…Petrol demand hits 50 million litres daily, NNPC incurs N24bn monthly as subsidy***

Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo has absolved President Muhammadu Buhari of allegations of nepotism being levelled against him.

He said ministers from the southern part of the country were in charge of more strategic ministries, adding that the Federal Executive Council had more Christian members despite that Buhari is a Muslim.

Osinbajo was said to have stated these while granting interview to some journalists and social media practitioners in Lagos on Friday.

The Vice-President’s Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Laolu Akande, made the transcript of the interview available to journalists on Sunday.

Osinbajo said, “Look at the cabinet, for example, from the point of view of religion, it has an equal number – 18 Christians, 18 Muslims; but, we have the Secretary to the Government of the Federation as well as the Head of Service who are Christians.

“So, we have 20 Christians to 18 Muslims; that’s the structure of the cabinet.

“So, if you take that narrative you may argue that perhaps the Christians have the upper hand; that’s a possible narrative.

“Let us look a little deeper into that, so there are those who may argue, for example, that the North has an upper hand or perhaps one section has an upper hand in the cabinet as one narrative.

“The South-East, for example, has five states. Four of the south-eastern states have senior ministers; all of them, except one, who is Minister of State for Education.”

When reminded that the President had no choice since the appointment of ministers was a constitutional requirement, Osinbajo said Buhari had a choice in assigning particular portfolios.

“In the North, seven northern states have no senior minister, including the President’s home state, Katsina. Now, there are those who will say, if you are nepotistic; surely seven northern states have no senior minister. It’s a narrative depending on how you want to run it.

“I give you another example; I’m from the South-West. There are people who will say ‘I am from the South-West, the North has everything.’ The South-West, for the first time in the history of this country, has one minister who is in charge of three ministries: Power, Works and Housing. The ministers of Finance and Communications are also from the South-West.

“These are critical ministries. You can run the narrative in whichever way that you choose. There are those who will say, for instance, look at the number of CEOs of agencies of government; the highest number of CEOs in our nation today comes from Ogun State, the state has the largest number. There are those who will say that’s my state. So you can run the narrative depending on how you want to run it,” he added.

Osinbajo reminded Nigerians that the President had promised to take a second look at areas of allegations of nepotism he found to be true.

He cited the example of appointments into security agencies as one of those Buhari had promised to look into.

“I believe that is the way to go because you can run any narrative that will suit the figures you are showing. And that is where we have legal process.

“There are people who don’t know that the number of CEOs from Anambra State is more than the number of CEOs from Katsina State or anywhere else, except Ogun,” he said.

Osinbajo also said the present administration was prosecuting its anti-corruption war by focusing on what he called “grand corruption.”

Meanwhile, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation on Sunday announced that it was spending N774m daily (about N23.99bn monthly) as subsidy on the 50 million litres of Premium Motor Spirit consumed across the country.

Although it described the amount as under-recovery, the oil firm stated that the amount was due to the proliferation of filling stations in communities with international land and coastal borders across the country.

The Group Managing Director, NNPC, Maikanti Baru, said the multiplication of filling stations had energised unprecedented cross-border smuggling of petrol to neighbouring countries, making it difficult to sanitise the fuel supply and distribution matrix in Nigeria.

Baru disclosed this when he led a management team of the corporation on a visit to the Comptroller-General, Nigeria Customs Service, Col. Hameed Ali (retd.), according to a statement issued on Sunday by the firm’s Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Ndu Ughamadu.

Baru stated that a detailed study conducted by the NNPC indicated strong correlation between the presence of the frontier stations and the activities of fuel smuggling syndicates.

He said the activities of the smugglers led to the recent abnormal surge in the evacuation of petrol from less than 35 million litres per day to more than 60 million litres per day, which was in sharp contrast with established national consumption pattern.

Providing a detailed presentation of the findings, the NNPC boss noted that 16 states, having among them 61 local government areas with border communities, accounted for 2,201 registered fuel stations.

He stated that the tanks of the facilities had a combined capacity of 144,998,700 litres of petrol.

Baru stated that in the same vein, eight states with coastal border communities spread across 24 LGAs accounted for 866 registered fuel outlets with combined petrol tank capacity of 73,443,086 litres.

He said a further breakdown of the findings showed that among the states with land border, three LGAs in Ogun State accounted for 633 fuel stations with combined petrol tankage of 40,485,000 litres, while nine LGAs in Borno State had 337 fuel outlets with combined petrol storage capacity of 21,114,480 litres.

According to him, Lagos with one LGA as border community has 235 registered fuel stations with total storage facility of 19,916,600 litres.

The statement noted that on the coastal front, Lagos with six LGAs led with 487 registered fuel stations with combined in-built storage capacity of 50,239,560 litres.

It said, “Akwa Ibom, with five LGAs, has 134 registered retail outlets with capacity to store 8,322,986 litres; while Ondo State, with two LGAs, has 110 fuel stations with capacity to store 3,871,320 litres.”

Baru explained that because of the obvious differential in petrol price between Nigeria and other neighbouring countries, it had become lucrative for the smugglers to use the frontier stations as a veritable conduit for the smuggling of products across the border, adding that this had resulted in a thriving market for Nigerian petrol in Niger Republic, Benin Republic, Cameroon, Chad and Togo, as well as Ghana, which has no direct borders with Nigeria.

He was quoted as saying, “The NNPC is concerned that continued cross-border smuggling of petrol will deny Nigerians the benefit of the Federal Government’s benevolence of keeping a fix retail price of N145 per litre despite the increase in PMS open market price above N171 per litre.”

He noted that based on the heightened petrol consumption rate of 50 million litre per day, the corporation was incurring an under-recovery of N774m every day.

Welcoming the NNPC boss and his team to the Customs headquarters, Ali said the NCS would work with the corporation to stem the tide of cross-border smuggling of petroleum products, noting that all hands must be on deck to ensure the economic survival of the country.

He thanked Baru for the elaborate data provided by the NNPC on the fuel supply situation, adding that this would enable the service to fashion out the appropriate architecture to combat the menace.

Ali called on the authorities to tackle the issue of price differentials, which he noted were the underlying motivation for smuggling activities.

Reacting to the statement by the NNPC, the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria noted that subsidising petrol by N774m on a daily basis was not sustainable.

PENGASSAN stated that the NNPC was also aware of this, which was why the oil firm had been pushing for the revamp of the country’s refineries.

The PENGASSAN spokesperson, Fortune Obi, told one of our correspondents that international oil companies were also providing assistance for the revamp of the refineries in order to cut down on the importation of petrol.

“The NNPC leadership also knows that it (N774m daily under-recovery) is not sustainable and that is why they are strongly pushing for the refineries’ turnaround maintenance to put them back into full functionality. I’m aware some IOCs are providing support for the rehabilitation,” he added.

The Nigeria Labour Congress faulted the position of the NNPC on the payment of subsidy on petrol, stressing that the corporation’s under-recovery claim was not transparent.

The Secretary-General, NLC, Peter Ozo-Eson, said the importation of fuel should be opened up to competitors and must not be handled by just the NNPC.

Punch