By Kingsley Omose
Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Romans 7:24
Centuries ago, some Roman emperors were known to inflict the hideous punishment of binding the corpse of a murder victim to the back of the murderer. Under the penalty of death, no one was allowed to remove the body from the condemned person. Matt DeHaan in Get Off My Back (March 1991)
Eventually, the burden of carrying the now decomposing corpse around the streets of the city with the attendant smell resulted in the isolation of the murderer and in his or her banishing outside the city walls ultimately leading to death not just from starvation and isolation but from weariness and despair of mind.
The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited has become a corpse, a body of death chained to the Nigerian state and the cause of its slow and eventual death was the decision to pipe or channel the country’s oil and gas resources through this public entity even before the proceeds therefrom get to the Federation Account.
What we have witnessed over the decades is the gradual death of this public entity now called NNPC Ltd simply because as the core of the aggregation of oil and gas resources on behalf of the Nigerian state, it was the cynosure of all eyes, both local and foreign. NNPC Ltd became a fortress of corruption for the principle that the love of money is the root of all evil.
Everything that NNPC Ltd has touched has eventually died. Take the refineries for example, of all four of them, two in Port Harcourt and one each in Warri and Kaduna, none is functioning today despite having a full complement of staff and the trillions of Naira expended on Turn Around Maintenance.
This has resulted in the importation of petroleum products from all parts of the world, including blending plants in Malta and Togo. The birth of the subsidy regime is directly traceable to the collapse of the NNPC-owned refineries with losses running into hundreds of trillions of Naira.
Let us not speak of the importation of substandard petroleum products, the increases in the prices of products that are imported with foreign exchange that could have been used for other purposes, or the fact that no one knows the actual quantity of petrol consumed in Nigeria daily supposedly due to the effect of smuggling.
What of the 22 oil depots across the country, built with interconnecting pipelines to ensure petroleum products distribution and availability across the country? The pipeline networks have collapsed, and oil depots are comatose, resulting in the use of trucks for the haulage of petroleum products with attendant consequences.
The wear and tear on Nigerian roads, the risk associated with moving highly inflammable petroleum products by trucks over thousands of kilometres, the number of Nigerians killed or maimed from these movements, the astronomical cost of the haulage which has been borne by the government for decades, we can go on and on.
What of the pipeline network for evacuating crude oil produced in the Niger Delta? By NNPC Ltd’s admission, these pipelines are dead, having outlived their lifespan and usefulness. Since no one thought it wise that these pipelines would need replacing, the outcome has been constant oil spillage and ease of vandalising and stealing of crude oil.
What of the International Oil Companies who are the joint venture oil and gas producing partners of NNPC Ltd? Rather than milking oil and gas from shallow onshore Wells, these IOCs are selling their producing onshore oil stakes to face the hazards and perils of deep offshore oil and gas production.
Rather than be saddled with the body of death called NNPC Ltd that delights in taking its JV share of crude oil but delays in making JV cash call payments, the incessant delays and corruption associated with awarding service contracts relating to JV operations, the insecurity and dead pipelines, oil theft, these IOCs prefer going to the deep offshore to look for oil and gas.
The death certificate of NNPC Ltd upstream oil and gas involvement was issued when it could not exercise the right of first refusal regarding the decisions of its various IOC JV producing partners to sell their minority interests in already producing onshore fields in the Niger Delta. These interests are being bought up by other local oil and gas players with the funds and technical competence.
The death certificate of NNPC Ltd downstream oil and gas sector was issued when Dangote Refinery with its 650,000 barrels of crude oil daily refining capacity commenced operations, and with its capacity to produce petroleum products of the highest international standards, this effectively killed NNPC’s trading in petroleum products.
As Nigerians muse and reflect over the recently released 2023 NNPC Ltd financial report, it is fitting here to conclude with a quote from Boason Omofaye of Arise Xchange as Nigerians now begin to grapple with the consequences of continuing to allow its oil and gas resources flow through this body of death called NNPC Ltd or whether the chain to death will be severed.
“The economic realities of every Nigerian life (is) tied to the apron of the NNPC. We could hardly sleep, breathe, work, enjoy, or do anything without the NNPC accounting for a chunk of our energy needs as well as everything in our lives.
“The government also needs the NNPC money whether it goes through the Federation Account, or it goes through the Central Bank whatever it is. So NNPC is in everybody’s back pocket. How important is where we are right now about what happens in NNPC? Why should it be of very serious concern to every Nigerian?”