“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Aliko DangoteBy Cosmas Omegoh
Everywhere, businessman, Aliko Dangote’s name hangs thickly in the air. At every turn he is being discussed. People are mentioning his name intensively and extensively both in high and low places. Even in many hard-to-reach spaces, his name also pops up.
Perhaps, anywhere two or more people are gathered, chances are Dangote is on their lips; his name is in their discussion. They are talking about him, his shrewdness and his astuteness in business, his doggedness and accomplishments – not forgetting his brutal and monopolistic tendencies. All of that are dominating the discourse right now.
In both the social and mainstream media, Dangote’s name also comes up. Various news channels are awash with his latest deed – the roll out of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) otherwise known as fuel from his Dangote refinery in Lagos. Call that the Act of Dangote.
When he made the broadcast last week, he did so with a finger in the air. As the billionaire dude from Kano read out the cheery news, he radiated joy. There was a certain aura of confidence that enveloped him, coupled with an air of accomplishment that followed.
“Today is a very special day,” he said, “because Nigeria has not produced petrol, which is gasoline, for many years.”
Then he added: “Our PMS (Premium Motor Spirit) can be in filling stations within the next 48 hours depending on NNPCL.”
Those who listened to Dangote as he spoke were happy. Their numbers were definitely in the majority. Since then, they have been lavishing accolades on him.
On the flip side are those seething with pains after seeing Dangote come the far he has come. They are in their infinitesimal numbers – those who laboured while the rest of men slept to ensure that Dangote and his project kissed the dust. Those who refused to give him crude oil until he shouted, threatening to reveal how they had been the ones bringing refined fuel from refineries in Malta into Nigeria. They wanted his initiative dead so that theirs would flourish at huge expense to Nigerians.
Indeed, Dangote passed through the fire of hell to arrive at the dawn of his dream.
For ensuring the completion and commencement of a private refinery, the first of its kind in the country, plums of joy and gladness are still rising from many homes and hamlets, bars and businesses across the country. Nigerians already crushed to the ground look to buying the Dangote’s fuel from the pumps.
It is better felt than described, how over the past months, Nigerians have been starved to death of the commodity called petrol. Those they entrusted to ensure that the product was available and affordable woefully failed them. They disappointed big time; sadly those lots continue to glory in their ignoble act, refusing to hide their faces in shame.
There is no one in Nigeria right now who has not drunk the sour wine of fuel scarcity and its attendant distress to the dregs.
Over the past years, Nigerians have had to deal with crushing fuel scarcity. The commodity’s supply and distribution have been everything chaotic, attaining the status of a debacle of gargantuan proportion.
But how did Nigeria ranked among the world’s largest oil producing and exporting countries get to this crossroads, one may ask? The answer is simple. Over the years, successive Nigerian governments and major oil industry players had come to the knowledge that petrol is akin to the air Nigerians breathe. In fact, they more than understood that the people’s economy rises and falls on petrol. So, they created high-wire politics, interest and intrigues around the country’s oil chain for private gains as against public good.
The thought of Nigeria’s ugly oil industry story leaves every man and woman of good conscience distressed, wondering what to make out of it. Is the situation caused by sheer lack of wisdom or vision or neglect or lack of will to manage Nigeria’s oil affairs or is it down outright wickedness?
People are tired of asking why Nigeria’s three gigantic oil refineries remained comatose till this hour. None since over the past decade, has refined even a litre of petrol despite handsome sums plunged into rehabilitating them, turnaround maintenance, they call it.
It is needless to say that the failure of those establishments had tossed Nigerians and their businesses into the pool of pain and penury. Rather getting the industry going good, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Ltd, the sole managers of the country’s oil business and its joint venture partners exporting crude to foreign lands and importing refined petroleum products. Date after date, NNPCL continued promising to bring the refineries back to life. But each of such promise had ended up falling flat on its face. Now, the agency, considered the most opaque oil industry in the whole world has run out of excuses. It has no new lines to tell. In fact, most Nigerians will prefer to believe that unstable fellow ranting down the street than the NNPCL.
Years ago, therefore, when Dangote threw his hat into the oil ring to see if he could solve a part of the problem, he handed Nigerians a glimmer of hope that they might someday enjoy a semblance of regular fuel supply.
While addressing the waiting world last week, he said his facility which has the capacity to refine 650,000 barrels of crude per day, was set to churn out 25 million litres of fuel daily. It was such a landmark achievement.
Now, every Nigerian is watching and waiting, praying and plotting that his words stay steady and eventually come to pass.
However, a cross section of Nigerians believes and insists it is not Uhuru yet. It maintains that something is not adding up yet with the Dangote narrative.
For instance, when Dangote took the stage, he did not announce the price he would be selling fuel to Nigerians badly traumatised following the absence of the commodity and its high price in the black market. Dangote had alluded that the Federal Government would be the ones to determine the price. That was stranger than fiction.
Many Nigerians are not at home with that Dangote line that the NNPCL would now have to buy off the Dangote fuel and in turn, sell to the public. And in doing so, the same Federal Government will fix the price of fuel fresh from the Dangote facility. That is another puzzle to tackle.
Those reading between the lines are inclined to believe that there is something businessman Dangote and the government are not telling the public yet. Everywhere you turn, people are trying to make sense out of NNPCL’s last week’s decision to once again increase the pump price of fuel, prompting the price of the commodity selling officially between N950 and N1,300 per liter in various locations across the country. Could that be sheer coincidence or something close to it? That’s another wonder!
It is on that basis that many who are already gushing, following Dangote’s PMS roll out seemed to have celebrated too early.
Agreed, that the Dangote investment is not a charity organisation. However, Nigerians want him to make his product available and affordable.
While consumers are waiting to see how far the Federal Government and its agencies will fare over their long-promised return of Port Harcourt Refinery, Dangote is looking to hold absolute monopoly on fuel business in the country for now. No one is begrudging him over that. That is an opportunity he had had to grind out for himself by sheer hard work and business sagacity. But he has to remember that he has a patriotic duty to ensure that the price of fuel is left within the reach of the people and businesses now reeling – some of them already throwing up their hands in bitter surrender. There is probably no better way to say this than this.
