This has got to be the best interview I have read in a while! Buhari wowed me with his intelligent responses to the questions. Speaking in a new interview with Daily Trust, President elect, Buhari says he is confused about the current situation in the petroleum industry and claims by the government of subsidizing the
petroleum sector as there is a great shift on how things were in the sector during his time as Military leader and now. He also assures Nigerians that he will try and find out what went wrong and see how it can be resolved. Read excerpts of what he said in
the interview below.
One
burning issue is fuel subsidy. I believe you are aware of the queues in major
cities like Lagos and Abuja. The fuel importers say they are unsure of the
direction of the new government in this area. Have you considered maintaining
or withdrawing this subsidy or are you questioning whether it didn’t exist at
all?
One of the problems I have, other than the military, is the
petroleum industry where I served for three and a half years under General
Obasanjo. When people start talking about this subsidy I honestly get confused.
I will tell you this, and I hope it will answer what you want to know. Back
then we had a refinery in Port Harcourt, which was refining 30,000 barrels a
day of Nigerian crude. Later, it was upgraded to refine 100,000 barrels a day.
Another refinery was built in Port Harcourt to refine 150,000
barrels per day of Nigerian crude. So, Port Harcourt alone had the capacity to
refine 250,000 barrels per day of Nigerian crude. But when I found myself as
the Minister of Petroleum I set up another refinery in Warri for 100, 000
barrels per day of Nigerian crude and the Kaduna refinery a 100, 000 barrels
per day. So Nigeria built capacity to refine 450,000 a day. Four Hundred
thousands of which is purely Nigerian crude, but 50,000 was imported. The type
of crude could be Venezuelan, which could be a bit heavier. But the lighter
ones - kerosene, aviation fuel, diesel, PMS of different grades could be
produced from our crude because Nigerian crude is about the best in the world.
If you could recall, after finishing as Minister of Petroleum, I subsequently
became Head of State.
You remember, I appointed Professor Tam David West as the
Minister of Petroleum. When we rounded up bunkers, collected their illegal
jetties and allowed jetties for only big firms which were doing production and
development in the country, we were shocked that we had too much fuel. We had
to begin to export 100,000 barrels per day. Don’t forget that we didn’t stop at
building refineries, we built more than 20 depots during my time, from Port
Harcourt to Ilorin, Makurdi, Suleija, Maiduguri and Kano. More than 3,000
pipelines were laid to connect them. A number of stations were also built to
take the trailers off the road, save lives and the infrastructure on the road.
It is more economical because each trailer uses fuel.
We did all that in this country and we didn’t borrow any
money as far as I know. It’s Nigerian money. From each Nigerian crude, whether
Akwa Ibom, Bonny Light or whatever it is, you can work out how much products it
will give you; how much petrol it will give you; how much diesel it will give
you if you want to produce diesel. We could tell how much Nigerian crude cost,
the cost of transportation from there to the refinery, the cost of refining,
the cost of transportation to the pump stations and maybe 5 per cent go for
overhead. I can understand if Nigerians pay for those cost but somebody is
saying he is subsidizing Nigerians. Who is subsidizing who?
But they argue that the
price should not be the same in Lagos and Daura, for example?
It has to be the same because it is the Nigerian crude.
But they consider the
cost of transportation?
Why didn’t it make any difference when we were around? Why
did we build the network of pipelines? Why did we build the network of depots?
What can Nigerians benefit from the God-given gift of petroleum? No refinery is
built unless there is an in-depth research that there is enough reserve of up
to six layers to be produced.
The argument I have
heard is that refineries are aged. Mostly, they are performing at less than
half of their capacity…?
You can’t defend these corrupt and incompetent people. You
can’t defend them. There used to be what they call turn-around-maintenance. You
close the refinery in order to overhaul and clean it. What we did: we asked our
producers, we need various refined products of this type at this time when the
refineries are being cleaned. Take this type of Nigerian crude and bring us the
refined products. What we don’t need, we will calculate and pay you as fees for
refining and transportation. If it is more than what the crude can handle, then
we take it from the treasury. But you are trying to justify all these frauds by
saying the refineries are aged.
Of course, they are
actually aged?
They said the refineries are aged. The pipelines are leaking.
There is vandalisation. Who ordered the vandalisation?
Does it suggest that
you don’t believe in the subsidy? So, you are not going to agree to its
continuation in anyway?
I would like to be on ground and find out what really has
been going wrong. Why is it that people are doing round-tripping with the
Nigerian products and take money from the treasury? Some people are still in
court. You know about it. So, I’m not taking anything for granted. But I will
try and find out what went wrong.
Read full interview Sunday Trust and please stay happy. Xoxo
Source: Daily Trust
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