What strategies should Nigeria adopt to keep increasing its crude oil production and possibly reach the quota given to it by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)?

The strategies are very clear. Why are the international oil companies divesting from the downstream? Somebody was giving the reason for such, that indigenous oil companies have come of age. But that may not be completely clear. One thing is very clear the IOCs do not feel safe with their infrastructure downstream. A while ago, it was reported that over 40,000 barrels were being stolen every day. Some of these challenges are there but how do you increase investments? First is the legal framework, that is the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA). Secondly, the legal framework will help you provide security. When you provide security, then also create an enabling environment for people to put their money. No investor is going to come and put money where the laws are not respected and their security can not be guaranteed and then you are having pipeline vandals breaking pipelines and not a single person has been prosecuted. If you put these three things in place, you will have more investments coming into the oil and gas sector and that is the only way, I know, that you can increase or improve your production and therefore meet your OPEC quota.

What about more security surveillance?

I have alluded to that. Security surveillance, on the one hand, is okay, but technology is key. How much surveillance do you think Saudi Arabia is doing? Saudi Arabia is bigger than what we have. It produces far more than we do, but Saudi Arabia can track every drop of its crude. So why are we not able to do that?

When I tell you about providing security, it is not only the surveillance or having a contractor go about it, that is one of them. But the most important one is technology. What stops Nigeria from using drones? The country knows how much it is losing. Let me give you an example, Let us say you are losing 200,000 barrels a day at $10 per barrel; that is $2 million; and in a month, that is $60 million. This is just a rough estimate, I know it is much more than that. And whoever that is stealing will not sell it for $10. So you can imagine and if now say it is $50 per barrel, you are talking of tens of millions of dollars that you are losing. Providing security for your various pipelines and for your crude infrastructure is not rocket science.

That is also why you find that I said the political leaders are part of it, the security agencies are part of it, and those working in that sector are also part of it. So it is more of a cabal.

The International oil companies know this but they are helpless because if you are hearing a Governor or a President come out to say that they are losing 400,000 barrels of crude and he is not doing anything about it and nobody has been arrested, you begin to wonder. We are hearing that cargoes are seized and in a short time they are set on fire, not even a single person has been prosecuted. That is why I talked about the laws. Do you respect your laws? Nobody will invest in a lawless place. So the security I am talking about is surveillance, yes, but the most powerful security in the world is soft security, soft power. Interviews are done via the telephone. Both parties do not see each other but there is a means the interview is being done and recorded. Technology is being used for that. So these things are all available. It is just, do we have the political will to do it? Or whoever wants to do it, is he not also part of the game? That is the challenge. The idea of saying: what do we do to increase our production, everybody knows what to do. You do not need to have a Ph.D in all of this to know what needs to be done. Respect your laws, enforce your laws, provide security, and whoever is guilty of a crime, prosecute the person. If the person does the crime, let the person be tried irrespective of how big the person is. That is how the system works.

How do you respond to the indication that the Federal Government has returned fuel subsidy payment since the price of crude oil and naira exchange rate are very high, so it is obvious that the current pump price is not commensurate to the cost of importing and distributing fuel?

In the past, I did point out that if I am asked what should be done, I would advise for the gradual increase of the pump price. I said what should be done is, first of all to identify how many litres of fuel are consumed daily in Nigeria. And then gradually, you can do a 25 per cent to 30 per cent increment of the price annually; while doing that, you will be putting the infrastructure in place that would mitigate whatever pains would come. I would tell you that the major part of the complaints from Nigerians is transportation. Transportation is the engine of the economy. When people are able to move from one place to another, the economy bubbles. Inflation is also driven by high transportation costs. What they should have done before the withdrawal of the fuel subsidy and the subsequent high fuel pump price increment was to have started investing in compressed natural gas (CNG).

It is not just about the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. I spoke on this matter during the administration of now ex-President Muhammadu Buhari. I said that Buhari’s administration has done this country a big and unprecedented harm. His government is the type that I have never seen, in the sense that they lacked capacity, they could not think. If they had even gone ahead and said, “Okay this is what we are going to do,” and they started putting the CNG in place. For eight years, you can imagine what they would have achieved. The administration promised that they would build a minimum of 2 refineries but the administration did not build any refineries for eight years. We were still importing product for eight years, which was not what he promised. The administration also said it would make the importation of petroleum products, a thing of the past but it did not do anything like that. And at the end of the day, we had more than N20 trillion of ways and Means. Ways and Means is another way how government prints money to get a loan and it was not appropriated by the National Assembly.

So when you look at all of this, is that this Tinubu administration just walked into a minefield, They had no money, they have to service debts. Where in the world do you use more than 90% of your earnings to service debt? All the debt by Obasanjo, Yar’Adua, Jonathan administrations, and the Buhari administration surpassed all the debt put together. And what are the things to show for it? Nothing.

Therefore did fuel subsidy withdrawal go gradually? The Buhari administration is as if there is a different party now from the All Progressives Congress because there is no link. What one expected would have been that the Buhari administration would have started dropping the subsidy gradually and then started building infrastructure to make life easy for the people. If we have CNG buses all over the place, and it becomes very expensive for you to drive your car, you will enter the bus. But now CNG buses are not available. You know how the government works. One of the things I also found out is that government knows how to spin. They tell you something over a period of time, everybody will fall for it. Subsidy is a scam! Subsidy is a scam! About 80 per cent of Nigerians say Ooohh! Subsidy should go. They did not even calculate the pains that would follow when the subsidy goes. So many people said subsidy should go. But we had been saying that there would be hardship that would follow if you take away this subsidy the way they want to do it. I also said that if they want to remove the subsidy, it should not be removed totally because the pricing will also keep going up. And that is where we are now.

Now that fuel is cheaper in Nigeria, they will start moving the product across. Do you need rocket science to track every truck of petrol leaving Nigeria? Some car owners have car trackers for their cars so they can know where their drivers are. So why not have the same technology for the fuel-trank drivers? So that anyone who is crossing the border, will know who is crossing the border.

Do you think it is wise for Tinubu to have in the interim returned fuel subsidy?

Very wise, because if he did not do it, his government would be in jeopardy. A hungry man is an angry man. The hardship in the land was becoming unbearable and you can beat a child but you can not tell a child not to cry.

How do you assess the struggle between government and labour?

I think labour leaders are doing what is best right now because one of the things people do not know is that labour leaders also need to factor in certain factors. I hear a couple of people say that labour sold out. They expected that Labour should have gone on strike immediately and shut down the country. No! That is not what labour is trained to do. If there is any opportunity for negotiation, labour should take it and that is what labour is doing. Labour is a pressure group. I think they are moving in the right direction. In the labour movement, what we move for is incremental increase. If you can get the whole increase at once, fine, get it. But if you can not, get what you can and continue the struggle. That is why we use the word: Alluta Continua. This means that we would continue to work on it and go for the incremental increase if that is what we can get. Now some people will say, they should just shut down. Labour is not an anarchist. But if you now shut down the country, you need to ask yourself, what is the result at the end of the day? They got N25,000 for the workers and it moved to N35,000, in six months, there is a need to renegotiate. They have given 30 days, grace and the discussion continues. So far, I will not say labour is doing badly at all.

What is your advice to the Ministers of State for Petroleum Resources, (Gas) and (Oil) on how to improve the sector?

I always talk about laws. We are too individualistic in how we look at a country and a system. We think as if the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil) or his counterpart in the gas own the oil and gas respectively. No! What is the policy of APC on oil and gas? Those are the things they should go out and implement. It is not about them. That is why I do not make reference to ministers. It is not about them.

For example, the Attorney General of the United States of America, following what is happening there. It does not have anything to do with the President, Joe Biden. It does not have to do with the Attorney General who is our own Minister of Justice. It is the law. And you can hear him alwayss talk about the law, the law and the law. So if you are a minister, there is a law that sets that ministry up; follow the law. There is a policy the party that was elected by Nigerians said they would do, there are promises they made; to ensure those promises are met. It is not about you, it is not about the personality of the minister. That is why I am not always talking about personality and that is why our country is where it is. Somebody is the president, we make it look as if the whole country is now his personal estate. Somebody is a hovernor, we now make it as if the whole state is his personal estate. No! All we should be asking is: this is what this party promised us and why we elected the party, so what is the party doing? Our questions should be directed to institutions and not individuals. That is why ministers play God, governors play God, president play God because we are a country that takes our citizens or employers with less regard. But a governor or a president Is an employee of the people. But because of our lack of knowledge or how we have been so pauperised, we are no longer thinking properly. So we now see our President as a god. Joe Biden joined the queue in the autoworkers strike. He went to join because he knew he needed their votes. He also knows that as President, he is President because those people allowed him to be President, they are the ones who voted for him. Joe Biden can not also go ahead and say people should not strike. He can not also go ahead and say he wants to deal with the company. No! Joe is allowing the institutions, the laws and the rights of the citizenry to be respected. So the idea of always talking about you being the Minister… No. A minister has no say. A minister is supposed to carry out the party policies regarding oil and gas. You will see a minister, which in America, they call them Secretary of this and that, all they want to do is the ideology of the democratic party or the manifesto of the Democratic Party. If it is the Republican, the manifesto or ideology of the Republican Party. So it is the institution of the party that is higher. Look at what they’re discussing in America now, Big government, small government, border security, immigration. One party does not care about the climate, and the other says about climate change. These are the things that people go to polls and vote for. How do we vote here? Where are you from? Which language are you speaking? Which religion do you belong to? Tomorrow, we start complaining. Everything that is happening to us as a people and as a Group, we are reaping what we have sown.

What would you want to be remembered for?

Ahh! I am still here. I have not finished writing my script. But so far, I would say I came, I gave everything I do to the best of my ability, whether as President of PENGASSAN, as President of TUC or any responsibility I am given, I give it my all. (New Telegraph)

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