“CNG provides Nigeria with affordable alternatives to existing available fuel products. It will be about 40% cheaper than petrol in Nigeria and with continued investments, it will become a significant part of our energy mix”, the NNPCL said.

Following the removal of fuel subsidy and the declaration of the Presidential Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) initiatives, NNPC Limited has taken the lead in the deployment of Auto-CNG Stations across Nigeria.

Another landmark project that was almost becoming a white Elephant project is the ambitious $12.8 billion Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano (AKK) Gas pipeline project. The massive multiplier impact of the project on the economic growth and industrialisation plan of the nation is remarkable.

The NNPCL boss whom many are falsely accusing of incompetency, led the charge to get the project back on stream, and assured that the project will be delivered by first quarter of 2025. The pipeline has crossed River Kaduna in Kaduna State.

Three federal Ministers who visited the project site, in the company of NNPCL boss, Melee Kyari, and top executives of the national oil company, were: Minister of Finance/Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr. Wale Edun; Minister of Information & National Orientation, Mr. Mohammed Idris Malagi and Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Gas), Rt. Hon Ekperikpe Ekpo.

Mr Edun, while commending Mallam Kyari for his resilience and his leadership dexterity, said, “The AKK Gas Pipeline is crucial for this administration and its delivery is in line with Mr. President’s strategy of bringing prosperity to the people,” Edun added.

These, among many other laudable feats are what Kyari, that some disgruntled elements wants to make sacrificial lamb to appease the angst of Nigerians who are frustrated by the petrol crisis.

For the records, it will be utterly immoral and callous to heap the blame of the wobbling oil sector on Kyari. The kernel of the matter is that the problem plaguing the sector is an age-long protracted crisis that is contrived by many factors, including vested interests. One of the vocal latest critics of NNPCL Kyari even traced the perennial fuel scarcity crisis to 1973.  How could a problem that has been building up for over 50 years be blamed on the man who got into the saddle of the national oil corporation a few years back?

Now, the subsidy removal which was backed by the law, through the passage of Petroleum Industry Act, PIA, was not the creation of the NNPCL as some people mischievously imputed. Every conscientious Nigerian agreed that the economic haemorrhaging caused by the fraud-invested petrol subsidy regime had become unsustainable, and inimical to the economic and financial well being of the nation. The corporation only aligned with the provisions of the PIA on subsidy payments.

In all, the management of the NNPCL has never relented at ensuring that both short and long term measures to cushion the impacts of the removal of subsidy are on the front burner. There was renewed operation on crude-oil theft, smuggling and other problems confronting the sector. The nation’s owned refineries too are getting required technical attention for them to return back to operations. Port-Harcourt refinery will start producing petrol in reasonable quantities very soo, ditto for others.

• Abass writes from Lagos State