By Dele Sobowale

“The House of Representatives yesterday, raised an alarm that the Ministry of Petroleum Resources has already spent a huge percentage of the N7 billion set aside in the 2010 budget for the implementation of the provisions of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), when passed into law.

Lawrence Olaoye, Peoples Daily, Friday, February 18, 2011, p 3.

I was in Abuja last week with my nose to the ground as usual and to get in touch with scouts in various ministries when this story came out in the Peoples Daily, a paper most people don’t read but which carries a lot of interesting news.

And, the news popped out of several. The Ministry of Petroleum, as my readers must know by now, is hot bed of spies for International Oil Companies, IOCs, and unpatriotic Nigerians ready to sell Nigeria to their paymasters. I quickly got in touch with a few people who confirmed that it is true that the ministry has started to spend money meant for the implementation of a bill that has not even been passed.

According to the news report, the Minister of Petroleum Resources, who reportedly had the support of the IOCs, before she was appointed minister, (for obvious reasons), Mrs. Diezani Allison-Madueke, who was represented at the House by the Permanent Secretary, told the lawmakers that “the money was spent on some preliminary activities (not specified) that needed to be done, before the passage of the bill.”

The amount claimed by the ministry to have been spent was about 65 per cent of the N740 million approved for that purpose or N481m. Till now, nobody knows what was done with the money. But, this is an election year and party “stalwarts” need dollars for United Girls.

In fact, nothing demonstrates the desperation of this government, being relentlessly pressurised by its own Ministry of Petroleum, to get this bill signed into law than this revelation. And, once again it raises the question, whose interests are being served by the minister, the Group Managing Director of NNPC, the Presidential Adviser on Petroleum and others inside the corridors of power? For that matter, one may ask, whose interest is the Presidency serving by subscribing to this attempt to rush a bill through the National Assembly, NASS, at this late date?

I am not unaware of the threat of the IOCs to defer or withhold investment of the bill if not passed as it is. But, that is an empty threat belonging to the dark ages. There is absolutely no reason why our own NNPC, if restructured, cannot, on its own or in partnership with others, make the investments that will be beneficial to Nigeria. At any rate, the financial power has shifted, for good, from America and Europe to the Far East. It makes no sense to be held to ransom by aging economic powers.

As a product of the “old school,” I try, as much as humanly possible, not to pick fights with ladies. My upbringing at home, at St. Peter’s Faji Primary School, Lagos and, of course, Igbobi College, have ingrained in me a reverence for the “weaker” sex. But, the Minister of Petroleum knows that I have tried to avoid this fight. The truth is, her past engagements, as well as the gratuities associated with her former employment and her present role have placed her in a position in which there is clear conflict of interest. Just as I cannot, for instance stop being a former BOOTS, for SmithKline (now GlaxoSmithKline) and, most importantly, VANGUARD man, she cannot escape her past.

When decisions concerning the future of oil in Nigeria are to be made, she should honourably withdraw and allow those not encumbered with mixed loyalties to take over. The President, if he still finds her indispensable, can always find another ministry for her – but not Works again where she gave us nothing but an ocean of tears over
the Sagamu-Ore-Benin Expressway. But, nothing more than that. The road, as well as others nationwide, was a death trap before and after her tenure as Minister of Works.

OPADOKUN SHOULD APOLOGISE TO NBS –2

“Every organisation is the lengthened shadow of one man.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-1882

Last week, this series ended with justified encomiums for Mr. Leo Sanni and Mr. S.J. Ichedi – both of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). But later, I discovered that the power behind all the activities is the Acting Director-General, Alhaji Rasaki Ayinde Sanusi, who must love statistics and data gathering as much as Albert Einstein loved nuclear science. Meet Alhaji Sanusi and within minutes you will be convinced that you are experiencing something rare in public service – a man who really loves his work. But, NBS is more than a collection of engaging persons; it is also a beehive; and, as someone who had used the services to collect background materials for my writings, I can testify that it is certainly not archaic as Ayo Opadokun has said.

To start with, NBS collects and disseminates data on a wide range of subjects from meteorological to economic, from demographics to agriculture. In fact, there is virtually nothing subject to quantification that NBS does not address. One computer processes over one million data per minute, yes, per minute. Most of the data does not originate from NBS itself but are supplied by others. For instance, it has two servers linked directly with the Federal Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank of Nigeria receiving and able to disseminate up to the minute information on those two organisations in seconds.

NBS also receives and shares information with global organisations; most of which have standard formats for their reports. NBS simply cannot deviate from these templates. So, when my colleague and highly- respected activist condemned NBS, I was alarmed for it. I was worried because Chief Opadokun was reinforcing a long-held untruth which people have come to accept as fact.

The fact is, NBS is a treasure trove of information for those who need its services and they should not be discouraged from so doing by anyone who has never visited the Bureau.

A TALE OF TWO AGFs –1

“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” William Shakespeare, 1564-1616.

(VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS p. 123).
With lawyers like Gani Fawehinmi, our own daddy – Chief Sanu Sobowale and my darling daughter, Arinola Sobowale, in mind, let me kindly modify that statement by one of the greatest writers in history. The first thing we do in Nigeria, let’s eliminate the post of Attorney-General of the Federation, AGF, until the Yar’Adua/Jonathan/Sambo government quits the stage. These fellows have appointed two AGFs – both absolute disasters from the standpoint of fighting corruption. If there is anybody standing between the jailhouse and public safe crackers, it had been the two AGFs appointed by the current government. In the process they have thwarted all the efforts by EFCC to make criminals pay for their actions…..