Report submitted by the Farouk Lawan led Probe Panel on Petroleum Support Fund has spawned mixed reactions from Nigerian activists, Civil Society Groups and observably at large, the Nigerian masses.
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Report submitted by the Farouk Lawan led Probe Panel on Petroleum Support Fund has spawned mixed reactions from Nigerian activists, Civil Society Groups and observably at large, the Nigerian masses.
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The report may specifically have vindicated the positions of a former Minister of Petroleum, Professor Tam David West, Fiery Lagos Preacher, Pastor Tunde Bakare, Bayelsa State born Entertainer, Ben Murray Bruce among other high profile Nigerians, who posited that there was no subsidy being paid on the petroleum product at all but that the statistics on the subsidy fund read out to Nigerians was simply an arrangement to dupe the masses.
Prior to the unanticipated high jerking of the petroleum price on 1st of January 2012, supposedly due to the removal of the claimed subsidy paid on Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), President Goodluck Jonathan, backed by his Finance Minister and Coordinator of the Economy, Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, Central Bank chief Executive, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, guardedly told Nigerians that a ‘cabal’ was receiving all the acclaimed funds paid to subsidize the fuel product meant for Nigerians’ consumption. Certainly, it shows they know who those collecting money from them were, but they would rather not be the ones to expose them thereby resorting to dubbing the criminals ‘cabals’. Setting up a committee thereafter to probe into the matter and stir up the polity was only to postpone the evil day, to euphemize the inhuman condition and its relative potentials of erupting national citizens’ indignation, and to steer the masses’ attention away from themselves since they were guilty for the Billions-turning-Trillions subsidy scam. They obviously did not need another committee to unearth the chief oil scammers, but set it up as a perfunctory machinery to assist in their attempt for selective manhunt. There tends to be more about the subsidy fund than there is in the report submitted by the committee. The position still stands; that even at N65, there is no subsidy being paid at all on the PMS, and bizarrely, N97 is way too high above the abnormal profit region on the oil marketers’ revenue chart.
From a spectrum of guilt, the Federal Government in its usual blame repellent nature, shifted the guilt and began to safeguard the interest of the Petroleum Minister, Allison Madueke, Sacking only the Accounting firm, Akintola Williams Delloitte. Whereas, the report indicted the Petroleum Minister, Allison Madueke, under whose watch the Subsidy fraud was perpetrated; Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, the company whose board is also chaired by the Minister Allison Madueke; two accounting firms, Akintola Wiliams Delloitte and Olusola Adekanola & Co; and Oil Marketers.
#Occupy Nigeria Season Two (2) in the Pipeline The #Occupy Nigeria Protest in January inspired the masses to troop out in their numbers, most for the fun that it comes with, mixing with millions other Nigerians in what dramatically caught the nature of a City Carnival. The protest handled a multitude of prominent individuals, religious clerics, Nollywood practitioners, Musicians from all the genres, Lecturers, Entrepreneurs, Students, Graduates, the unemployed and under-employed, and all members of the public who could not be described with any formal designation. It was surprising and certainly, quite amazing, to see Christian Ministers tying knots with their Muslim Cleric counterparts. It was as well remarkable, to have the notoriously belligerent Lagos boys, otherwise called social miscreants cooperating by joining in the demonstration and making the environment a safe one for the crowd of demonstrators. As many Nigerians prepare for another round of the #OccupyNigeria Street Protest, many of them are already demanding that more musicians participate in Season Two (2) of the #OccupyNigeria Street Protest to entertain them demonstrators the more.
The first season of the #OccupyNigeria Protest was inspired by the abrupt increase in the prices of fuel, which the Federal Government claimed was due to the removal of a Subsidy it was paying on the product. The Protest which shut down key business activities in Lagos, Abuja, Kano and other Commercial Cities in the country paralyzed the economy of the Nation. Economists estimated that the weeklong #OccupyNigeria Protest cost the Nigerian Economy over N1.trn, and caused the Naira to stumble at the Foreign Exchange level.
The upcoming Season two (2) of the #OccupyNigeria Protest is to be stirred by the report on the Subsidy Probe. As many Nigerians gain consciousness every day and are better informed than before, the masses have been keen on the Subsidy Probe report. The report, which exposed that N127.8bn paid 128 times to certain entities without identity within 24 hours on January 12, and 13 in 2009 by a the Office of the Accountant General has brought curiosity to the minds of Nigerians who are already asking questions.
The simple request this time is that the Federal Government should act as soon as possible on the recommendations of the report which include that the NNPC should return N310.4bn it fraudulently claimed with another N285bn for fuel imports above the PPPRA level, and another N108.6bn the corporation paid to itself; the refund of N41.9bn paid to the 18 other marketing firms which failed to show up at the during probe and the proper prosecution of all found guilty in the oil scam forthwith.
According to report, a total of 15 purported fuel importers collected $337,842,663 in 2010 without importing any fuel. The budget presented and approved by the legislature in 2011 on subsidy payment was N245bn, but the amount spent rounded up to about N3tn.
Another riddle exposed by the report is the 128 Marketers discovered collecting the same amount over and over again, as different from the 36 initial participants under the Petroleum Support Fund.
#OccupyNigeria Season (2): NLC/TUC’s Involvement The fear of many citizens on the effectiveness of the #OccupyNigeria Protest is the involvement of the Nigerian Labour Congress, NLC, and the Trade Union Congress, TUC. The masses have decried their betrayal by both Congresses during the January occupation by backing off. Many accused them of taking bribes to back off while they left the masses to accept the outcome of a unilaterally imposed Price of N97/liter of fuel on the citizens by President Goodluck Jonathan.
On the their co-organizing with NLC and TUC, Pastor Tunde Bakare, convener of the Save Nigeria Group told Citizen Journalist Segun O’Law in a conversation that the NLC backed off earlier than expected and on weak terms too. He denied that the NLC called off the Protest as they as they could not have called off what they did not organize in the first place.
“NLC did not call off the demo, they only called off their strike”, Pastor Bakare said. He then added, “Even after the NLC strikes were called off, there were still protests in Kano and other states of the North”. He stated that they had to stop the occupation and re-strategize since the Federal Government wanted to be killing people with Soldiers, but it was not in the interest of the SNG to endanger the lives of organized citizens.
The SNG spokesperson, Yinka Odumakin also told O’Law that the second season of the OccupyNigeria protest is a Civil Society Groups responsibility and that while the groups are still planning it, there is no indication yet as to whether the Civil Societies would want to join forces with the NLC and TUC. “We do not know what their plans are yet, but this is a Civil Society thing. If they [NLC and TUC) like, they can come up with something to be part of it”, Odumakin said.
As it appears, the polity is charged with many Nigerians dusting their Protest kits in readiness to return to the Streets. The offspring of #OccupyNigeria Season Two (2), if it finally happens to owe to the Federal Government’s failure to accede to the yearnings of the citizens to act accordingly on the recommendations of the Lawan Farouk’ report, may become violent, a result of which may cause citizens to demand change in Government –maybe a revolution.
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