For the past 20 years, the sum of $26 billion was expended on the turnaround maintenance of four refineries, and not a single drop of oil has been produced. Two years before PMB left, he released $3 billion for the TAM of Port Harcourt, Warri, and Kaduna. Port Harcourt was to be on stream in March 2023, shifted to December the same year. Inept Kyari shifted the commencement of production twice this year. He finally said July, and we are now in August, with no oil.
How much did Dangote build his refinery? $19 billion, and it will produce 650,000 barrels of fuel daily. The combined production capacity of our four refineries is 450,000 barrels a day, and we spent $26 billion and produced not a single drop. People are still sitting comfortably in their offices, and Nigerians are doing nothing about it. This is the height of docility. In a country with citizens tolerating this kind of brigandage, is it wrong to say that we are nincompoops, Lilliputians, and morons? Quite unfortunate.
Imagine the trillions of naira involved in the subsidy scam. The most worrying aspect was that 100 companies were involved in round-tripping our oil to the tune of N200 billion. It was during the GEJ era. The companies were charged to court, but the matter was subsequently abandoned, and the companies were let off the hook.
The present lousy and heartless Senate President, Akpabio, was charged by the EFCC for corruptly enriching himself as the Governor of Akwa Ibom to the tune of N108 billion. The prosecution of the case was stopped when he changed his political party during the government of Mai gaskiya, PMB. With the magnitude of this moral burden, the man was chosen as Senate President. This speaks volumes about how we have declined morally.
The sum of $2.1 billion was set aside by the GEJ administration to be used to purchase arms to destroy insurgency. Not a single ammunition was purchased, and the money was shared among politicians. Only Oliseh Metuh was jailed for receiving N400 million. The rest were let off the hook.
Let me stop here because these outrages are enough to kill a patriotic citizen with a heart attack.
And the most worrying among us Lilliputians, imbeciles, and morons are the journalists who are supposed to expose the grafts but are either mentally lazy to investigate or have become part of the cover-up. The most trending scandal in the oil sector is the Maltagate, which has exposed the monumental fraud called the NNPC. Whose duty is it to bring the facts into the public domain? Isn’t it journalists who should start the investigation from Nigeria and go as far as Malta to unravel the facts? What has happened to the oversight functions of the National Assembly? Even if they do it, it will be window dressing. They will just collect money from its management to investigate and suck the blood of NNPC top shots and then bury the matter.
Unless we wake up from our deep slump, docility, and our state of being morons, imbeciles, and Lilliputians, then our future and that of our children is doomed.
By Fenny J. Fwa