By  Ishola Balogun
His voice rang heavily through the tape showing his anger not only on the way government is handling the subsidy issue with the marketers but on how some militants, ambushed and killed some oil workers who had gone to the Atlas cove to effect repairs on the damaged pipelines causing the current fuel scarcity in most part of the country.

Reverend (Comrade) Folorunsho Oginni, the Lagos Zonal Chairman of Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association, PENGASSAN in this interview with Ishola Balogun says vandals have taken over Arepo, Atlas cove, making it difficult to re-distribute petroleum products to other parts of the country, just as he laments government relationship with the oil marketers on subsidy payment.

The Comrade who is also the Vicar of St. John’s Anglican Church, Aboru, Ipaja, Lagos State says: “It is because subsidy is convenient for some people, that is why they have refused to build refineries and frustrating all the moves. We don’t have any business talking about subsidy.” Enjoy excerpt of the interview.

Most Nigerians thought we have banished the issue of fuel scarcity in this country, what is the cause of the currentscarcity?

The current problem we are facing on fuel scarcity is as a result of two major factors. The first one is the inability of government to come to terms with the modus operandi with the marketers on how they will continue to pay the so-called subsidy; and if they don’t want to pay, how they will continue to import without any hitch.

The perennial fuel scarcity which seems intractable virtually in most states of the country hit Lagos last Sunday evening. The fuel crisis which appears domiciled in Abuja, the nation’s capital, sneaked into Lagos like a thief. The situation almost paralysed social economic life of Lagosians. As at last Sunday when the scarcity began, motorists and commuters were taken unawares about the imminent scarcity of the essential product. Inset Rev. Folorunsho Oginni

The second factor is basically as a result of the vandalism that took place at Arepo, Ogun state where the pipelines that connect the Atlas cove to Mosinmi were vandalised last week.

The NNPC deemed it necessary to commence repair on the damaged pipelines. And engineers got there to effect the repairs, unfortunately, they were ambushed by the vandals/militants and at that point five of our members were shot. As we speak, corpses of three of them have not been retrieved.

Their details are not known yet. To make it more difficult, the area is a swampy area and that makes it impenetrable. You know how mangrove areas used to be, if you are at a place, you may not see what is happening about five meters away.

So, when they got there to effect repairs, these vandals opened fire on them, many of our people got burnt. We lost two managers and some of our members. It becomes practically impossible to pump fuel from Atlas cove to Mosinmi, and you know that Mosinmi feeds almost half of this country.

The reason being that it is Atlas cove that can accommodate big vessels that come from abroad. Many of them cannot get to Apapa jetty because of the depth of the water there. So, when they get to Atlas cove, they discharge their products to Mosinmi for onward distribution to tank farms in Apapa, Ore, Ejigbo as well as Ibadan. These areas will begin to feed other axis of the country.

From the products that get to Ilorin, Ilorin distributes to the North. That is aside from the fact that on daily basis, Mosinmi too handles a lot of tankers that come from the East. As we speak, all those facilities have now been grounded. Nobody has got the gut again to go there.

We are talking of people that are heavily armed, they are militants, they have taken the place as their territory. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the security that could have confronted these people. It is very unfortunate.

What is government doing to combat these vandals and to protect the pipelines?

As you know, government many a times would not want to come out to discuss issues of security or expose their strategies to the public, we are not talking of burglars and pick-pockets; we are talking about strong syndicates that are ready and heavily armed.

Those who managed to escape gave the description of the ammunition that these vandals paraded; I don’t think our Policemen have that kind of ammunition. So, I know government will not discuss that because the vandals also will be expecting reaction from them.

But I can assure you it has been reported to appropriate quarters, both the state and the Federal governments are aware of what happened.

I believe that no government will fold its arms watching this level of atrocities that can destabilise the whole nation happen. Imagine Lagos, the commercial nerve center running into this problem, if this persists for two to three weeks, it will affect our economy.

But is there any attempt now to get the pipelines repaired after the last incident in which you lost some of your men, so as to bring the situation under control?

Yes! Like I told you, we know that government is already making some moves, but we don’t know the details of what they are doing because it borders on security. I know government is making moves, but we don’t know what and how. But as I told you, the place is highly militarised by these vandals.

This is not the first time…(cut in)

About three years ago, our people went there to effect repairs of this nature, they didn’t shoot that time, but what they did was that there were petrol flowing on the water already, they allowed our people to go under to effect repairs. As soon as they went under the waters with all their equipments to make the repairs, they just put fire and everywhere was burning.

By the time our men realised what was going on, and attempted to come out, they were in flames and many of them were flown abroad already dead. More than half of them lost their lives in that incident. That is why I say that they are already grounded in that area, except government act very fast and do something to stop the tide.

What are the names of those who lost their lives in that incident?

For security reason, we cannot release their names even the management of NNPC would not want to do that now. Some of the families have not even known what happened to their people because they don’t want to tell them that they are dead, because if they are dead, the question is ‘where are their. corpses’? We are very concerned because as a union, they are part and parcel of us.

The NNPC was reported to have pumped in some litres of fuel to depots to assuage the pains caused by this scarcity, how far will this go?

With what we see today (Wednesday) you will agree with me that it was lot better than what you saw on Sunday and Monday.  A sizable number of filling stations have gotten supply and you can see that the queues are getting tinnier.

If it is not 100 per cent as it used to be, we are at a point that there is no need for panic. A lot of tankers are being deployed to Lagos on daily basis to lift fuel. We know it is not only Lagos, the problem is the same in the North, East and South; it is just that we believe Lagos is very strategic.

On the first issue of Marketers, until government of this country heed the call that  there is a need to build refineries, there is a need for our refineries to begin to work optimally, we will continue to have this problem. As I speak to you, if the four refineries are working to capacity, they will be producing 18.2million liters per day; but today, we are consuming 32.8million litres per day.

That is a very big gap. The most unfortunate thing is that none of these refineries can produce even up to 30 per cent capacity.

What it means is that we are producing far less than 18.2million capacity they were installed. If we don’t solve the problem of building more refineries, or repairing the existing ones and make them function to installed capacity, this problem will be a recurrent decimal.

Our businessmen in Nigeria are also holding us to ransome because of subsidy. So, if we solve the real problem, we will not have any need to import fuel. Our graduates are roaming the streets, yet we have the man-power that can do the job.

What we need is the government willingness to build more refineries; but they refused, saying ‘they will not build refineries saying they don’t want to make it like business as usual for some people; that government don’t run business;’ and we said no, go into strategic alliance with World Bank and build refineries, give it to people that will run it and give them mandate of returning the money to the World Bank every year.

We have so many examples of that; many hotels are being built today and run by professionals and those who know about it. If you give people licences and they don’t want to build refineries why are they not doing it? They are afraid that the same government will shift the goal post tomorrow. When they allocated the oil blocs, it was shrouded in corruption.

That is why real businessmen don’t want to get involved. It takes an average of 18-24 months to build a refinery today but look at how many years we have been on this issue without moving forward.  We have been shouting, various committees have been set up without any result.

Except we are ready and we take the bull by the horn to do the right thing, we are going no where, we still continue with scarcity today, availability tomorrow and scarcity again the next day.

Does it mean that government position on zero-subsidy on petrol is justified; or is it another ploy to make it appear so?

First, from the  Labour angle, we disagree totally on the issue of subsidy.  Do we have any business importing fuel? If we don’t import, there will be no subsidy, it is because we import that is why they are talking about subsidy.

What they are calling subsidy is the cost of landing, if you are producing here, you don’t need all that. We sell our crude oil to some countries, we go to their countries, refined it and come and sell to us. You will not blame them because they add value to it.

The cost of transportation alone is so much; they pay a certain amount of money when they pass across some countries for using their territories. If we produce locally, we will not get to that point or even sell at N97 per litre; that will be on the high side.

Today in Qatar, they sell less than N20 because they produce locally. Saudi Arabia is another typical example, they are refining locally and there is nothing like subsidy. It is because subsidy is convenient for some people, that is why they have refused to build refineries and frustrating all the moves. We don’t have any business talking about subsidy.

We are blessed with the crude oil, if not that OPEC has come up with some regulations, Nigeria would have been producing more than 2.7 million barrel per day.  So why can’t we refine here at least for our local consumption?

What solution would you proffer to these issues?

Our take is that let them build refineries and make the existing ones work to capacity. Again, the PIB should be accelerated. Although we have issues with that because not all what we submitted are in that bill. A lot of things have been removed from it and they are invariably sending us back in 20 years.

We have been talking about PIB that will give autonomy to NNPC, one that will liberalised the petroleum industry and allow a level playing ground for all players, but you need to read the one they have submitted to the National Assembly.

I know there is going to be public hearing and I know the National Assembly will not pass it as it is. Some people are using it as their private property, but I will say that the current PIB will not see the light of the day. When the time comes, the labour will tell them nothing but the truth. If PIB can up the way it was initially designed, the way that it will take care of the downtrodden and the masses, then it will be a good step in the right direction.