DECADES before the assumption of office of Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan as President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on May 6, 2010, the country was reputed for perennial scarcity of petroleum  products especially petrol.

Reports of long queues of vehicles at petrol stations, hike in pump price of fuel by marketers, particularly the independent marketers of the product, explosion resulting from adulteration of petrol, all-night vigil by vehicle owners at petrol stations, collapse or redundancy of existing refineries and other negative tendencies by operators in the downstream sector of Nigeria’s oil industry dominated the airwaves and pages of the national dailies.

Nigerians groaned and sometimes cursed the government for allowing the masses to suffer on account of fuel scarcity which often leads to increase in prices of goods and services.

During the military regimes, there were incidences of pipeline vandalism by unpatriotic citizens who made dubious gains from the petroleum products, including petrol, kerosene and gas. In some cases, fire outbreaks from such vandalized pipes claimed several lives.

The pipeline vandalism persisted in many communities until the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, was left with the option of completely shutting down the nation’s refineries most of which were not properly maintained at the time. As a result, Nigeria which is the fourth largest crude oil producer within the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, could no longer produce fuel for local consumption.

Angered by the inability of those regimes to make fuel available to the masses, the Nigerian workers staged many protests and embarked on strikes to compel the military rulers to ameliorate the situation but it persisted.

Under the Olusegun Obasanjo administration, fuel queue, which was a major relic of the dark days of the military regimes, held sway as hoarding, adulteration and black market selling of products continued. Questions were asked as to why Nigeria that is one of the largest oil producing nations should lack fuel for domestic use, but the administration could not meet the yearning of Nigerians to normalize the situation until the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua came on board.

Yar’Adua’s government initiated measures to revive the moribund refineries but could not enforce the sale of products at the approved pump price. For instance, Premium Motor Spirit, PMS, popularly called petrol, meant to be sold at N65 per litre was hiked to between N70 and N80 in most states of the federation, while gas and kerosene remained scarce commodities during the short stay of that regime.

But determined to reverse the embarrassing trend, President Jonathan took the bull by the horns immediately he assumed power by initiating several reforms to reposition the upstream and downstream sectors.  Part of the reforms was to engage an expert in the oil industry to pilot the affairs of the Petroleum Ministry.  He appointed Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, regarded as his close confidant, to head the ministry.

Until her appointment into the federal cabinet as Minister of Transport in 2007, Mrs. Alison-Madueke who hails from President Jonathan’s home state Bayelsa, was the first female Executive Director in Shell

Petroleum Development Company, SPDC.  She moved to the Ministry of Mines and Steel Development in December 2008 from where she was appointed Minister of Petroleum Resources in April 2010. President Jonathan appointed Mrs Alison-Madueke based on her good understanding of the petroleum sector and the tremendous cooperation she enjoys from chieftains of the oil industry.  Her appointment was generally hailed by stakeholders in the sector.

Expectedly, in the last one year that she has piloted the affairs of the ministry, several positive changes have been recorded and the various reforms initiated by Jonathan’s administration to ensure stability in the supply of petroleum products has brought a great relief to Nigerians. Within a period of one year, the ministry under the headship of Mrs.

Alison-Madueke revitalized the Warri, Kaduna and Port Harcourt refineries which have since commenced operation, while efforts are being intensified to ensure that the revitalization is sustained over a long term.  Major repairs of product evacuation infrastructure was undertaken and this has resulted not only in an increase in availability of pipelines and reduced dependence on road trucking but also  in an increased utilization of depots that were hitherto idle at Ibadan, Ore, Ilorin, Benin,Kano and Jos.

Epileptic power supply is one of the biggest problems Nigerians face daily. But solving the problem of power in Nigeria is not a simple matter of building more generating plants because power plants need gas in the same way generators running at home need diesel. When President Jonathan assumed office the price at which producers were allowed to sell gas was too low and gave no incentive for them to make the huge investments required to increase supply of the product.

Mrs Alison-Madueke therefore took measures to ensure proper pricing in order to help address the problem of power supply caused by gas shortage. Subsequently,gas production and supply was increased following the aggressive reform of the nation’s gas pricing. To boost production, the Pan-Ocean Gas project was completed and now ready to supply additional 60mmcf/d of gas into the domestic market as soon as the power sector is in a position to take the additional gas.

The sector has also created a workable programme to facilitate the domestic usage of Liquefied Petroleum Gas, LPG, also known as cooking gas which in turn would help fight desertification and deforestation in the country.

Another important measure which the Petroleum Resources Minister had taken was to open up access to petroleum marketing and distribution in the downstream sector. Under previous administrations only two or three major companies were getting 90 percent of the allocations of petroleum products from NNPC.

The Minister felt that the monopoly was unfair as only a small group was benefiting from natural resources that belong to a country with a population of 150 million people.  The cartel was broken and the downstream sector was opened up, creating opportunities for a large number of Nigerian companies now participating in the sector. But this angered members of the cartel who have resorted to sponsoring“smear campaigns” against the Minister.

The massive transformation of the NNPC, the passage and implementation of the Nigerian Content Act, the push for the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill,the implementation of the Gas Master plan as well as achievement of improved relations with critical stakeholders across the oil and gas value chain, wereamong practical measures through which the administration has ensured unprecedented stability in the supply and distribution of petroleum products across the country.

Mr. TONY EDIKE a staff of VanguardNewspapers.