By Wilfred Eya
Osita Okechukwu is a former Director General of the Voice of Nigeria (VON) and a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC). In this interview, he speaks on the hardship Nigerians are presently going through and what President Bola Tinubu should do to address it.
Can we truly say Nigerians can afford chicken to eat this Christmas considering the inflation in the country?
To be honest with you, I’m concerned and worried about the hardship in the country over the hunger and poverty in the land. And it pains me that going to four decades now, Nigerians have dangerously been sliding towards multi-dimensional poverty. It started far back in 1986 and this is exactly the 38th year and all we are looking for has not happened.
But I think President Bola Tinubu appreciates the suffering in the land. He appreciates the hunger in the land. He has set the parameters in terms of undertaking some economic policies that require some bold and courageous decisions like the fuel subsidy, and the issue of the exchange rates, and he has reduced our debts.
I think the only missing link, and what can answer your question is that there are foreign angles on what I’m expecting Mr. President to do, which I also understand from his inner cycle that he’s about doing. He had prepared a grant for the international community to know that we mean business by the policies he had adopted and the fiscal discipline that the regime had engaged in.
I think he’s in a position today, if he musters the courage, because we see him like President Obasanjo and we are persuading him, if he had prepared grants for the international community, let him go ahead and borrow hugely. It has been done all over the world.
If Mr. President borrows about $50 billion to attack our energy sector, both on the issue of fuel and the issue of electricity, our country will return to normal and Nigerians would breathe. That is the foreign angle. The domestic angle is that we still expect Mr President to shake up the oil industry because a lot of people have pointed at the oil mafia that has held the oil industry down.
The Group Managing Director of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL) and his team are doing very well, but their best is not the best for Nigerians. And we were told in primary Physics that if there’s no distance cover, no work done, they have not done any work, we are going back to about over 20 years, 10 years, we could not repair even one refinery to reduce the price of petrol and other derivatives.
But I still expect Mr President that if I’m in his position, I will go with the advisory of the Trade Union Congress (TCU) that I can bring down the price of the PMS because, in a barrel of oil, there are about 10 derivatives. The PMS comes first with about 20 gallons in the 42 gallons that make a barrel. There’s diesel, there’s the fuel oil, lubricants and gas.
He can make money in gas and others because it’s been discovered that the pump price affects every price in the country. The food inflation is basically because of the cost of the pump price. So, if I’m in the position of President Tinubu, I will take the bull by the horns. Out of the 10 derivatives, let us make profits in nine and gain in one. And also to reconsider the fact that Dangote had exploited the weakness and the failure of NNPCL to repair its refinery and establish one. We should pay attention to the Dangote Refinery and go in sync with them.
You said our debt has gone down but our debt has increased from $91 trillion to about $134 trillion now as of the end of October 31st this year and we’re borrowing like wild fire…
There is what we call the debt-service ratio. That is the key point. It has reduced from 100 per cent to 65 per cent. In the macroeconomics analysis, the debt-service ratio is taken as a key point for you to be able to attract foreign direct investment. And Mr. President had done so with his economic team. All he needed to do is have all the parameters that are required as the international best practices. Gentlemen, my people are hungry. The country is collapsing. I need a loan. What am I doing with the loan? It’s to power the energy, both electricity and the fuel company.
Some turbines are being sold all over the world that produce about 200 megawatts. Those turbines can be produced en masse, lined up in the whole Niger Delta and screwed to the grid. Within one year or two, we can achieve 33,000 megawatts to add to the four we have today. So, the issue is not about taxing the people. It’s about trying to innovate. And immediately, the international community has seen that you have done what Mr. President had done. You are no longer leaving the people on the freebie. You tell them the people cannot die and they must put food on their table because today is becoming difficult to have many people survive.
Are you seeing any concern or any activity, anything being put in place by this government to plan for the fact that the oil price is dipping, and we are an oil-producing nation that depends on oil? Are you seeing any positive body language that assumes that from the next budget cycle, we have made alternative arrangements?
Your question is very germane. Yes, but you know no government on earth will come to the air and tell the citizenry that the march is spending on security. President Tinubu has spent deep and huge and continues to spend. So, the security situation is improving both in the Niger Delta and the oil production will accordingly go with it.
And luckily, the foreign direct investment we’re getting today more is from the oil sector. Why is it so? Because they have seen that the security of that region is better guaranteed than it used to be before. So, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. But the only problem we have is how to settle the people.
What are the facts to prove that there’s been an increase in investment into the oil sector because last I checked with you, more people are pulling out and opting for markets like Angola?
We’re not saying they are not pulling out. But the point is that if Nigerian investors had been able because of the environment created to get access to funding because immediately you have access to the funding, you have access to the expertise and the technology to do whatever those who have existed are doing. And that is what is going on. It might not mature in one day.
It’s like in agriculture. What Mr. President is doing in agriculture, you might not see today, but in the next year, after the harvest, we’ll see how much he has done in agriculture. But the point of the matter is that what I’m saying is that Mr. President needs to shake up the oil industry. He needs to also look to those who are hampering the electricity chain, the transmission apparatus, and others.
And if there are distribution companies that have failed, for God’s sake, there is a line in the agreement we had with those he was privatized to that if you do not do well, the Nigerian state will recover their assets because we have suffered enough on that. I just pray that he has the political will to do so.
At the recent conference of the Nigerian Guild of Editors in Bayelsa State, the Minister of Information asked for collaboration and cooperation with the media. What would you advise President Tinubu to do as someone who is a media person to support the media in this season of dispossession and the rampaging epidemic of empty pockets?
Just as we are discussing, I would like him to go to the heart of the matter. The heart of the matter is energy cost. If you are running the print media, the cost of energy affects you. If you are broadcasting, the cost of energy affects you. Mr President should dig deep. No rocket science will have four refineries and will have invested over $10 billion in internal ramp maintenance year in, year out and none of them is working.
For God’s sake, let’s clean that table so that it will be across the board, both for the lady who is running a small food shop and for the barber on the streets who is using his clippers that need to switch off the electricity. This is what we are suffering. Joe Igbokwe, one of the greatest supporters of President Tinubu, had cried out about the high electricity tariff. We all are suffering it? Not only the media. How can somebody buy a copy of a newspaper if you are not putting food on the table for the children? So, it’s across the board.
Mr President should attack it from the energy sector. And there’s nothing wrong. He has done so well by getting the international community to agree that he means business. And that’s what they have been looking for. You’ve removed the freebies the Nigerian people are enjoying. Then meet them one-on-one. And say, please, this is it. You could do it yourself.
Are you saying that the President should come up with a scheme to say, look, media houses should enjoy electricity free of charge, and that the Federal Government would take up the bills of media houses?
No. Don’t forget that the media houses also suffer the cost of diesel and PMS in their houses. I’m saying across the board, the reduction process has to be across the board. The media should be helped. But it’s better not about palliatives. It’s about concrete. And energy is the heart of the economy, both for the poor, the rich and the super-rich. That’s my submission.