Opinion

The Energy Transparency Initiative (ETI) expresses our profound concern and dismay over the recent statements made by Honorable Phillips Agbese, Deputy Spokesman of the Federal House of Representatives. In his recent media appearance, in Abuja, Honorable Agbese raised serious allegations that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL) and the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) are involved in a deliberate attempt to undermine the Dangote refinery, portraying this as an affront to the House of Representatives. Such remarks are not only misleading but also demonstrate a concerning departure from his responsibilities as a federal lawmaker. While we are not willing to be mouthpiece of both regulatory authorities, being accused by Mr Agbese, we cannot but remind Nigerians, that as an organization with over a decade of involvement in series of advocacy on Transparency and accountability in the sector, we have full knowledge of issues, that are responsible for the recent dispute between Dangote Refinery and the regulatory authorities. Moreover, as a CSO, we are very familiar with Agbese who used the civil society to butter his bread against its ethics, an action he has carried into politics.

It is troubling that Agbese has chosen to abandon his duty as a representative of the people and instead assumed the role of an advocate for the Dangote Refinery. His position should obligate him to act impartially, especially in matters involving multiple stakeholders. By aligning himself so closely with a single business interest, he undermines the very essence of his role as an unbiased arbitrator within any relevant committee. In the House of Reps, his voice has never been heard, no bills sponsored, no motions moved apart from seconding one as dictated by his belly and has also not carried out empowerment to his Constituency. He has suddenly found his voice when private refinery dollars echoed his name.

Agbese’s actions reveal a troubling pattern of prioritizing the interests of a single entity over the broader collective welfare of Nigerians. The Dangote refinery, while a significant player in the industry, represents individual business interests that do not necessarily align with the national interest. The apparent bias demonstrated by Agbese risks neglecting the broader implications of the refinery’s operations on the general populace and undermines the regulatory framework designed to ensure fair play and transparency.

It is imperative to remind the baby lawmaker that his call for the dismissal of the Group Chief Executive Officer of NNPCL and the Authority Chief Executive of NMDPRA is not only misplaced but lacks merit. We had expected all parties involved in this NNPCL and Dangote feud to maintain their silence but shocked to realise that Agbese who’s a member of the committee set up by the House of Reps to investigate surrounding allegations chose to take a side and has made statement that are uncalled for. He should asked to be school on how both the NNPCL and NMDPRA works and not dabble into affairs that are beyond his literacy level.

The era where Agbese blackmails public institutions will not fly with government agencies as they won’t succumb to such. The agencies targeted for blackmail and pecuniary gains by Agbese and his team has outlived governments and individuals and will so continue, no matter the corporate or legislative blackmail.

The oil and gas sector business is too sophisticated a knowledge for little minds like Agbese to understand and meddle into. While it is understandable that he has pocketed few dollars from his sponsors, we urge him to immediately resign his position as the Deputy Spokesperson of the House of Representatives and send his CV to Dangote for employment to work under Chijiena. He can also chose to apply for employment in NNPCL if he choses to defend them, especially now that the recruitment exercise is ongoing. The only pain and regret in all of this is that the lovable people of
Ado/Ogbadibo/Okpokwu Federal Constituency made the biggest mistake of their life in electing a proper blackmailer as the representative. This is a grave error that they have to correct in 2027 by ensuring that their votes are not wasted on him. Benue indigenes are too sound to have a lawmaker turned to an errand boy by a corporate institution.

It is not even too late for Agbese go back to the good people of his Federal Constituency that he represents to tell them that he has taken over the role of the Dangote refinery spokesman so that they can send a credible hand to the House of Representatives.

We call on the leadership of the House of Representatives to address this matter with the seriousness it deserves. It is crucial that members of the House focus on their legislative duties and refrain from interfering in regulatory issues they do not fully understand. This will ensure that the integrity of the legislative process is maintained and that public trust is upheld.

The Energy Transparency Initiative urges the House leadership to rein in Honorable Agbese and his associates. Their current approach not only jeopardizes the effective functioning of regulatory bodies but also risks undermining the efforts to achieve transparency and accountability in the oil and gas sector. Agbese’s hands have been so corrupted with oil dollars and can no longer be allowed to speak for the hallowed chambers. He should step aside!

We further implore all stakeholders to remain vigilant and uphold the principles of fairness and transparency. The progress of Nigeria’s oil and gas sector depends on the collective efforts of all parties involved, and it is imperative that individual agendas do not derail this important endeavor.

The Energy Transparency Initiative shall remain committed to advocating for due process, transparency, and security in the oil and gas sector. We will continue to monitor developments and ensure that all actions and policies are aligned with the national interest, free from undue influence or partisan agendas.

Signed:

Ganzallo Gbenga
Convener

Chinelo Ochiaga
Program Officer

By Tonnie Iredia
 

One thing the flamboyant electioneering campaigns leading to the 2023 presidential elections did not expatiate upon was how the first budget of the new administration would be funded to meet the lofty campaign promises.

The expectations became heightened when it became obvious that the inauguration of a new Nigerian President on May 29, 2023 did not come along with a magic wand to arrest the country’s deteriorating economy. Instead, the strategies designed by the new President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu only emphasized some future relief to be preceded by immediate severe pain on citizens. The first signs that the supposed future relief was achievable emerged a few days ago following the news of a huge increase in revenue generation by the Nigeria Customs Service NCS. According to media reports, the Service pulled off a spectacular performance to collect the sum of N1,347,675,608,972.75 in the first quarter of 2024.
 
The impressive outing by the NCS must have gladdened many hearts but to those who are familiar with the antecedents of the current leadership of the Service, it didn’t come as a surprise. Some analysts are even looking forward to greater achievements during the tenure of Bashir Adewale Adeniyi who was recently picked as Comptroller General of Customs by President Bola Tinubu.  Industry watchers are generally agreed that in every respect, Adeniyi is a square peg in a square hole. For the no less than 3 decades that he has been in service, he has become known for achieving great things. Some 4 years ago for instance, he was singled out for an award in appreciation of his pivotal supervision of the seizure of $8,065,612 million cash at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Ikeja, Lagos in January 2020.
 
By his posture, CG Adeniyi effortlessly makes a case for our agencies to be headed by intelligent and professional career officers who had over the years been prepared for the Chief Executive position. In which case, they would   have acquired many years of cognate experience by passing through several critical segments of the relevant entity. Such officers best know the strengths and weaknesses of their organizations; they know what button to push, who to deploy to where and when and how to make progress by not just increasing activities but also by blocking loopholes through which all gains normally vanish within seconds. Organizations such as the Customs Service should therefore never be where to post loyalists or where to reward friends and relations who know nothing about the peculiar nuances of the institution concerned.
 
But no matter the institution, modern trends suggest that the best way to successfully run an organization is to realize the inevitability of technology which now serves as the redeeming feature of humanity. In this age of technology, it is no longer reasonable to rely on analogue platforms to achieve sustainable progress. CG Adeniyi being a strategic researcher and communicator must have among other things quickly discarded the physical pursuit of smugglers in favour of aerial surveillance just as he must have followed global realities by installing ICT and other digital facilities for operations especially smart scanning machines in airports. What is certain is that because technology changes daily making it possible for yesterday’s kits to show signs of obsolescence even before they are unparked, identifying the latest facilities that can place operations above criminals is now an imperative.
 
Remarkably, the new Customs administration did not wait for the media to begin to speculate on its activities when it decided on its own that every societal institution owes accountability to the public for whose sake it was established. It is hoped that all government agencies would emulate the NCS by institutionalizing the practice of occasional media briefings in furtherance of public enlightenment. Those who operate differently have so much to lose because by the time the media speculates on their activities warranting rejoinders from them, the first casualty is institutional reputation especially at a point of collective frustration caused by overbearing inflation. If the NCS has made 122.35 percent progress in its revenue generation compared with same time last year, what have others done? 
 
They need to let us know because the world is now in the age of open government. The narratives of a deceitful colonial era in which operatives were only to be seen but not heard are no longer fashionable. Nigeria must progress into becoming one of the world’s greatest communicating nations. The reverse bears anarchy like the recent situation in Kaduna state where some party stalwarts were unhappy with Governor Uba Sani for revealing the huge debts and heavy contractual liabilities inherited by his administration. More annoying is the alleged suspension of the woman leader of the state chapter of the APC, Maryam Suleiman for berating Governor Sani who supposedly rubbished the former Governor. Penalizing a citizen for expressing an opinion should only happen in a dictatorship and not a democracy.
 
Government officials at all levels ought to perform well and at the same time inspire public confidence by taking the people along. At the federal level, the repeated assurances by President Tinubu that the buck stops at his desk cannot be used by agency heads to undermine accountability to the public. In fact, Tinubu’s acceptance of vicarious liability presupposes that he is ready to fire all those not performing. This is because a time for economic depression is the best time for activities here and there – not speeches but actions that have quick wins. At the beginning of this administration, there was a lot of public expectations from the Immigration Service due to the proactive posture of Tunji Ojo, the Interior Minister. So, when can Nigerians apply and seamlessly pick up their international passports? Last week, the story was that efforts were being made to print our passports locally. Is that an objective that falls within the realm of rocket science?
 
We must however not forget to pay tribute to two private sector leaders, namely Allen Onyema and Aliko Dangote that are bringing messages of hope to the homes of citizens. But for Dangote, life would have been much harder at the rate the price of Automative Gas Oil (diesel) was rising and rising. Happily, Dangote Petroleum Refinery has now forced down the pump price of the product to around N1,225 from about N1, 700 per litre. Similarly, Allen Onyema has used his airline, Air Peace to halt the conspiracy of the west to kill the naira. With his entry into the Lagos-London route, all carriers hitherto exploiting Nigerians are now in disarray. It is hoped that other business owners and executives would emulate Dangote and Onyema so that Nigeria can rise again. It is therefore not too much for government to formally commend the two patriots to strengthen them to keep hope alive.
 
A time like this when people are striving to survive is certainly not the time for any Nigerian business to maximize profit.  It is therefore unfortunate that our power distribution companies have convinced themselves that this is the best time to raise tariffs. It is worse that they are able to persuade their regulator to accept a rise by as much as 300 percent. If precedent is anything to go by, the arrangement of categorising consumers into bands will as usual, lead to profiteering. It will be recalled that during the Buhari administration, metres paid for by government to be freely distributed to consumers were surreptitiously sold by the DISCOS. With some consumers already claiming to have been short-changed, on band categorization, there is no better time than now for the regulator to operate with a human face.
 
It would be against the run of play if public sector agencies are waiting to be prompted to up their performances so as to give room for the rest of us to breathe.  May be the Nigeria Custom Service should take the lead again; this time not just in revenue generation but in curbing insider abuses. It is unfair that agencies extort huge sums of money from citizens in addition to approved payments before offering the service for which they were employed. CG Adeniyi would leave his name in gold if he can use technology to sanitize all the processes and procedures for obtaining services from customs operatives. Many citizens would be relieved if other Nigerian service provider executives can similarly act.
 

Nigeria is a special place. When the news broke that Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) operatives raided the headquarters of Dangote Group, as part of investigations into possible misuse of foreign currency, I had expected that during the next trading day on the Nigerian stock exchange, the values of Dangote Cement and other companies in the Group would struggle.

But you know what? Investors did not care. It was similar to what happened when APC named Aliko Dangote as part of Buhari’s reelection committee member in 2019. On that one, investors did not pay attention also.

If this information does not move markets in Nigeria, what are investors trading on then? In the United States, Dangote properties would have suffered huge losses. But in Nigeria, just like in elections, no one cares about anything.

“We went to the head office of Dangote Group today to look into their books on the ongoing investigation on the abuse of the extant laws that govern the foreign exchange transaction during the tenure of Godwin Emefiele as CBN governor,” one of the sources told Reuters.

“Here, we are talking about multiple exchange rates and others. It is an ongoing investigation and it was the turn of Dangote Group today,”

Sure, they do not re-price in near-real time, but over weeks and months, they do re-price. That simply shows the level of our stock market development. It is not driven by data and most times, it is all about herding and speculations. Once in, they tune off, and even a possible criminal investigation in a company does not constitute risk! What a nation!

Count yourself lucky of being a Nigerian because you can get away with most things!

Gentlemen of the press members of the civil society groups. We wish to use this medium to commend the New EFCC boss Mr. Ola Olukoyede as the Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC for the work done so far since his assumption of office.

We have it on good grounds the committed effort put in place for the recovery of funds stolen and prosecution of looters and the ongoing activities of the EFCC, to ensure all diverted public funds are recovered.

Transparency Advocacy for Developments Initiative (TADI) as an advocate for good governance, transparency and probity would continue to give the agency necessary support to attain its objectives of sanitizing the nation’s public offices.

We want to draw the attention of the New EFCC boss to ensured he and his team avoid been used to intimidate, embarrass citizens instead to do due diligence in order to sustain the reputation and dignity of the commission.

On the current exercise of the commission and effort to recover public funds diverted to private accounts by some enemies of the state.

We wish to state clearly that the tools of the graft agency should be use for what is in the interest of the nation and not to be use to intimidate, Oppress, embarrass or to serve as pay back time to citizens that have distinguished themselves while in public office in the verge to serve their father land.

We also called on the media to do due diligence in reportage and balancing of information at their disposal for national unity and peaceful co-existence of Nigerians.

We hereby pledged our unalloyed support to the current administration led by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in his quest to reorganise the nation’s economy prosperity for Nigerians under his renewed hope agenda.

God bless Nigeria