It is quite unfortunate that the Federal Government is yet to find a solution to the lingering scarcity of petrol in the country. Most of the fuel stations which have the commodity now sell it between N130 and N150 per litre, while the same quantity costs N200 and above in the black market. This is in spite of the fact that the official pump price of petrol is N86.50. This high cost of fuel has led to astronomical increases in the prices of goods and services, and Nigerians from all walks of life are calling for a respite.
The situation has forced the Minister of State for Petroleum, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, to appear before the Senate Committee for Petroleum (Downstream), where he promised that the situation would improve in the second week of April.
This promise is an improvement on his earlier statement that the fuel problem may linger up to May, a position which earned him the ire and reprimand of many Nigerians, including the former Lagos State governor and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Fuel shortages are no longer new in Nigeria. They are fast becoming a recurring decimal of life in the country. But the frequency of the shortages and their persistence in the past few weeks are exacting a huge toll from the nation. Already, money running into billions of naira is estimated to have been lost by businesses to these shortages, while the social lives of the people have been severely curtailed.
Many Nigerians have become quite wary of the promises of past and present governments to find a permanent solution to the problem. What is important now, therefore, is not just this promise but how to permanently put the problem of perennial fuel shortages behind the country. No amount of lamentations or blame rhetoric can solve this problem. What is required is clear-headed thinking and a strong resolve to do whatever is needed to address the issue.
Government should design strategies to make the old refineries in Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna work efficiently, while also encouraging the building of new modular refineries by private firms to complement them.
We say this because the existing refineries have been working below their installed capacities for many years. There is no way they can meet domestic fuel requirements. Their turn-around-maintenance has become a revenue-gulping ritual that does not guarantee the supply of sufficient petroleum products, hence our reliance on importation.
This over-dependence on importation of petroleum products by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and oil majors cannot solve the problem of fuel shortages. It can only be an interventionist measure used to ease occasional scarcity. However, the payment of subsidies to fuel importers over the years has entrenched corruption in the fuel importation business. Efforts by the immediate past Goodluck Jonathan administration and the current President Muhammadu Buhari government to stop the payments have been stoutly resisted by its beneficiaries and the labour movement in the country.
We urge the Federal Government to end the problem of fuel shortages and give Nigerians working refineries. To do this, there is need for collaboration between the government and the private sector. The truth of the matter is that the government alone cannot solve the problem.
We think that the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model, if well articulated and implemented, will be the best approach to the building of functional modular refineries in the country. It is good that some private corporations were licensed to build refineries in the past. Even the present government has been reported to have also approved the building of modular refineries by some companies. The government must ensure that all those who have obtained licences to build refineries do so without further delay. If these refineries had been built and brought on stream, the perennial fuel shortages in the country might have considerably reduced. Many African countries, such as Senegal, Cameroon, Congo, Gabon, Algeria, Libya, South Africa and Egypt, are reportedly meeting their fuel needs through modular refineries. Nigeria can do the same.
It is time to save Nigerians from debilitating fuel scarcity. Our people are tired of endless queuing for fuel and paying outrageous sums for the product. Now that the oil minister has given a new date for an end to this fuel crisis, we urge the government to keep to that deadline. It should neither prevaricate nor renege on the promise to make fuel scarcity a thing of the past.
Above all, getting our refineries back to full operations will not only help to meet our domestic fuel needs, it will also encourage the export of refined petroleum products and create more jobs for our teeming unemployed citizens.