Some
Nigerians this morning threw their weight behind the plan by President
Muhammadu Buhari to be in charge of Ministry of Petroleum in order to
tackle the alleged corruption in the petroleum sector.
Many
of them, including the former President of the Movement for the
Survival of the Ogoni People, MOSOP, Mr. Ledum Mitee, as well as former
governor of the old Kaduna State, Balarabe Musa, agreed that the
petroleum sector needed serious purging but said whatever is done must
be in the overall interest of Nigerians.
Mitee, who
heads the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, noted
that since petroleum is a dominant player in the progress of Nigeria, it
is not so much about who is in charge of the ministry but how the
ministry is managed.
President Muhammadu Buhari
He
said everything must be done this time to make sure Nigerians get the
benefits that petroleum provides, “without sacrificing the interests of
the communities or the oil producing areas.
“It has to be balanced against the perceived view of people of this area.”
He said one area of his concern is adequate consideration for the people of the area affected by the hazards of oil exploration.
Balarabe
Musa said Buhari’s decision to take charge of the ministry is the best
thing to do at this time when the petroleum sector is reeking of fraud
of different kinds.
Alhaji Musa also noted that Buhari has enough experience and knowledge of the sector.
“The
situation in that sector demands something very drastic. When there is a
challenge in any sector, the boss should take charge,” he said.
Barrister
Chris Nwaokobia, a Nigerian activist, noted that there is nowhere in
the Nigerian constitution where it is stated that the ministry must have
a Minister.
“I think at this point in our history, if
you attack a problem same way and you don’t seem to be getting any good
result, you change stratagem,” he said.
“What is
important is for him to do all that would make Nigeria work, to fix the
refineries, stop importation of petroleum products,” he said, adding
that he supports the move to sanitise the sector as promised by Buhari.
“Nigerians want a new regime of transparency in governance, where you must put square pegs in square holes,” he added.
Abiodun
Aremu of Joint Action Front also said the Petroleum Ministry needed to
be purged of large scale corruption and that Buhari must take every step
to achieve this even if he should act as minister in charge of
petroleum.
He said all that Nigeria needs now is democratic management of resources and not what obtained in the past.
“Our point is that refineries must work and Nigerians cannot be made to pay for government’s inefficiency,” he said.
There
were reports that President Muhammadu Buhari is likely to keep the oil
portfolio for himself in the new Nigerian cabinet, rather than trust
anyone else with the source of most of Nigeria’s revenue and traditional
fount of corruption, associates say.
Nigeria’s oil
sector is so dirty that nobody’s hands are clean enough to do the
“surgical changes” needed, one long-standing associate told Reuters on
condition of anonymity because the cabinet decision is still under
wraps. Another political associate said: “He will do it. It would be
stupid to give that position to anyone else.”
The first
source said Buhari has still not settled on his cabinet and has laughed
off media speculation about figures he will appoint, joking with
friends as he read out a newspaper article that mentioned possible
names: “They have picked my ministers for me! Have I even told you who I
want?”
A former general who ruled Nigeria 30 years
ago, Buhari has extensive knowledge of the oil sector, having been head
of the Petroleum Trust Fund under military ruler Sani Abacha in the
1990s and oil minister in the 1970s under Olusegun Obasanjo.
He
was voted in by Nigerians on an anti-corruption platform after years in
which graft appeared to worsen under the leadership of his predecessor
Goodluck Jonathan.
Buhari sent a list of 15 special
advisors to the outgoing national assembly for approval on Tuesday, but
the cabinet is unlikely to be publicly revealed until the end of July or
early August.
The senate, which must confirm the
cabinet, will convene only briefly on June 9 before its members are
expected to go on recess for up to six weeks.
“It’s
going to be a lean government, I doubt he’ll have 42 ministries like
Jonathan but he must have at least 36 (for the number of states) as
prescribed by the constitution, though it does not specify whether they
have to be senior or junior,” an advisor in the ruling APC party told
Reuters.
The new administration had not yet gone through reports on Jonathan’s handover notes on policy, the advisor said.
“There
is a huge body of proposals being bandied around the place,” the
advisor said, adding that nothing beyond broad strokes had been
outlined.
Jonathan has left Buhari with a cash-strapped
government, with a rainy-day fund so depleted that it must borrow just
to cover salaries.
The government relies on oil sales
for the bulk of its revenues but there has been little oversight on how
these are handled. Former central bank governor Lamido Sanusi was sacked
under Jonathan after he declared that some $20 billion in oil revenues
were missing between 2012 and 2013.
The dealings inside
the state owned company NNPC are so opaque that PriceWaterhouseCoopers,
commissioned to do a forensic audit over the missing funds, said it was
unable to obtain enough account documentation.
Not
only is oil money stolen through accounting gymnastics and oversight
gaps, but oil itself goes missing at unmetered oilfield well heads,
pipeline taps and export terminals.
Pipeline protection
and coastal inspection contracts have been given to ex-militants of the
oil-producing delta who kidnapped foreign oil workers and blew up key
infrastructure until a 2009 amnesty. Buhari plans to let the 60 billion
naira-a-year amnesty programme end in December as scheduled to save
money and it is unclear what he will fund in its place.
The
new leader has also made clear that he wants to revamp Nigeria’s
refining sector, which declined while the country became dependent on
imports for fuel.
“He’s emotionally attached to the
refineries because he built some of them. He wants them to start
functioning again,” the APC source said.
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