The game currently being played by the duo of Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited and Dangote Petroleum, featuring over 200 million people as pawn, would have been seen, right away, as very expensive, if not, dangerous, but for the fact that their field of play is Nigeria. The two entities involved, know, as does the world, that the terrain they play, is the biggest value-free trade zone in the world. Everything goes there.
In Nigeria, everything is a game, any which way you read it. Life, here, is a game, often precarious and infernal. Governance is a game, a very crooked one, with no measuring gauge and little stock on character. Election – conducting or contesting – is a game, an expensive, unprincipled exercise. Policing is a game. Anyone, including criminals can play their way out of murder. Conversely, an innocent citizen can die for nothing. Fighting corruption is a game. Yahaya Bello has made all the point that can be made about that. The judiciary, with the courts, is a game. When people are taunted and asked to go to court, the underlining message in the invitation reads; come, let us play the game. It can be a very technical engagement, but it is largely a game.
When government enters negotiation with labour unions, it is a game. Agreement reached at the negotiations, is hardly intended by the government, to be executed. Managing petroleum resources, the livewire of the national economy, has become a game, too. Major players in the sector, both the supposed supervising entity and the supervised, have been locked in a dog fight that would have been an odd expression of the Nigeria’s version of the Game Theory, but for the grave reality that the optimal implication of the game makes no room for delayed gratification. All parties want maximum profit. And they want it now. No higher value counts.
In all these games, as it has turned out, not only fools die, as Mario Puzo will make us to believe. The country is dying too, incrementally and steadily. That actually makes a fool of an entire country, though. In the setting of contemporary Nigeria, the gutsy, mostly crookedly-endowed, thrive. Those who dare, win.
Playing games with the fate of an entire economy, already in trouble, as NNPCL and Dangote, are doing currently, could so easily be termed unconscionable, but that may seem like a resort to sentiment and morality, at least for one of the parties. In matters of capitalist hustling, what is wrong can so easily be presented to be right, especially if ample resources can easily deployed to change the narrative for the public. But what about a state enterprise, established to serve the people and defend their interest?
Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, successor to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, is a business entity quite alright. The government, representing all Nigerians, is the sole shareholder in the composite oil company. Although, it is a limited liability company, with mandate to engage in every possible legal business undertaking, from which it can make profit for the state, NNPCL owes a unique obligation to Nigerians. By its nature and critical realm of operation, NNPCL is, at once, a business enterprise and a defender of the interest of Nigerians. There is no clash of focus there. It is designed to play a key role in ensuring stability of the economy, as well as ensuring optimal management of the oil industry. These roles do not hinder its making profit, especially as the profit is there to be made, anyway.
Dangote Industries Limited, an integrated conglomerate, of which Dangote Refinery is one part, is, on the other hand, a private concern, a non state enterprise. The company’s raison d’etre is to make money, possibly at all cost. That is the nature of capitalist ventures. Dangote, whether the man himself, or his vast business portfolio, is quintessentially capitalist. Undisputed. The company has been around long enough, for Nigerians to know, clearly, what it represents.
The Dangote group may have undertaken varied social responsibility and charity interventions, in parts of the country, over the years, but that hardly detract from what the company is all about and who its promoter is. The pursuit of money and profit, is what Dangote is all about.
Against the backdrop of their distinct essence and composition, it is not out of place to expect NNPCL to be obligated to Nigerians, much more than should be expected of Dangote. Indeed, there should be little or no basis for comparison. A state enterprise that has government as sole shareholder, is, to all intents and purposes, a public trust.
So now, between NNPCL and Dangote Refinery, which of them should love Nigerians more? Which of the two entities should Nigerians expect to have their back? Which of them is expected to be more forthcoming about their affairs with Nigerians? Which, among the two entities, is presently lying to Nigerians and which one is trying to pull a dangerous wool over the eyes of the people?
The pertinence of these questions derives from the cacophonous claims between the two major players in the oil industry, which has left Nigerians confused, and left chaos in the downstream sector of the oil industry. Of course, chaos can be a strategy from which someone gains. The very fact of questions being raised about who, between NNPCL and Dangote, is more forthcoming with facts and truth about the oil sector, from crude supply to the downstream end, is, without doubt, an indictment on the NNPCL.
It speaks to the infamous opacity in the handling of business at NNPCL, that between it and Dangote, Nigerins do not know who to believe on what the right price of petrol should be, or who is the source of exploitation of citizens. How NNPCL, which has three refineries, that it has so far failed to revamp, after millions of Naira purportedly expended for those purposes, ended up becoming a sole distributor of Dangote Refinery when it commenced production, remains one of those Nigerian puzzles. How the state oil company got inserted into the affairs of a private business, to the point of quarrelling with it how it should be managing its business, is a story neither NNPCL or Dangote has told Nigerians. It doesn’t seem they are ready yet, to tell, either. That makes the entire situation seem murky.
Interestingly, when NNPCL was pressurized, as it were, to leave NNPCL alone, and it granted freedom to independent marketers to step forward and deal directly with Dangote, the story took another twist. The new story became that petrol from Dangote Refinery is costlier than the imported petrol. Both Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) and Petroleum Retail Outlets Association of Nigeria (PETROAN) vehemently make this case, standing determined to continue petroleum importation. It does seem that NNPCL is inclined to this line of argument. Indeed, it had said the same thing earlier. NNPCL preferring importation of petrol, is, of course, curious.
It is not enough however, to argue that importation does not help the country, when there is local capacity to meet substantial, if not all of the domestic petroleum need. The critical question becomes, how can the price of product from Dangote Refinery be higher than that of imported products, considering all the charges that trail imported products? A local refinery does not deal with these charges.
This is where Dangote’s answer manifested that characteristic tendency that makes many uncomfortable with its extreme capitalist (read exploitative) disposition. First, the company said its price is benchmarked against the price of oil on the international market. That explanation instantly speaks of the common discomfort with Dangote. That tendency is not being straight or fair with Nigerians. If the price of locally refined petrol has to be benchmarked against prices on the international market, then the buyers and marketers of the product at home should be free to scout the same international market and find the best deal, whether in Malta or Norway.
The whole argument about how every economy has a duty to protect investors has correlational responsibilities. Dangote cannot choose one side and abdicate the other side that concerns it. Then, came the statement by the company, that it produces the highest quality petrol and so any product coming from abroad, which is cheaper than what it offers at home, is sub-standard. That is either arrogance, or sheer baloney. Dangote is a player and a competitor in the oil sector. It cannot also be the industry monitor and examiner. It just cannot enter into an examination and at the end, seek to grade itself too.
To further compound the matter, it says that NNPCL does not even have the necessary laboratory to test and determine the standard of petroleum products, whether imported or delivered from refineries at home. In other words, the company is saying that it should be producing this its highest grade of product and possibly be given the function to determine any other product, imported, or locally produced, that meets its standard, since it has the capacity to so determine. This is simply too much.
There are fears and accusations that Dangote is at it again, that he is never at peace unless he operates as a monopoly. The charge is that he is doing everything to muzzle others out, so that his refinery will become the sole supplier of petrol in Nigeria. This accusation will be valid only if it is proved that Dangote is responsible for the incompetence and debilities at NNPCL. For now the game between NNPCL and Dangote continues, while poor Nigerins remain pawns.