Dangote is here, at last!

The nation can at last heave a sigh of relief; the eagerly awaited Dangote Refinery is here at last, solid. The much longed-for stability in energy flow for the country is assured. It calls for dancing and rejoicing, for clinking of glasses to toast this development. Aliko Dangote deserves hearty congratulations. The nation owes him our thanks and unremitted encouragement. We salute him for his courage, commitment and doggedness to public good, daring all odds to free the nation from the strangle-hold on her energy supply needs. To arrive at this point, it had been a thorny journey. All manner of mines were buried in the ground on his path to stop him from achieving this feat by those who placed private interest over national interest. But he was undeterred even though at some point he knew discouragement. He picked up the gauntlet again and he forged ahead.

When it became obvious that there was no stopping the refinery from coming on stream, an attempt was made to de-market its product and send cold shivers down our spine, by claiming that its quality fell below the mark, and this was by an organisation that was said to lack a laboratory of its own. Fitch ratings as of August 5 put Dangote oil at B+ which was considered as quite a drop.

However, be that as it may, Dangote as of that time already had its laboratory and the lab test certified the product as meeting international standards. As of the time, its diesel oil was already being exported to the international market. The construction took him eight years. It cost $20 billion Dollars. He built his own port and construct roads within the expansive complex on a reclaimed land.

Babatunde Fashola facilitated the acquisition of the land on which the refinery stands for $100 million Dollars. Right now there is a ding-dong battle over the pump price and who fixes it. Is it not strange that a manufacturer is not the one fixing the price of his product? But Dangote has taken everything in his stride! The goal was far more important. It stabilises fuel supply in the land; it is taking 100, 000 out of the unemployment queue.

President Bola Tinubu did well by bringing out a surprise from his armoury of masterstrokes: Dangote Refinery is to pay in Naira for the crude oil that it requires. This will no doubt wipe the sweat off his brow in having to source for Dollars to buy crude from our own backyard where Mele Kyari is the lord of the manor and NNPCL is the sole merchant. As we all know the language of oil business is in Dollars.

Yemi Cardoso himself must know relief that he does not have to worry himself silly on how to rake the Central Bank’s safe for what may remain after paying the international creditors to whom crude oil and Dollars have been mortgaged. As I once stated in these pages, Bola Tinubu was reckless in peremptorily removing fuel subsidy in his greatest hour of his glory. Yes, Finance Minister Zainab Ahmed had said she did not put fuel subsidy in the budget she was leaving for him to inherit; Tinubu was too experienced in governance and public communication not to know the place of tact and how to couch pronouncement appropriate for a certain occasion in order to sooth nerves, especially a situation about which the public was not even aware. He should have allowed himself firm thoughts of alternatives. The Law of Gradualism is unswerving in delicate matters such as that with grave implications. As a result of the mishandling, the nation has been plunged into untold and deepening misery since then.

A smart guy, give that to him: he gave Nigerians some relief with the love letter he wrote to Oluremi, the First Lady, toasting her all over again. The letter soothed nerves no end. It relaxed tension. I was expecting the First Lady, though, to ask him to write to her in Latin. The world, indeed, has changed. Young men of my generation, and the generation before ours, had to write wooing girls in Latin, and they would not reply. Uncle B, Chief Bola Ige, a polyglot, provided a classical example in his book, Kaduna Boy, in which he narrated his experience when he wooed the then Miss Atinuke Oloko. All the notes to her in Latin did not impress her. She did not reply to them. She played very hard even after Ajibola Ige became the Head Boy at Ibadan Grammar School; not until a friend of hers, placing herself as an intermediary as was the custom at the time, teased her and mounted subtle pressure on her did she give in. The couple lived happily together ever after as Chief Bola and Justice Atinuke Ige until death “did them part”! Tinubu’s love letter to Oluremi worked great magic, soothing nerves in the land. Little wonder Professor Femi Osofisan once asked Tinubu the magic, what language he used in winning the heart of such a beautiful lady. When Remi is 70, the letter must be in Latin! He should not have allowed the relaxed mood to pass unutilised, again to further soothe nerves!

Aliko Dangote, a business mogul, cannot be lectured on how to run a company and make it flourish. Any attempt to do so will be laughable. That he has come this far in a totally unfamiliar terrain of an oil refinery has already proven his wizardry. It is the Nigerian market that will need to exercise patience to allow him work out his cost recovery template to be able to continue in business, his capacity building plan, loan repayment, provisioning for assets replacement, recording a little surplus to fire enthusiasm and providing for reserves. A gigantic company like the Dangote Refinery cannot but give thought to parts and assets replacement. Tinubu’s gesture will undoubtedly go some way to moderate the pricing decision. Distribution of the Refinery’s product will in part be by sea. It is considering transportation in particular to Calabar, Port Harcourt, Warri, Apapa and Atlas Cove by sea, according to the organisation’s Vice-President Devakumar Edwin.

Above all, the Dangote Refinery must see to it that it strikes a balance in its pricing as Law of Balance governs as the Law of Motion does in every facet of life. Do we not exhale in order to inhale? It is unwise that only NNPCL will be the soul buyer of the Dangote product and then sell to marketers. All marketers should have equal access to the refinery. Competition makes for efficiency. It is good that the NNPCL stake does not exceed the 7.2 per cent by its own choice. All lose ends should be tightened to ensure that the equity through investment of $1billion does not rise higher than that. Here is an organisation that after the sinking $4 trillion into fixing the four public refineries, all the efforts were unavailing. There is not much to show for it.

The assurance given on television by Kyari that the Port Harcourt Refinery would unfailingly roar back into production in August did not yield result and already September running out. Before then on July 8, 2019 he had said it was a legitimate expectation from Nigerians that “how can we be an oil producing country and be importing fuel sometimes 100 per cent of our needs”. He then gave an assurance that within the life of Buhari Administration, before its end in 2023, the four refineries would be delivered. The pledge that received loud ovation was not kept.

According to the Report of the National Refineries Special Task Force, set up by President Goodluck Jonathan, from 1990 to 1992, Nigeria was self-sufficient in petroleum products and had enough for export. These came from three NNPC refineries. The probing task force was set up following Jonathan’s unsuccessful attempt to remove fuel subsidy in January 2012. Warri and Kaduna produced more than 70 per cent installed capacity with FCC units producing PMS. Port Harcourt Refinery was producing at over 90 per cent installed capacity, indeed, producing PMS and other products for export to West African countries, principally Ghana and Togo. While 30, 000 dwt vessels were moved by sea to Lagos every other day, and PMS, AGO and kerosene were transported through PPMC pipelines to Aba and Enugu depots. Kaduna Refinery was pumping all its products by PPMC pipeline through Zaria to Gusau and distributing through tankers to other parts of the North. Warri was pumping through PPMC 2C pipelines from Mosimi to Ibadan.

Deterioration of the refineries began in 1993 when the refineries operated at an average capacity utilisation of about 20 per cent and they finally collapsed in 2019. The Task Force believed that the industry could still rise. In its words, “The Task Force believes that the Nigerian Refining Industry is potentially capable of achieving self-sufficiency in petroleum products and emerging as an export hub for Petroleum products in the Western Africa sub-region if the root causes of poor performance of the Refineries in particular, and the Industry as a whole, are vigorously resolved.”

The Dangote Refinery, given the track record of Aliko Dangote, and also his courage that rooted in Margaret Thatcher’s principle that he who dares, wins, the dream of Nigerian Refining Industry becoming the hub in West Africa will be realised. It is hoped that four modular refineries in the works will also come on stream before long. Governor Obaseki of Edo State has said the Edo-owned refinery is ready, but has not succeeded in receiving crude to refine and be able to contribute to reducing the current supply gap in the industry.

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo gave out 16 licences for the building of modular refineries. More licencees will be expected to join the train and create competition that will be impossible to roll back and so that the land will be awash with Premium Motor Spirit and allied products.

The Law of Motion governs the universe. Energy drives motion and motion is inherent in energy. To get to Shoprite to pick a packet of popcorn will necessitate taking a tricycle or a commercial motor cycle, there is recourse to motion. And energy is required to power the means to Shoprite. This is saying, therefore, that motion governs life. It is life itself. Through motion when we sleep, we move from one end of the bed to the other. Absence of motion is absence of life. By extension motion governs all economic activities and the link and vehicles to them are powered by energy. Which is why at all times, a careful thought will need to be given to the cost implications of energy policies to trigger motion.