CSOs vow to monitor NNPC adherence on crude sale to Dangote Refinery
Ilenre Irele
As part of measures to guarantee, transparency and compliance to regulatory standards in the dealings between the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPC, and Dangote Refinery, a rump of Civil Society Organisations, CSOs, has disclosed their plan to set up a situation room to monitor the compliance of the NNPC to the presidential directive to sell crude oil to Dangote Refinery in Naira.
It would be recalled that in the height of controversies that trailed the face-off between Dangote Refinery and the NNPC, President Bola Tinubu intervened and directed the state oil company to sell crude to Dangote Refinery in Naira.
Leaders of the 28 CSOs who were on facility tour of the 650,000 bpd world’s largest single train refinery in Lagos said the disposition of the NNPC and the regulatory agencies was a clear indication the they deliberately held down the nation’s refineries so that they could continue importing petroleum products.
Speaking on behalf of the 28 CSOs, Solomon Adodo, of the Rise Up for A United Nigeria said what his group had seen was a world class facility. He wondered how a regulatory Agency of the government could take sides with importers of petroleum products when a local refinery is now available to bail the nation out of the forex quagmire which has made the price of petroleum products skyrocket.
He disclosed that the CSOs have concluded to petition the Presidency on the need to adopt Dangote Refinery as a national asset that will be used to liberate the country from the shackles of importation of fuel while it exports crude.
He said: “Having gone round to see this world class project, we are at a loss as to why the government could decide to turn against Nigerians in this manner, but we are not too surprised given our past experiences. Those who are profiting from our collective misfortune will not want the Dangote refinery to work.
“We are ready to defend this facility with everything as civil society organisations. We are not speaking on our behalf but on behalf of all Nigerians and on behalf of our fatherland. We have seen for ourselves and we have cleared all doubt as to the completion of this refinery and the readiness to supply all our domestic needs.
“Going forward, we are going to set up a situation room to monitor the compliance of the NNPC with the directive of Mr. President that Dangote Refinery would be supplied with Crude in Naira because we know that the enemies of the people would want to adopt another strategy to sabotage the presidential directive.
“It is a criminal audacity for an agency of government to brazenly disparage a national asset like Dangote Refinery, more so when the government has four refineries and all of them are moribund. How then would you treat a private investor who has committed everything to build a functional refinery much bigger than all the four own by the government put together.
“Nigerians are not stupid, we all know what is interplaying here. They told us that after removing fuel subsidy, market forces would force the price down, what a fallacy of market forces, here we are, the forces have only succeeded in pushing the price up. Now we have a local refinery that will bail us out yet they don’t want it to operate so that Nigerians would benefit from it.”
Adodo said the CSOs would mount serious advocacy to make the government accede to the demands of Nigerians which is not just granting the sale of crude to Dangote Refinery in Naira but also ensuring that Dangote fuel is available at petrol stations for Nigerians to buy.
The group appealed to the management of Dangote Refinery not to be discouraged but to trudge on as the group would mount a serious campaign in favour of the refinery. “Even if it means we should protest, we will. We cant allow this international embarrassment to stand.”
Speaking while welcoming the group, Vice-President, Dangote Industries Limited, Devakumar Edwin, described Dangote Refinery as a value adding facility as it will stop the exportation of Nigeria’s crude and importation of finished products and wonder why the government would be against such a vision for Nigeria.
According to him, many African countries have minerals but they are not adding value to their economies because those minerals are exported raw and the finished products are imported back into the country whereas vice versa should have been the order of the day.
He said: “This is what Dangote refinery seeks to correct, we did same in Cement and Sugar sectors where Nigeria was a leading importer of those products and with the coming of Dangote leading the backward integration programme of the government, others came into the sector and together Nigeria now exports cement to other countries.
“What we want to do in Refinery, we have done it in other businesses, Nigeria used to be the biggest importer of Sugar, we came in and changed the narrative. We led the backward integration scheme of the federal government, and we now produce sugar locally for domestic consumption and others have joined us. We did the same in Cement by opening up a production plant and today Nigeria exports cement to other countries.
He said the company would continue to focus on its business strategy, which is to add value to the Nigerian economy through investments and job creation for the teeming Nigerian masses.
