Reps Speaker Abbas, Gives NNPCL Marching Order
The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Abbas Tajudeen has asked the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) to come up with creative ways for optimal performance to stemmed years of non-performing public assets in the oil sector.
The Speaker, who spoke today, November 23, when he received the management of the NNPCL, Mele Kyari in his office in Abuja, commended the NNPCL for taking full advantage of the Petroleum Industry Act to maximise its commercial potentials.
He however, decried the state of Nigeria’s refineries such as the one in Kaduna, which he said, has been moribund for over 20 years, even though the staff are being maintained, paid and promoted.
He described the situation as inefficiency and waste of human resources that need to be addressed.
“I am from Kaduna, and the Kaduna refinery has been moribund for more than 20 years. I know of people working there who have been idle all these years receiving salaries and promotions. “This is inefficiency of a worrisome proportion. The company needs to seek creative ways to repurpose staff strength in such facilities to areas where they can remain productive even in the absence of crude oil at the refineries.”
Speaker Abbas called for measures to turn around the losses suffered by the economy, owing to the non-productive state of the refineries, by privatising them for better management and productivity.
The Speaker congratulated the company for redirecting gains of subsidy removal to other productive areas of enhancement that are now adding value to the system as shown by the quantum leap being reported in its revenue profile as presented by the Chief Executive.
He said that the 10th House, and by extension the National Assembly, would fully be behind the company in its fight against oil theft, disclosing that the House has taken the lead in creating a Special Committee on Oil Theft and Pipeline Vandalism, which was inaugurated yesterday, November 22.
Speaker Abbas, who received the NNPC management in company of the Minority Whip of the House, Ali Isa and the chairmen of relevant committees in the oil and gas sector, assured the company of the willingness of the House to always partner with it in repositioning the nation’s economy.
Earlier, the Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO) of the NNPC Limited, highlighted the areas of improvement in the company, using the instrument of the Petroleum Industry Act.
The company’s chief reiterated that the entity has fully gone commercial with the new law, adding that it was hitherto operating at a loss, recording a negative of N803 billion in 2018.
Kyari said that the changes that happened in the company after the PIA have led to the realisation of N674 billion profit after tax in 2021, and over N2trillion income in 2022.
Kyari said that the company has a projected revenue to the tune of N4.5 trillion as expected income in 2023, adding that having gone fully commercial, the company controls over 30% of the market share in the downstream sector.
“This company is operating just like any other private company providing dividends to its shareholders. We have over 30% of the market share in the downstream sector, which is why no single player can hold this country to random in terms of making products available to Nigerians.
“So when you see queue, it’s really not as a result of scarcity but internal events arising from the actions of marketers, and people can always go to our stations and be served. They are guaranteed quality and accurate quantity of dispensed products.”
The Heroes Of November 11 Kogi Guber Election, By Yusuf Ozi-Usman
Obviously, by design or by accident, heroes have emerged from the off-season election conducted in Kogi State, in particular, on November 11, 2023.
Recall my piece, published on this news medium platform on September 14; about 57 days to the off-season election. I had narrowed down the election to what I described as the tribal warlords, parading themselves as Governorship candidates. I said then that the Igala and Egbira in particular, had taken a clear and dangerous position of open tribal or ethnic battle when Usman Ahmed Ododo emerged as the candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), and Alhaji Muritala Ajaka took the ticket of virtually none-descript Social Democratic Party (SDP) with a message from his group that had the signature of “we and them.” Senator Dino Melaye went on to pick the ticket of the major opposition party at the federal level: the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).
From the body language of these three major actors, it was obvious that they were representing the three major tribes in the State: Dino Melaye of the PDP for the Yoruba speaking Okun; Usman Ahmed Ododo for the Egbira speaking area and Muritala Ajaka for the Igala speaking area.
The election, which had since been concluded with Usman Ododo emerging as the Governor-elect, has proved some bookmakers wrong on certain calculations, which is reserved for another time.
However, suffice to say that while the majority of votes in Kogi East and Central could be predicted with some measures of accuracy, that of the Kogi West (the Okun land, plus Lokoja axis) was uncertain. Indeed, what was certain was that Dino Melaye would not win much in the West which is supposed to be his stronghold, but the uncertainty was where the votes from this Kogi West would swing.
The calculation was that if somehow, the West overwhelmingly vote for their brother, Dino Melaye as East and Central were programmed to vote majorly for their own, Ajaka and Ododo respectively, there might be a run-off election. This picture was ignored by the leaders in the East, who strongly believed that they could win the election on the first ballot with or without the Central and the West put together.
On the basis of such overconfidence against the background of the conjured enormous population, Ajaka dreamt big.
Yes, at the end of the day, Ajaka was able to neatly capture majority of his Easterners’ votes and Ododo, his Central votes, while the votes from the West decided the winner, to the surprise or shock of Igala people.
What the votes from the three Senatorial Districts, with different distinctive tribes (Igala for East, Egbira for Central and mainly Yoruba for the West) proved was the unofficial but true population of the State along these tribal lines. The election had proved Igala wrong on the issue of being the largest in the State, to the extent of thinking that they can beat both the Central and the West put together, in anything that had to do with population.
Above all, the election in Kogi State had brought out a very salient issue about rotation, which has for long, been the crux of the matter between the Igala people in the State and the rest others they considered to be minority.
With the pattern of the votes in the November 11 election, the West appears to have fully laid the parameter to producing the next governor after Ododo on the basis of the rotation.
In fact, by practically turning their back even on their own, Dino Melaye, who of course, they reckoned would not go far enough to win the election, and by voting overwhelmingly for the candidate of the Central, the possibility of them producing the next governor of the State in the near future, is assured. With the possible 80 percent votes from the Central added to their own, as the reality now stands, the West looks good to produce a chance to win the next governorship contest in the State.
The reality also is that Igala, from the East, will continue to reel in nightmare about the outdated figure of being in super majority, using such nightmare to render themselves irrelevant in the State’s political equation, long after the team-work between the Central and the West would have taken a big flight to the height, in the context of newly found and refreshing friendship.
Therefore, from what appeared to be a deft political calculations and actions, the Okuns in the Kogi West can beat their chests and claim the trophy as the heroes of the November 11 political chess game and battle for the Lugard House in Lokoja.
It will only be a matter of time for them to begin to reap the fruit of brotherliness they have sown; the brotherliess which Ajaka and the multitude of his Igala supporters would prefer to view from the prism of “common enemies.”
From the point of the November 11 election, it would not be out of place to offer unsolicited but vital advise to the Igala people and their leaders to go back to the drawing board over their bloated ego and self deception. And more importantly, their leaders need to come down from their utopian hight, apologize to the section of the State they called common enemies for the purpose of restarting the needed togetherness.
Like Governor Yahaya Bello said, apolitical Igala people are nice and friendly, but being misled by their overambitious leaders. But how such arrogance of the leaders would help the entire Igala people to return to reality is a thing that only them can sit down to resolve.