Thursday, 17 May 2012
House Probe: Response From Jonathan’s (wo)Men Of Shame? By Ifeanyi Izeze
By Ifeanyi Izeze
Listen to our leaders, and it would be easy to conclude that the root of the problem is the moral failings of Nigeria’s so called ruling class. These people accuse each other of letting corruption and unfairness thrive, because they are variously nasty, incompetent or unable to stand up to vested interests. this is the truth and nothing but the truth!
Was it not shocking that officials of all the government agencies involved in the fuel subsidy scam gave Farouk Lawan and his House Committee different figures as the nation’s daily fuel consumption? Petroleum Minister Diezieni Madueke said Nigerians consume 52million Litres daily; the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Austin Oniwon gave 35million litres as our daily consumption. The Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) said it was 43million litres per day; the executive secretary of the PPPRA claimed it was 24million litres; while the Finance Minister, Okonjo-Iweala stood at 40million litres as our daily consumption volume. Nigeria we hail thee!
The very interesting aspect of this shameful display at the parliamentary probes is that almost all of these agencies and their top officials report directly to the Presidency. So does it mean that there is no synergy at all? If for nothing, at least to harmonize and tell the lies intelligently.
If we don’t know for sure the actual volume we consume domestically how do we know what the nation actually paid out as subsidy? This is really disturbing. Different figures were presented as subsidy for last year (2011) by different officials that were supposed to have been working.
While Diezani said it was N1.4 trillion, Okonjo-Iweala gave her own figure as N1.3trillion very different from what the CBN said was the total figure of N1.7trillion.
None of these people charged with managing the nation’s oil sector could agree with each other on the accurate current capacity utilization of our local refineries. The NNPC said the refineries ran at 60 percent installed capacity while the petroleum minister and the DPR gave their own figures of 30 percent and 15 percent respectively. Of course, the PPPRA said the plants operated at 20 percent installed capacity. What a shame?
Does Nigeria pay subsidy on locally refined Products? The petroleum minister said it depends; the NNPC group managing director said “the layman cannot understand how it’s done. While the executive secretary of the PPPRA answered yes to the same question, the DPR said emphatic “No.”
The status of the subsidy accounts was another area that saw a shameful display of uncoordinated lies. Diezieni said the account is a virtual one; NNPC said there is no account in existence as the lay man will look at it; while the PPPRA claimed “the account is a technical one.” And contrary to the CBN position that “there is no account with us for subsidy,” the finance minister posited that “the account exists but not with a bank.”
How long can we afford to continue like this as a country?
The Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (NEITI) that was supposed to be a watch -dog to the government agencies involved in all kinds of payments in this subsidy scam on its part, only displayed a complete aloofness in the questions of irreconcilable subsidy payments.
When the Farouk Lawan-led House Committee asked NEITI’s officials: “what did NEITI see of the activities in the nations upstream and downstream sectors so far?” Their answer was that the findings of the body show that “recordings of the concerned government agencies are paper-based, contrary to best global practice, and as such are subject to errors. They most probably meant manipulations because the petroleum minister had said there was no doubt there have been manipulations of numbers and figures in the administration of fuel subsidy.
The question is: On what moral platform is NEITI standing to condemn the scam in the subsidy scheme? Where was the organization when all the anomalies went on in the subsidy payments over the years?
Why is it that good concepts that work very well elsewhere in the world always produce aberrations in Nigeria? When the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) was established about five years ago by an Act -NEITI Act 2007, it was supposed to be the Nigerian subset of a global initiative aimed at following due process and achieving transparency in financial transactions between extractive industry companies (including downstream operators in the oil and gas sector) and federal government and government-linked entities. However, how this initiative has carried out its statutory mandate is still at best blurred and at worst obscured.
From obvious indications, NEITI merely parades a very clear vision to see fraud and corruption but it is very blind or rather disabled in ensuring that exposed genuine cases are pushed beyond the pages of newspapers.
Is it not surprising that NEITI looked the other way and waited to be begged to pick up issues in the established lapses in the payments in the nation’s fuel subsidy scheme?
It has been posited severally that NEITI as an institution was deliberately structured to be impotent or rather to only bark without the teeth to bite. Of course how can it bite when everything about the conscription was comfortably embedded into the day to day bureaucracy and funding largess of the Presidency where the demons causing the problems of the NNPC , PPPRA, PEF among other fraud-coloured conscription are domiciled since the days of Obasanjo- Ezekwesili transparency campaign.
The organization was packaged to feign aggressive campaign with inbuilt mechanism to avoid even mere mention of the bigger accomplices in the fraud. NEITI cannot deliver on this because, as it is currently structured, the organization dines and wines with the culprit in this entire matter- the Presidency.
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did u see the wife of buhari campaign with him in aba?
Submitted by deri (not verified) on February 1, 2012 - 14:05.
@Tundemash aka Wahala, were you in Ghana or Siberia when GEJ pledged during his campaigns to uphold the unity of the country if elected? Then the same man goes back to call for or sends a bill to the house on the need for us to have SNC. Such a demand can only come from interest groups such as civil society bodies and not GEJ. In hospital when Ciroma alleged that GEJ was using the militants in D ND, to threaten the unity of the country when they promised to invade abuja if Yara Adua does not hand over to GEJ. I dont know why u keep on harping on this Bakare issue. The same Bakare who conducted polls which showed Buhari leading GEJ? The pastor who said Buhari was too old for Aso Rock. That Aso rock was not an old peoples home? Only for him to go back and swallow his vomit by accepting to be VP to Buhari? Did Jankande not work with the very military that sacked his government? Look for some other excuses. How many times did you hear the wife of Shagari and Buhari speak in public?
@ Wahala aka tundemash love transcends educational boundaries
Submitted by deri (not verified) on February 1, 2012 - 14:03.
@Tundemash aka Wahala, were you in Ghana or Siberia when GEJ pledged during his campaigns to uphold the unity of the country if elected? Then the same man goes back to call for or sends a bill to the house on the need for us to have SNC. Such a demand can only come from interest groups such as civil society bodies and not GEJ. In hospital when Ciroma alleged that GEJ was using the militants in D ND, to threaten the unity of the country when they promised to invade abuja if Yara Adua does not hand over to GEJ. I dont know why u keep on harping on this Bakare issue. The same Bakare who conducted polls which showed Buhari leading GEJ? The pastor who said Buhari was too old for Aso Rock. That Aso rock was not an old peoples home? Only for him to go back and swallow his vomit by accepting to be VP to Buhari? Did Jankande not work with the very military that sacked his government? Look for some other excuses. How many times did you hear the wife of Shagari and Buhari speak in public?
Does the Gov of CBN, Sanusi
Submitted by deri (not verified) on February 1, 2012 - 12:27.
Does the Gov of CBN, Sanusi know how much we spend in settling the fuel subsidy thieves? Was it Jonathan that stopped the fuel importers from paying custom duties to Gov in 2002? Or encouraged them to fill their tanks with water instead of fuel? So its now the job of GEJ to check how each state is governed in 9ja? When we called for resource control, was it not the Fulanis thorugh Umaru Dikko who chopped it down his throat, as if fiscal federalism was a piece of kolanut that can be chewed and spat out on the people of the south south. The Hausas we have in 9ja, are migrants from Niger Republic and Chad. Talk about Fulanis. It was Buhari your mentor who sacked and jailed progressive governors like late Sam Mbakwe, Pa Ajasin, Jakande and Ambrose Ali among other great leaders like Okilo. How many went to jail from among the Fulanis? None. You want progress when we have boko haram eating deep into the nations budget. Happily the fuel importers are yr ppl and not Ijaws.
@Tundemash
Submitted by Uche J (not verified) on February 1, 2012 - 07:15.
Bros, when next we meet at any joint, a pint on me (not ogogoro, understandably).
I want to advise all SR forumers to always copy and paste these TUNDEMASH replies to any post from the duo of Deri and Ifeanyi-autocracy!
@Deri and Ify-deranged
Submitted by tundemash (not verified) on February 1, 2012 - 00:26.
These fools keep shooting themselves in the leg. So if dumbo does not know how much fuel Nigerians consume .. how did N1.3t, N1.4t or N1.7t calculated? Everything has been blamed on the Hausas, the South has been in power, less 2years of Yaradua, since 1999, what is the appreciative progress made. Hausas couldn't make good census .... has the southern man made one ? Is Enugu, Abia, Oyo, Osun, Imo govern by Hausas? Are those states better off than they were 10, 20yrs ago ?
Until you guys get it into that your coconut head, corruption knows no tribe, you would always get it wrong !. Jonathan does not see Dangote as Hausa, it is you ignorant poor fools who see that. Under Yaradua, an Hausa man, Ibori was untouchable. To them, it is about belonging to that thieving clique. Jonathan rewarded(with a national award)Justice Auta, an hausa man, who convicted Saro Wiwa an ijaw man .. how do u explain that fools ? When is Dumbo declaring his assets?
@Deri: Let Dumbo send a bill on SNC to the Senate
Submitted by tundemash (not verified) on February 1, 2012 - 00:11.
@Deri
U claim "GEJ is not capable of calling for a national confab. "
Yes, you are right. A man dumb enough to marry an illiterate can't have the common sense to send a bill to the Senate calling for SNC. 2years ago, Tunde Bakare came to his rescue; there was no Ijaw man in sight then. GEJ isn't capable of calling for a national confab; what a coward ! Tell us exactly what he can do. OBJ practicably made the inarticualte man a gov, made a deputy President, Tunde Bakare pushed for him to be made an acting President and OBJ practaclly bulldozed everyone in PDP to make him a President and now you claim he can't call a national confab. TELL US EXACTLY WHAT HE'S CAPABLE OF DOING HIMSELF? He's capable of planning to send a bill about 7yrs single tenure to the Senate but he can't send a bill about SNC to the Senate. The monkey breastmilk you drank while growing up keeps stunting the growth of your brain!
Even lucifer has admirers
Submitted by deri (not verified) on January 31, 2012 - 23:35.
When u do not even know as (IFY DEMOCRACY) rightly pointed out, D number of police officers you have in the country. Not to talk of the barrels of crude oil pumped out of the South South. Is it the working of the national ID card project that u would have an idea about? Blame shoeless GEJ for all our woes since 1914. There are 17yrs old Neo Nazis, who still worship the thoughts of Adolf Hitler in Germany. We have Awoist all over 9ja. Nkrumahist abound both here and Ghana- we have followers of great leaders like Gaddafi with his Jamhiriya revolutionary ideas-after working as a stooge of our imperial internal colonizers, you still do not know the gallons of fuel imported into the country from Togo. But quietly remembers that GEJ, once had no shoes to put on to school. Knows 9ja practices a federal system of government. But not fiscal federalism. Hence the need to have Deri (yes Sir) his way through the confused souls of the triumvirate dat u want us to serve! animals
how many LGCs have oil wells located in their domains in d SS
Submitted by deri (not verified) on January 31, 2012 - 23:33.
When u do not even know as (IFY DEMOCRACY) rightly pointed out, D number of police officers you have in the country. Not to talk of the barrels of crude oil pumped out of the South South. Is it the working of the national ID card project that u would have an idea about? Blame shoeless GEJ for all our woes since 1914. There are 17yrs old Neo Nazis, who still worship the thoughts of Adolf Hitler in Germany. We have Awoist all over 9ja. Nkrumahist abound both here and Ghana- we have followers of great leaders like Gaddafi with his Jamhiriya revolutionary ideas-after working as a stooge of our imperial internal colonizers, you still do not know the gallons of fuel imported into the country from Togo. But quietly remembers that GEJ, once had no shoes to put on to school. Knows 9ja practices a federal system of government. But not fiscal federalism. Hence the need to have Deri (yes Sir) his way through the confused souls of the triumvirate dat u want us to serve! animals
Jj
Submitted by Armani (not verified) on January 31, 2012 - 22:48.
If the courts r not capable then I urge Nigerian to rise against these thieves from local government chairmen all the way to governors and maybe one day the ame president with jungle justice,let's catch them and beat them up b4 cutting their hands n burn down the mansions....that way they will try n avoid stealing the Nigerian people's money.
@Deri. I am an admirer(?) of
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on January 31, 2012 - 17:13.
@Deri. I am an admirer(?) of your comments on this medium. You are a true son of your father and the Niger Delta.You have been very consistent in your defense of GEJ and anything to do with Niger Delta, positive or negative and also consistent in your bashing of any other that is not of Niger Delta extraction. We need people like you to ensure the enthronment of true Federalism and a new or divided Nigeria. May I therefore humble advise that you seek or rather choose a position from your clueless and blameless brother in the government so that you can put your theories into practice. Thats how Hilter's henchmen were able to implement his 'Mein Kempt' doctrines, not by passing daily comments in the media
Wat a nation! All d principal
Submitted by Yusuf mohd (not verified) on January 31, 2012 - 16:33.
Wat a nation! All d principal officers of dis incompetent govt are nothing but bloody liars. De hav shown d world dat de are nasty, corrupt and inadequate in handling d affairs of d nation. Its not surprisin since d president too is an incorrigible liar and absolutely ineffective in discharging his responsibilities. Dats DRUNKEN MASTER for u!
@Izeze..,why are you surprised!
Submitted by Ifeanyi-Democracy 4ever (not verified) on January 31, 2012 - 15:56.
Why are you surprised that various govt officials presented different data as our total daily consumption of fuel? I'm SHOCKED that this variation is generating dust in the polity. Are these govt officials MAGICIANS? How can a country that does not know the precise number of her citizens know how much fuel she consumes daily? Who knows how many we are in Nigeria? Who knows how many Nigerians died last year? Who knows how many Nigerians were born last year? Who knows how many cars are registered in Nigeria? Who knows how many Nigerians are unemployed? Who knows how many foreigners are in Nigeria? Who knows how....? Lets tell ourselves the TRUTH, most of the data we have in Nigeria are extrapolations. It was not in the interest of the HAUSA/FULANI to implement policies that will yield accurate data because they thrive on falsehood, using inflated figures to allocate resources to themselves. The National Identity management Body woke up from their deep slumber recently
@Izeze..,why are you surprised!
Submitted by Ifeanyi-Democracy 4ever (not verified) on January 31, 2012 - 15:55.
Why are you surprised that various govt officials presented different data as our total daily consumption of fuel? I'm SHOCKED that this variation is generating dust in the polity. Are these govt officials MAGICIANS? How can a country that does not know the precise number of her citizens know how much fuel she consumes daily? Who knows how many we are in Nigeria? Who knows how many Nigerians died last year? Who knows how many Nigerians were born last year? Who knows how many cars are registered in Nigeria? Who knows how many Nigerians are unemployed? Who knows how many foreigners are in Nigeria? Who knows how....? Lets tell ourselves the TRUTH, most of the data we have in Nigeria are extrapolations. It was not in the interest of the HAUSA/FULANI to implement policies that will yield accurate data because they thrive on falsehood, using inflated figures to allocate resources to themselves. The National Identity management Body woke up from their deep slumber recently
The truth will show
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on January 31, 2012 - 14:57.
Soon, the truth will be unravel. The Minister of Finance has said that at the House hearing. I am holding on to that!
This PPPRA was created by
Submitted by Olotu (not verified) on January 31, 2012 - 14:30.
This PPPRA was created by Obasanjo and Okonjo-Iweala just to make money available to fund the 2003 presidential election. Can anyone please tell me the function that this agency is performing that the bigger thief- NNPC (PPMC) or even DPR could not have done better? The rot in the PPPRA explains why the likes of the former PDP chairman, Ahmadu Ali scrambled to chair the board as his retirement benefit.
Does it mean that these
Submitted by Zubby (not verified) on January 31, 2012 - 14:17.
Does it mean that these people don’t meet with Mr President to discuss facts and figures? What a shame? How can two ministers and officials of agencies under the two ministries be talking in opposite directions?
oil producing nation-that imports fuel for 25yrs is sick!
Submitted by deri (not verified) on January 31, 2012 - 13:50.
We write and talk too much about nothing in 9ja. Let us confine our thoughts to developing a synergy for Fiscal Federalism. GEJ is not capable of calling for a national confab. The House and the Senate can. Again how do we make the centre weak? Or less dependent on the 87% revenue from crude oil. We have 6 zones in the country. Let us know how the oil blocks from the Niger Delta, were distributed to each zone. The number of billionaires, PHD holders, shoeless leaders, Senators, members of the House of Rep, Ambassadors past and present-army generals, retired and serving-including-IGP and LGC in each state. Fuel importers from each zone-the beneficiaries of the 1.7trillion fuel import bill from each zone-until we know these facts, we should all shut up and work towards the abrogation of the land use decree and the petroleum acts-9ja does not begin and end with fuel subsidy merchants in turbans, agbada or red and blue cap chiefs. List of all the fuel importers 4 all to see biko!
