My initial understanding was that I was to make remarks to open a general discussion on democratic elections. Then, a few days ago, I saw from the programme of activities that I am to speak on the topic “Elections, Democracy and Governance.” 

The change doesn’t bother me, but I have rearranged the terms for the topic to read “Elections, Governance, and Democracy” because I view democracy as the destination and elections and governance as the means, the way, to get there. The issue is: what type of elections and what type of governance? So, I wish to lay out a broad framework of elections and follow up with some considerations relating to governance and democracy.

I would like to begin with an observation that it has taken the mature democracies of the world a long time and a long way to get to wherever they are today. Still, none of them will say that it has reached the end of the road to democracy if there is ever such an endpoint.

Indeed, the journey to democracy is always long and we can even lose our way as we go along. In that journey, every election represents an important stage, because it provides an opportunity to select new leaders if we think the old ones are not taking us on the correct path to democracy.

But, to serve that useful purpose, the election must be of a specific kind, branded as a democratic election, because its features must accord with the principles that underpin democracy. We can sum up those principles by saying that the power to govern comes from the people. So, we can define a democratic election, in simple terms, as a contest among candidates, mediated by an electoral commission, and decided by the voters.

The most important implication to draw from this definition is that in a democratic election, voters are pre-eminent, and their valid votes are inviolable for determining the winners and for settling disputes over election results. This makes the polling station results form, which has come to be popularly known in Ghana as the pink sheet, a precious commodity in our elections. This requires candidates to appoint knowledgeable agents to represent them at the polling stations because an agent’s work is essentially a brainy task.

Let us also note that Ghana has chosen a multiparty democracy as its brand of democracy. A multiparty democracy does not necessarily mean that there are many political parties. But how many parties are there in Britain, the United States of America, Germany, France or any functional multiparty democracy you know of? Most likely, only a few in each country.

A multiparty democracy means that one political party does not dominate elections so much that all the other parties combined do not make a difference. If one party dominates to such an extent, the country is a one-party state, irrespective of the number of parties.

So, what is important in a multiparty democracy is that there are political parties that make elections truly competitive. On that score, currently, Ghana is a multiparty democracy because of the NPP and the NDC. With a collective score of less than 10% of the total votes in previous elections and no representation in parliament, all the other parties combined have had virtually no impact on how our country is governed.

Be that as it may, to pass the test of being a democratic election, the results of elections must be credible. That means the results are worthy of acceptance as a basis for forming a legitimate government, a government, respected at home and abroad. To determine that the results of an election are credible, we need to step back a bit and talk about the essential features of an electoral system. Some processes characterise the electoral systems of all democracies, and all the processes are based on broadly the same principles. What differentiates the systems is how they try to actualise the principles and the formulas for winning elections, such as first-past-the-post for MPs and 50%+1 for the president in Ghana.

The salient processes are voter registration, campaigning, voting, vote counting, tabulation/collation of results, transmission of results, and announcement of results. I will proceed to highlight the key features of these processes with indications of who is responsible for doing what under our electoral system.

Voter Registration: Every eligible person must be accorded a reasonable opportunity to register as a voter, and a person can register only once. These features must be reflected in the voter register used for elections. This is the responsibility of the electoral commission.

Campaigning: Candidates should be free to campaign wherever they are contesting elections, so there should be no no-go areas. However, the campaigns must be peaceful and clean. Here, the basic responsibility lies with the political parties, candidates, and the police.

However, individuals and groups can publicly condemn any infractions, and widespread condemnation usually impacts the candidates for fear of losing votes.

Voting: There is a wide distribution of responsibilities when it comes to voting. Only a registered voter can vote in an election, and a person can vote only once in the same election. The responsibility falls mainly on the electoral commission and its officials.  A person must be free to exercise his/her vote: it is the responsibility of the police to ensure general peace and secure an election devoid of violence. A voter must, in turn, allow other voters to vote freely: a responsibility is placed on all voters. Every candidate can appoint an agent to verify the voting activities at every polling station on his/her behalf. This is an important responsibility of every candidate.

Vote Counting: The procedure for vote counting must be clearly outlined and known well ahead of time. What constitutes a valid or invalid vote must be specified. Only valid votes are counted when calculating the results. Every vote must be accurately counted in the active presence of candidates’ agents. A valid vote must be counted in favour of the candidate for whom it was cast. Proper documentation must be made of the results of the vote counting. Each agent must be given a true copy of the results, duly signed by the Presiding officer and the agents, right at the polling station. The Presiding officer and the agents at every polling station are responsible for ensuring that the measures normally indicated in the Election Manual, are adhered to.

Tabulation/Collation of Results: The Returning Officer has full control of the tabulation of results, but there are good practices that help to avoid controversy over the results (a) Let the place, procedures, and duration of the collation be known well ahead of time. (B) Make the tabulation of results a well-organised activity. (C) Do the tabulation in the active presence of the candidates, and/or their appointed agents. (D) Check the results thoroughly to ensure that they are correct. (E) Give the candidates/agents true copies of the tabulated results, duly signed by the returning officer (and preferably the candidates/agents), before they leave the place of collation.

Transmission of Results: A secure method agreed upon and/or acceptable to the political parties/candidates/agents should be used to transmit the results. Presiding officers and Returning officers have the responsibility for transmitting the results.

Announcement of Results: There are examples of good practice on this. Unless the election law has a provision for provisional results the results announced must be correct and final. If the results are provisional, not final, then say so, and give the reasons for announcing provisional results.

What matters is not how fast the results are released, but how accurate they are. In Ghana, this is the responsibility of the Returning Officers of the various constituencies in the case of parliamentary elections and the Chairman of the Electoral Commission, who is personally the Returning Officer for the presidential election.

Distribution of Responsibilities: I hope we can see the distribution of responsibilities in elections. In addition to what I have indicated, the government, the courts, the media, civil society organisations, and voters, all have roles to play in elections.

While the electoral commission is understandably the referee at the centre of the field, it is noteworthy that there are at least two other referees of elections. The courts must settle any disputes that arise over the elections at any time: and, to secure the general peace for elections, the police must also arrest and prosecute election offenders. It is critically important for the police to act as national police, not the government or political party police, and for the judiciary to see itself as an impartial arbiter in election cases.

In fact, in general, how the various actors in elections play their respective roles affects the credibility or otherwise of an election. Eventually, if we are satisfied that the actors have played their roles reasonably well, we can say that an election is credible, and the results are therefore, acceptable as a basis for forming a legitimate government.

With this background, I wish to emphasise the importance of three factors in elections: the election law, the use of technology in elections, and why our votes must count.

Importance of the Election Law: The collection of laws referred to as the election law comprises three components: (1) All the provisions in the Constitution that relate to elections (2) All the extant laws (statutes) on elections made by Parliament (3) Legislation on elections made by the Electoral Commission or some other authorised body.

The three categories constitute a hierarchy of laws, in that, in principle, legislation cannot infringe a provision in a statute, let alone the constitution, and a provision in a statute cannot infringe a provision in the constitution. Given this order of precedence, it is important to note that provisions of a validly enacted statute or subsidiary legislation derive from the Constitution. So, it makes sense to treat such provisions as constitutional provisions. I sometimes hear people say that something is not right because it is not in the constitution: but it is wrong to see the election law as only what is explicitly stated in the constitution. The election law is for the protection of the election official or any election stakeholder. This has two important implications. First, the general advice is to do as the election law says. If you don’t, you risk an action you take being declared illegal for not conforming to the law.

You may get away with something if you and the other concerned parties say the political parties, have reached an agreement on it and they don’t complain. Even so, such an agreement doesn’t clothe one with immunity because, under our law, some individual or organisation can take the matter to court.

The second implication is the need for a keen interest in the election law. Not only should Parliament always undertake proper scrutiny of every subsidiary legislation on elections, but election-related civil society organisations and knowledgeable individuals should show interest in the formulation of statutes and any subsidiary legislation on elections. Whether good or bad, the existing election law is what the people have given to themselves for their elections, and it remains binding on everyone.

The use of Technology in Elections: Examples abound on how technology has helped to improve the systems and processes of running elections. With technology we can do things quicker: we can keep a lot of material in a small space and retrieve it as and when it is needed: on Election Day, we can verify if the person who has come to vote is the same person who registered to vote, we can get results quicker, and so on. Given all this, we are easily tempted to talk of technology-driven elections. But the enigma of technology in elections is that it can bring things very close to you and equally make you lose total control over them.

No wonder these days political parties are often looking for illegal access to an electoral commission’s database. In the memorable and prophetic words of a former fellow electoral commissioner: “If they succeed, they can rummage in our databases to our embarrassment.”

Today by electronic means information in election databases can be tampered with and election results hacked locally or externally.

Why the Vote Must Count: Some people are disillusioned about elections saying that votes don’t count anymore, meaning that elections don’t express the will of the voters. There are many obstacles to free and fair elections, but the most worrisome situation is where politicians can buy leadership with money through plain fraud and vote-buying.

Apart from expressing the will of the people, which is the essence of a democratic election, there are practical and commonsensical reasons why votes must count. Where votes count, you have a peaceful transition of governments, legitimate leaders accepted at home and abroad, and genuine political opposition. Where votes don’t count, there can be no justification for spending enormous amounts of money and time on elections.

Politicians are unlikely to be responsive to the people’s needs or worried about good governance. Instead, corruption is likely the order of the day, often leading to a paradoxical situation of a rich country with poor people. Even worse, a civil war can break out over disputed election results.

Good Governance: Through elections, we choose people to lead us, on the path to democracy. We do so in the belief and hope that the persons so chosen will genuinely take us on the path and not lead us astray. To put us on the correct path to democracy, good elections must be followed with good governance. For me, good governance defies a clear-cut definition. However, if good governance, arrives in town, we can easily recognise it by the following characteristics which it brings along.

(A) It respects the civil liberties and the people’s political rights. (B) It is responsive to the needs of the people and promotes their socio-economic well-being. (C) It controls corruption. (D) The press and civil society organisations operate as guardians of the public interest. (E) The political opposition sees itself as complementary to good governance. (F) It helps the private sector to prosper.

But these developments don’t happen automatically. Just as there is a distribution of responsibilities in elections, there is also a distribution of responsibility towards achieving good governance. Key among the actors are the three branches of government - the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. Let me say simply that each of these institutions must perform its functions well without encroaching on the jurisdiction of the other, thereby dislocating the arrangements laid out in the Constitution.

 Additionally, any other institution in the public sector, from the Council of State to the Forestry Commission, has been set up for a purpose. Good governance requires that all such institutions perform their functions creditably. Apart from these public sector institutions, civil society organisations are expected to act as watchdogs for the people’s interests in their respective areas of concern.

In addition to honest reportage, the media is expected to bring to public attention instances of corruption and the abuse of power by public officials. Individuals and groups can test the law in case of doubt about the propriety of official actions and conduct.

Democracy is a place where people enjoy basic rights and freedoms. But it is also a place where people have reasonable access to necessities such as food, good drinking water, decent housing, electricity, usable roads, good education, efficient health facilities and jobs, with responsibilities, including payment of taxes, maintaining law and order and obeying the law.

Free and fair elections don’t bring any of these things. But without free and fair elections, ordinary persons cannot hold their leaders accountable, whether they deliver the benefits of democracy or not. We must note that holding officials accountable through elections applies only to members of parliament and the president. Many important public officials, including judges and electoral commission members, may not be directly accountable to the people. How to hold such officials accountable is always problematic.

Conclusion: I wish to conclude by saying that good elections and good governance are the vehicles for a condition of democracy.

At its core, democracy refers to improvements in human conditions, it is not a fixed station where a journey ends. This is why the contents of human rights keep expanding. There are several rights today that were not rights in the past, and the ambit of rights will continue to expand according to the need for improvements to the human condition.

We should brace ourselves and prepare for a long journey, because, given a choice, I believe that people will prefer to live in a democracy, instead of other forms of government including authoritarian rule.

Presentation by Dr Afari-Gyan, former Chairman of Ghana Electoral Commission Men’s Fellowship of Ridge Church, Accra on 10th October 2024

The Israeli prime minister is unarguably the world’s most detested leader today, especially in the Middle East and Arab world, but he earns my respect for resolutely defending his nation against brutal and vile terrorists and taking steps to protect his people against annihilation. Benjamin Netanyahu is my idea of a strong and patriotic leader. He is firm, decisive and single minded in the pursuit of Hamas and Hezbollah, two of the world’s most brutal terror groups that had vowed to wipe Israel off the earth. Netanyahu is not afraid to go against popular opinions, even at the UN, and has, in several occasions, ignored suggestions from the White House and the Pentagon, to slow down. But for him, the survival of the only Jewish State, nestled in the most dangerous neighborhood in the world and surrounded by the vilest enemies, is the single most important thing, and for that, I admire the prime minister a lot. Netanyahu exemplifies what I have been looking for in Nigerian leaders: fearlessness; courage; patriotism and assertiveness. For decades, Nigeria has been steadily destroyed by terrorists from outside and inside the country. Thousands of Nigerians in the Middle Belt; North East and North West have either been murdered, maimed or driven away from their ancestral land by these foreign terrorists and their Nigerian collaborators.

Due to these persistent attacks, peasants and small scale farmers, the nation’s major food producers, no longer have access to their farms. They have lost their sources of income, and that means food production has plummeted significantly; with the nation has being gripped by unprecedentedly high levels of food inflation. Yet no Nigerian leader, from Goodluck Jonathan to Bola Tinubu, has been able to defeat these extremists. Of the three, Muhammadu Buhari appeared least interest in dealing with the problem. He was cold, aloof and detached from the senseless killings of Nigerians, especially the people of Benue and Plateau states, who were frequent victims of these attacks. More Nigerians were killed under his watch than at any other peace time in our history. He was more interested in appeasing the murderers. As I write, thousands of Nigerians are still living in IDPs in states like Adamawa; Borno; Niger; Katsina; Zamfara and other parts of Northern Nigeria, having been sacked from their home by terrorists. Many believe that Buhari was actually in support of these carnages.

In August, there were major terrorist attacks in a small town in Burkina Faso in which over 600 people were murdered. Militants from Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam (JNIM), an al Qaeda affiliate based in Mali and active in Burkina Faso, swept into the town on motor cycles and shot down the villagers, most of whom were women and children. Reports say the militants are marching southwards from the Sahel and are threatening to invade West African countries, beginning from Benin, Nigeria’s western neighbour. The terrorists are having a field day terrorizing the Sahel region, especially since the departure of French and US forces that were holding them in check. Neither AU nor ECOWAS has made a statement; and African leaders are behaving as if nothing happened. What a shame!

But look at how Netanyahu has ruthlessly dealt with Hamas and Hezbolla since October last year. Under him, the Israeli government and security forces have deployed the most sophisticated intelligence to take out the leaders of these two evil groups. The Israeli army, known as Israeli Defence Force (IDF), has shown gallantry, bravery and valor in taking the fight to Hamas in Gaza and Hezbolla in Lebanon. On October 18, Hamas leader, Yahaya Sinwar, the architect of the October 7, 2023 attacks in Israel, was killed by Israel in Gaza. Before Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ political leader was killed in a guest house in Teheran on July 31, 2024. His elimination by Israel marked a turning point in the war and sent out a strong signal that Israel meant business.

The killing of Hassan Nasrallah, the fearful and influential Hezbollah leader, on September 27, by an Israeli strike, sent shockwaves across the Middle East; so much so that Iranian President, Masoud Pezeshkian, had to go into hiding somewhere in Teheran! Other Hezbollah leaders like Fuad Shukr; Sami Taleb Abdallah and commanders like Mohammed Deif; and Saleh-al Aroura, among many others, have also been eliminated by Israeli strikes. As I write, Israel is extending its assaults to financial institutions that supports Hezbollah. Over 15 bank branches that provide financial services to this group in Lebanon have been destroyed, and Israel is boasting that the bombardments will continue until Hezbollah collapses. No doubt, both Hamas and Hezbollah have suffered debilitating attacks in the last one year, and they will never be the same. The greatest duty of a government is to protect its citizens from danger and harm, and provide for their welfare and wellbeing. Any government that fails in this sacred duty is not worth being in office. Mind you, Israel is a very tiny country (22, 145 square km) – slightly bigger than Cross River State (20, 156 sq.km) - with a population of only 9.4 million people. I salute this tiny Jewish State and I commend its Prime Minister for doing what every responsible leader should do!

Let me conclude with two things. First, I would be remiss in my duty as a patriotic Nigerian if I fail to acknowledge the sacrifices of our men and women in uniform who have fought hard in the last 15 years to keep us safe and protect our nation. In spite of the several inadequacies of our security services, the Nigerian army has fought the terrorists bravely and I am proud of their services and sacrifices. Second, I sympathize with the families of ordinary, innocent people who have been killed or impacted by wars in Gaza and Lebanon. I ask the IDF to take adequate steps to minimize civilian casualties and sufferings.

The federal government has beamed a searchlight on officers and men stealing arms and selling them to terrorists, bandits and other criminal gangs.

LEADERSHIP gathered that this came up as a result of the declaration of the national security adviser (NSA) Nuhu Ribadu, who disclosed that the most arms being used by terrorists in the country are weapons that were purchased with the taxpayers’ money.

Ribadu had accused security agents of selling their arms and ammunition to the criminals.

The NSA rained curses on the security personnel who facilitate the movement of weapons to terrorists, bandits and other non-state actors.

He gave assurance that the government would do everything possible to ensure the country is safe, secure and protected.

“We have to find a way of putting a stop to this. If we want to recover our country and live in peace and stability, we must,” Ribadu was quoted as saying concerning the sale of arms by security personnel to criminal gangs.

“The worst human being is a policeman or a soldier who will take arms from his formations and sell it or hide it out for the wrong people to come and kill his colleagues.

We must fight these people, but there are merchants of death and evil from the outside world.

“The proliferation of illicit small arms and light weapons remains a major threat to our national security, exacerbating issues such as insurgency, banditry and other violent crimes,” he said.

Ribadu’s revelation has sparked many reactions, questions, and concerns about how non-state actors, most of whom have not crossed the Nigerian border, are getting their weapons.

A source told LEADERSHIP that there is uneasy calm concerning where these terrorists are getting their weapons, adding that even though a process has been put in place to arrest the culprits, with the new agency under the Office of the National Security Adviser, more attention will now be given to security personnel, especially the police.

He noted that the military had been arresting some culprits, even though the number is small compared to the amount of arms in the hands of non-state actors.

He added that little progress had been made, especially in the Nigerian Police Force (NPF), which gave more insight into the new approach.

LEADERSHIP gathered that at least 10 soldiers were arrested between 2020 and 2024 for stealing and selling arms and ammunition. Among them, some have been dismissed from service, while some cases are still pending.

LEADERSHIP had reported that troops of Operation Hadin Kai had on October 11, 2022 arrested a serving soldier for allegedly stealing and supplying ammunition to terrorists.

The soldier, identified as Iorliam Emmanuel, was working under the 156 task force battalion in Mainok, Borno State.

The Zamfara State police had in April 2021 arrested seven serving military officers for allegedly supporting banditry activities in the state.

The military personnel allegedly supplied bandits with logistics and information.

Another soldier was arrested on May 9, 2024 over stolen ammunition and grenades concealed in a bag of rice in Maiduguri, Borno State.

The soldier, identified as L/cpl Mubarak Yakubu, was arrested with 756 rounds of 7.62mm special ammunition and four 36 hand grenades.

In August 2024, another serving soldier, a sergeant, was arrested with 485 rounds of 7.62 mm special ammunition and two magazines in Borno State.

“This exercise should encompass both military and para-military formations. It is worrying that terrorists who have not crossed the border of this country are holding sophisticated weapons,” a source said.

Nigerians have called for the searchlights to include both military and paramilitary.

The director of defence information, Brigadier General Tukur Gusau, declined comment on what the military had done. He said the minister had responded to the allegations and he won’t speak further.

Also, the director of defence media operations, Major General Edward Buba, declined to comment on the issue and referred our reporter to Army spokesman.

[Leadership]

Over two million smallholder Nigerian farmers have accessed about $40.8 million in credit facilities through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)’s ‘Innovative Market-led Extension Delivery’ project in three years.

Mr Jean-Pierre Rousseau, Project Director, Winrock International, USAID, stated this on Monday at a media briefing ahead of the national impact summit on the project scheduled to be held on Wednesday in Abuja.

He said the project has exposed 2.021 million smallholder farmers to new information, technologies and services in Benue, Cross River, Delta, Ebonyi, Kaduna, Kebbi and Niger states, with greater access to improved agricultural technologies and financial access working with micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) on alternative models of extension delivery.

Mr Rousseau said the summit becomes necessary to share the project’s impact with other key stakeholders within and outside Nigeria to catalyse adoption and sustainability across the 36 states and the FCT.

Dr Ben Odoemena, Chief of Party, USAID Feed the Future Agricultural Extension and Advisory Services Activity in Nigeria, said the project has identified 39 most impactful practices (MIPs) as key extension innovation messages or business solutions that MSMEs need to reach smallholder farmers to enhance their capacity.

He said about 70% of the improved agricultural practices are climate smart to help farmers adapt or build resilience to climate change.

“A total of 1,088 gainful jobs were created by the MSMEs, mainly youths, to cope with increasing demand for agricultural inputs and extension by the expanding number of farmers in their business networks,” he added.

[DailyTrust]

The 2023 presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Prince Adewole Adebayo, has accused the President Bola Tinubu-led government of worsening Nigeria’s economic woes.

Adebayo likened the government’s policies, including the removal of petrol subsidies and the floatation of the naira, to squeezing Nigerians “like oranges,” leaving them to bear the brunt of escalating hardship across the nation.

In this interview with the DAILY POST, he shared his alternative ideas that would have made life better and easier for Nigerians instead of the petrol subsidy removal and floating of the Naira by the current administration, which have brought untold hardship to Nigerians and brought the economy to its knees with the Naira falling to its lowest ebb in the international money market.

He spoke on a wide range of other issues, including the politics of oil refineries in Nigeria and the issue of tax incentives, among others.

Nigerians are currently going through hard times as a result of the poor economy; are people like you also affected by the harsh economy?

As leaders, whatever our people are going through, we are also going through it. The pain began to affect me even before the election because I already saw what was coming. So, it’s a case of a doctor who can see that the patient has cancer even though the patient is not aware.

Are you saying you saw this coming?

Not only did I see it coming, I also said that it was coming, and I said it everywhere. Nigeria has only one problem. All the problems they are telling you about Nigeria are just symptoms of one problem and that is bad governance. Like Mrs Oluremi Tinubu said, her husband is not the cause of the problem; he is only the symptom of the problem.

Talking about alternatives, the three major candidates of the APC, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and the Labour Party, LP, during the 2023 electioneering campaigns, all promised they would remove subsidy and float the currency. You didn’t go that route in your campaign, instead, you presented other alternatives. How do you think your alternatives would have had positive impacts on the economy if you had won the election?

The first thing to do in an economy is to realise that there is a lot of wealth trapped in the talent and energy of the people such that the first thing you need to do is to target the reduction of unemployment. The reason monetary economics is allowed is because the fundamental objective of monetary economics is to achieve good employment, not only of labour but also on all factors of production, so that you have allocative efficiencies that clearly want to make you want to invest your money in the economy and get people employed.

There are five areas you can look into. Agriculture is number one because it employs the highest number of people. It is also a low hanging fruit because it is easy to start. Anybody with a tractor and bucket can get started. It is scalable, so you cannot go into producing raw materials and other things that are additives. It will also make sure you govern your territory such that you are now in full control of your land, where a large portion of it are being shared with bandits since some of them are not in the control by the government. With agriculture, you will create employment and solve the problems of food as well. If you look at the incidence of food prices in the entire aggregation of inflation, it will come down.

Also, you have to invest in infrastructure. Investing in infrastructure means that you don’t allow people to do for themselves as individuals, things that we can all do collectively. That means you want to make sure that people travelling from one end of the country to the other don’t have to travel in their own vehicles because you have public transport. You need to give people good health. You need to build rural health facilities, as this will employ people and even keep people healthy and more productive. You need to make social investment in education. Many of the cases of unemployment which we are dealing with in our time will be rapidly dealt with, recruiting teachers. But the problems of the governors, even with all the money they are making now is that they don’t want to employ people because when they employ, there is less discretionary spending. This is because if you employ, you must pay as you are bound by contract. Some states, rather than increase compensation for their staff, tell their staff to come to work twice a week.

If you had won, you would not have removed subsidy on petrol and you would also not have floated the currency. What would you have done differently?

Look at the costing. I am taking their numbers so that they won’t say I’m second-guessing. When the noise first came out, it was under former President Goodluck Jonathan. At that time, it was travelling towards N1 trillion. At a time, it was over N1 trillion. When President Muhammadu Buhari came, it travelled all the way to N4 trillion in the budget, but there was some transparency in the lies such that you had to budget it in the books; it was there in the books. When we were campaigning, some were saying that if we were not careful, it would come to about N8 trillion.

For me, if we audit our consumption, definitely we don’t consume up to N2 trillion at the old price. Secondly, if we get our refineries to work, it will be less. And Nigerians need to know the reason our refineries are not working.

Can you explain further?

Let me give you a simple explanation. When you are trying to repair an existing refinery, and you have not finished repairing it and somebody gets an architect to draw a map of a refinery, you went to negotiate lands in many places, got lands, started construction, finished constructing, and now selling; you haven’t finished repairing the one already in existence. What does that tell you? It tells you that the priority is to make sure that those things don’t work.

What do you think is the problem? Is it interest within the government that doesn’t want the refineries to work or interest within the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL?

The NNPCL is part of the government, and nobody gets appointed without the government’s approval. The idea is that they don’t want to run the government. They don’t want to run the economy. They are fighting to take control of the petroleum market. They see you as a customer, not as citizens. They don’t want to be responsible for ensuring you have a good life of training your children, you can go to work with seven percent of your salary to pay for transportation.

How did the government refuse to make the refineries work?

They need to create scarcity of work. These refineries were built years ago. The first one was part of our first development plan, the Port Harcourt Refinery, which was done during the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa era. Then, General Yakubu Gowon came and started building that of Warri. By that time, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo had taken over, and built Kaduna. The idea was that we would be building more because we are an energy-rich country, and we were not supposed to be worried about the small quantity being consumed in Nigeria. If we are productive, we should be consuming one million barrels a day. We were supposed to be exporting so that even the little part we are consuming locally will not be the essence of government. How many refineries are in Singapore? Go to the refinery market, with $2 billion to $3 billion you will build a good refinery. People call bogus figures here because the government is involved and they try to siphon the money. The refinery is an old technology distillation. The refinery in the Gulf of Beirut has been there since 1900. The one in Pennsylvania in was built in 1903, and they are still working. So, what is new about refinery? Talk to chemical engineers and ask them about the largest and most complex catalytic cracking unit. How much would it cost, even if they have to get it designed from the beginning? So, don’t let us pretend that we don’t know that we have been captured and our brothers and sisters in government who captured us want to squeeze us like oranges and squeeze the juice out of us, and probably, discard us when there is nothing more. They want to remove economic participation.

Perhaps you are right; that’s why they said recently that the rich may pay as much 25 percent on personal income tax…

I, Adewole Adebayo, government, come and tax me. I am ready to pay 50 percent of my income in taxes. I don’t mind, after all, in Norway, it is higher than that. I am spending billion, literally, to power my productive enterprises. But, you cannot pauperise us, take all the taxes and still not be responsible for anything.

Anybody who tells you that we should remove subsidy from an underdeveloped economy where productivity is low had F9 in economics. In China, with $10000, you can have a factory. All you need to do is to demonstrate to the city or the government there that you are producing this particular product. If they see the production plan, they will give you a factory on credit, and you start paying back. That is not available here in Nigeria. China is the largest producer of finished goods because of the subsidy. And you don’t have to be in China. If it’s the US, the first thing they welcome you with is a letter to come and borrow money. Sometimes, the Federal Reserve gives money to banks at negative interest to force them to lend money to people. During COVID 19, I was here in Nigeria. When I went to the US, I got stack of letters, awarding me money, wanting to give money to my law firm. They are subsidizing with credit.

If you go to Europe, they are subsidizing with social services. You the employer of labour, when your worker is sick, you are not the one to pay because every worker, every citizen has life insurance and other social services, so it is cheaper to hire labour there.

Come back to my beloved Nigeria. What is the incentive for productivity? Nothing, so you cannot compete. And the little that people are enjoying because we are petroleum rich country, we should now have low energy cost. That is what will drive you to say, let me go to Nigeria to take advantage of the low energy cost for my production.

How about offering a tax holiday?

Tax holiday is one of the ways through which they steal our money. Somebody will do 100 kilometres of poorly done cement road, very narrow and not standardised, and they will give the person billions of Naira for the same road that can be done by local government. Just collect your taxes.

Are you saying that it is the mindset of the people emerging as leaders that determines the level of productivity in government and governance?

These people don’t want to emerge as leaders. They want to take control of the tap of money. They don’t want to lead you because if you are leading, you look back sometimes to see whether your people are following you. This is a case of doing to you what the colonial master was planning to do when Jaja of Opobo, Nana of Itshekiri, Ovonranmwen Nogbaisi of Benin Empire, and everybody was fighting that the colonialists that they cannot come to our place and exploit us. That is why you have the statue of Madam Tinubu in Lagos. Now, you are not being exploited by these people, you are now being exploited by your own people who are exporting your own money overseas because they want their names to appear as one of the richest persons in town. We need to stop that because we are growing a large population that needs to be productive, and that needs to express their talents. We need to form a government that gives support services. The essence of government is to back you up.

I hope there won’t be a tipping point to all these, what do you think?

I don’t want us to reach a tipping point because the tipping point is a mirage. You would think people will never accept N500 per litre of fuel. They accepted over N1,000 and they are going towards N2,000 without anybody stopping them. We need to govern. That is the summary.

Any government that cannot help you to find your missing cat or dog after a while won’t be able to find a missing child. After a while, they won’t be able to find a missing town and after a while, a community will go. Going to the Eagle’s Square to hold the Bible or Quran and say a few words, salute the police and then disappear into the shadows, doesn’t make you a government. The people must feel your presence if truly you are governing.

Renowned economist, Prof Pat Utomi, has claimed that the nation is presently a failure, made worse by the lack of alternative thinking to turn things around.

According to Utomi, the lack of alternative thinking was worsened by a total capture of the legislature and the judiciary, as he described the present National Assembly as the worst thing that happened to the country.

He argued that the National Assembly, which should be the platform for robust debates to turn around the nation’s fortunes, had been captured.

Speaking with The PUNCH, the economist said Nigeria was a tragic failure because the political class and the elites, particularly the legal elite, are self-centred rather than thinking of the common good of the nation.

He stressed that there was a need for the leadership to sincerely lead by example, particularly cutting down on its lavish lifestyle, rather than calling on Nigerians to sacrifice.

“Nigeria is a failure right now; democracy is not working. We all know that; anybody who does not know that is fooling himself. We have total judicial capture; we have legislative capture, so there is no alternative thinking in the country.

“For me, the worst thing that has happened to the country is the National Assembly because that is where you should have the kind of debates that will lead you to options, but you can’t because the whole place is captured.

“These guys are just hustlers trying to get what they can out of the system without asking what will make the country work.

“When you have that kind of problem, you come to the point that James Robinson was making when he says a classic example is Nigeria which knows what to do but cannot seem to do it. You need, in a time like this, a certain kind of mindset.

“A local example is Olusegun Obasanjo in 1976/1977 when the oil crisis began to slide. He decided that we would go to low-profile mode. As head of state, his car was a Peugeot 504; he cut his travels.

“Anybody who watches the way people in power spend public resources cannot take seriously any statement that this is a time of sacrifice. So, the problem begins with them. Intense political commitment is not there,” he said.

The economist added, “You cannot save an economy when the political actors are on a binge and you will not have the kind of consequences that you have today for the economy.

“It is an intensely political process to turn around the economy. The Nigerian political class needs to recognise that we are in a moral equivalence of a war. And when a country is at war, it pulls together. Nigerian politicians still think they are on a binge.

“So, they are all running in different directions, and nobody is sitting down to forge a national consensus on how to solve this problem. When you have the moral equivalence of war, what you need is to set up a war room, and war cabinet and bring everybody together to say, how do we fix these problems.”

He stressed the need for intense political will to forge a national consensus to solve the nation’s problems, as against politicians stockpiling money to prosecute their next electioneering quest.

Asked if the adherence of Nigeria to policies of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank was a bane of Nigeria’s economic challenges, Utomi said the world bodies would usually provide templates, but it was up to nations to analyse such templates in line with their local peculiarities.

He said the challenge was whether Nigeria deployed the requisite local, intellectual knowledge to evaluate IMF templates in the interest of the common good.

“IMF can have a template, but what is responsible for the outcome is not their template; it is how local actors politically live their way through doing the right things for growth and development for their country. IMF and World Bank have got it wrong many times; it does not mean that their intention is not right.

“It means that they just have formulas and it is not an exact science. So what is desperately needed is for there to be a local, intellectual capacity to evaluate those templates and act in the interest and good of the local environment.

“This is where Nigeria has been a tragic failure because the political class and its elites, particularly the legal elite, have not acted as patriots either because they are ignorant or because they are too pathologically self-centred to think of the common good.”

[Punch]

The national insult and danger Libya subjected Nigeria and the Super Eagles recently was hard to explain. The account of the Tunisian pilot who flew the Nigerian team to Libya on the circumstances that led to the unexpected diversion of their flight to a remote airport, Al-Abraq, instead of their intended destination, Benghazi, was eye-opening and shocking.

While most Nigerians focused on the insult the Libyan action meant to Nigeria and the footballers, few people focused on the danger and the close shave with death that diversion was. What if that plane had crashed during landing and killed all the Nigerian players?

In a video interview the pilot posted online, he exonerated himself from the decision and said that the decision to divert the plane came from Libyan authorities. He said: “The flight plan was to land at Benghazi, Benina, and we had the approval from the Libyan Civil Aviation Authority to do so. However, when we began our descent, they instructed us to divert to Al-Abraq, almost 150 miles away, around 300 kilometres east. It wasn’t even (listed as) our alternate airport, something which is not good.”

According to the report made by The PUNCH on the video, the pilot described the diversion as potentially risky, citing the fuel calculations made for the initial destination. Imagine if the aviation fuel was not enough to take the plane to an unplanned destination 300 kilometres away. But that was not all.

The pilot said he repeatedly questioned the directive because of the inherent dangers in it. “In aviation, we have our flight plan. We calculate the fuel to our destination; so we have to avoid this kind of thing because it may make a breach to safety,” he said.

“When I asked to land in Benghazi according to my flight plan and according to my authorisation, they said no, it’s from the highest authority, you have to land in Al-Abraq.”

“Everything is registered in aviation, we cannot hide anything, so I asked them several times, at least eight times, and I warned them, probably I will be in trouble for fuel; they said it’s from highest authority, you cannot land in Benghazi, you have to divert immediately to Al-Abraq.”

The pilot described at Al-Abraq airport as a poorly equipped domestic airport.

“There is no ILS (Instrument Landing System), no air navigation approach, no VHR (Very High Frequency Omnidirectional Range). We had to make a visual landing, which is particularly difficult by night with marginal weather.”

He explained that the airport’s lack of facilities left them with “no second chances” if something had gone wrong with the landing. Thankfully, the pilot was familiar with the region, having worked there for two years with a Tunisian company, which helped him to land safely.

Just think for a moment what could have happened if that plane had crashed with the full Nigerian team aboard. What would have been the explanation from Libya? That they wanted to frustrate the Nigerian team and make it easier to beat them in their return leg for the 2025 AFCON?

Why go to the extreme of placing lives in danger over a football match? It is even worse that football has never been the forte of Libya as it is rare to hear the name Libya in any football competition in Africa at whatever level or gender.

But Libya was not done. They technically placed the Super Eagles team under house arrest at the airport for over 20 hours. Members of the team were not allowed to step out of the airport. They were provided with no food or water. They slept in the airport lounge. The NFF eventually had to withdraw from the match and return home.

Curiously, Libya claimed that what happened to the Nigerian team is not unusual in aviation. It noted that something similar happened to its team a week earlier in Nigeria. The Libyan Football Federation condemned Nigeria’s decision to withdraw from the planned 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualifier in Libya, threatening to take legal action to protect its national team’s interests.

Ironically, some Nigerians – perhaps because of a desire to be non-parochial online or as a result of lack of information – made posts saying that Nigeria had been paid in its own coin. They shared photos of Libyans at Port Harcourt airport when they visited Nigeria for the first leg of the AFCON match. But that was gross misrepresentation of facts.

The first point was that it was not Nigeria that diverted the aeroplane of the Libyan national team to Port Harcourt, which is about 150 kilometres to Uyo Township Stadium, the venue of the match. The Nigerian Football Federation communicated the venue of the match to its Libyan counterpart. Uyo has an international airport which all foreign teams coming to play use.

Perhaps in its desire not to allow Nigeria to affect its team with juju, the Libyan FA did not disclose to its Nigerian counterpart its itinerary. Libyans made their planned visit to Nigeria without involving Nigeria. They were informed of the venue of the match. But they chose to fly to Port Harcourt instead of Uyo, the venue of the match. According to the NFF, the Libyan Football Federation informed the NFF that their contingent would be landing in Port Harcourt instead of Uyo merely two hours before the team arrived in Nigeria.

In spite of that, the NFF still quickly got the authorities to grant their aircraft movement permit from Port Harcourt to Uyo. However, the LFF rejected the charter flight arrangement from Port Harcourt to Uyo obviously because of the fee and chose to travel by road. The LFF rejected the buses hired by the NFF and chose to hire theirs. Furthermore, the LFF discountenanced the NFF’s advice not to travel by night due to insecurity. Because of their insistence to travel by night, the NFF provided security, knowing that if any harm came upon them, Nigeria would bear the bad name.

It is unfair for some Nigerians to try to rationalise what happened to the Super Eagles in Libya with what happened to Libyans in Nigeria. There are many things wrong with Nigerian leadership or sports management, but one thing nobody can ever accuse Nigerians of is trying to use underhand tactics to frustrate visiting sports teams.

Nigeria is the only country I have seen where the home fans can start booing the home team if it is not playing well while supporting the visiting team. I have never seen it anywhere else. If the Nigerian team does not play well and gets defeated, the fans will take their anger on their team and never on the visiting team. No visiting team has ever been attacked in Nigeria. But that is not the case with some other countries that Nigerian teams have visited.

But what happened to the Super Eagles in Libya was purely orchestrated by the Libyans. It was deliberate. It was shameful, disrespectful and hostile. But most importantly, it was dangerous. It could have ended tragically with the loss of the Nigerian contingent.

What Libya did was an embarrassment to Africa and African football. The Confederation of African Football gave the Libyan and Nigerian federations until October 20 to submit all necessary documentation concerning the incident. All eyes are on CAF to announce its ruling. But whatever CAF does, it should not treat this matter with levity. CAF needs to descend hard on Libya to send a warning to other countries which may be thinking of doing something similar to a visiting team with the hope of wearing them out and beating them easily.

A bill for the establishment of Bola Ahmed Tinubu Federal University of Languages has reportedly passed the first reading at the House of Representatives.  Section 2 part I of the bill,  which is sponsored by the Deputy Speaker, Benjamin Kalu, and eight others, provides that the university, when established, shall encourage “the advancement of learning and to hold out to all persons without distinction of race, creed, sex or political conviction, the opportunity of acquiring a higher education in Nigerian languages and cultures”. It further claims that the university is aimed at: “Producing socially mature persons with capacity to communicate, understand, and use Nigerian languages for national development.”

There are several questions begging for answers with respect to the proposed university: One, is the question of whether there is really any need for a University of Languages considering that many of the 62 Federal and 63 State Universities in the country have departments of Languages or Institutes of African Studies that are already providing the services that the proposed new university will purportedly offer. What is even more ridiculous is that there is also a federally owned National Institute for Nigerian Languages, NINLAN, which was set up in Aba, Abia State, via Decree 117 of December 30, 1993.

The Institute was aimed at being the “apex institution for research, teaching, documentation, and coordination of studies in Nigerian languages”, according to NINLAN’s website. Following from this, it is obvious that the promoters of the Tinubu University of Languages are either unaware of the existence of NINLAN, or if they did, failed to clearly establish the value addition of the proposed Tinubu University of Languages to both the mandate of NINLAN and the various institutes and departments that offer similar services in the country’s institutions of higher learning.  

Two, in terms of value addition, the promoters of the proposed university  also seem unsure of what they really want to accomplish – besides the obvious facts that they want to set up a Federal University, which will be sited in Abia State, the home state of the Deputy Speaker, and which will be named after the President.  For instance, the promoters claimed that the university, when established, will act “as agents and catalysts, through postgraduate training, research and innovation for the effective and economic utilization, exploitation and conservation of Nigeria’s natural, economic and human resources”.

How studying indigenous languages will lead to the “effective and economic utilization, exploitation and conservation of Nigeria’s natural, economic and human resources”, remains unclear. It is equally unclear how training in Nigerian languages will lead to “producing socially mature persons”.  There are several other bogus claims about what the proposed university could achieve that one gets the impression that whoever wrote the concept paper merely worked from answers to questions, and had very little knowledge of what a university education, or research in indigenous languages, is all about.

Three, a related question is whether establishing a University of Languages is really the best way to promote interest in local languages. If the aim of the proposed university is to encourage people to learn how to speak local languages, then a university education is not required for this. If this was really the aim, the sponsors could achieve the aim better by setting up, or encouraging the setting up of centres in local communities where local languages of interest could be learnt. The sponsors could also invest in the development of apps for teaching local languages or promote a number of existing apps that provide such services.  If, on the other hand, research in indigenous Nigerian languages is their main objective, then endowing chairs in various Departments of Languages or Institutes of African Studies in our existing institutions of higher learning could do the job better and cheaper. 

Four, how many Nigerian languages could realistically be taught in the proposed university?  Or will it be just the usual case of the dominant languages in the country (WAZOBIA)getting disproportionate attention? If that becomes the case,  as it is likely to be,  given that it will not be feasible to offer courses in the country’s over 500 indigenous languages and dialects, then the proposed university, rather than facilitating cultural awareness and unity – as claimed by the sponsors of the bill – will unwittingly become a tool of disunity because speakers of the languages left out are not likely to have any emotional buy-in to the university. 

Five, is the moral issue of naming institutions or monuments after a sitting President or Governor. In most climes, monuments are named after leaders have left office – not when they are in office. Even worse is to name an institution after a President who is still less than two years in office, and who is yet to find his bearing in the office, and who is generally  mocked as “T-Pain” for the unprecedented hardship his government has brought to Nigerians. If I were President Tinubu, I would distance myself from any effort to name institutions or monuments after me or even give me awards, including by the Bretton Woods institutions. Such honours are best savoured if done when the person is not in a position to extend favours.

Generally, monuments should be built to immortalise an idea not to humour those in power. In this connection, one may want to know what Tinubu has done in the area of promoting local languages that should warrant a University of Languages being named after him. The whole bill therefore oozes of sycophancy taken to a ridiculous level. I know that some Nigerian Governors have named institutions and monuments after themselves. But that is pure narcissism, and if people do not resist such, it is because they have either been cowed or simply do not care. 

Six, it may also not be out of place to interrogate the possible motives of the sponsors of the bill. Since the said university is to be sited in Abia State where the Deputy Speaker comes from, it may be safe to assume that he is the arrowhead of the bill, and consequently speculate on his possible motives: Is the Deputy Speaker following the path of some Governors who wrongly believe  that their legacies will be measured only by building enduring physical structures that will outlive them, often  white elephant projects such  as airports  that are hardly viable  and universities that are not properly funded?

Does the Deputy Speaker hope that by naming the proposed university after President Tinubu, he would tickle his ego, and buy the President’s support for the project? Is the Deputy Speaker hoping that by ingratiating himself to the president he would secure his position in the event of the president being re-elected in 2027? Is the Deputy Speaker eyeing a governorship seat in Abia State, and believes that the Ahmed Bola Tinubu University of Languages would be his evidence of ‘concrete achievement’ while in office?  And what, if one may ask, has become of the Deputy Speaker’s Peace in the South East Project, PISE-P, which he launched with fanfare in the ancient town of Bende, Abia State on December 29, 2023?

Seven, Shakespeare was right that there is no art to find the mind’s construction on the face, so I admit that all the above possible motives are mere speculations. But whatever the Deputy Speaker hopes to achieve by the Ahmed Bola Tinubu Federal University of Languages, he should take lessons from other Nigerian politicians whose sycophancy cut short their own career. A typical example is Ibrahim Mantu, the former Deputy President of the Senate (2001-2007). During Obasanjo’s alleged third term plot, Mantu was thought to be the arrowhead, and he boldly claimed that he would give his life for Obasanjo.

However, no sooner did Obasanjo leave office than Mantu, eager to rehabilitate himself politically from the damage his championing the hugely unpopular tenure elongation plot had done to his image and career, turned against Obasanjo. Nigeria’s political ecosystem is unfortunately littered with several Mantus. And this should forewarn both the sycophant and the leader being humoured. Given the transient nature of power, sycophancy, beyond a certain octave, is a sure career killer. 

*Jideofor Adibe is Professor of Political Science at Nasarawa State University, Keffi.

…Asks court order to void import licenses
…Demands N100bn damages for alleged sabotage

Dangote Refinery and Petrochemicals said yesterday it was settling out of court with the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL, and six others over import licences granted them by the Nigeria Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, NMDPRA, to import petrol into the country.

Recall that the company had approached a Federal High Court in Abuja, praying it to nullify the licenses and also award it N100billion damages against the 1st defendant which is the NNPCL
However, in a statement last night, Dangote said it was ready to settle the case amicably with NNPCL and other defendants in what it described as an old case filed in June.

The statement, signed by the Group Chief Branding and Communications Officer, Anthony Chiejine, read: ‘’This is an old issue that started in June and culminated in a matter filed on Sept 6, 2024.

‘’Currently, the parties are in discussion since President Bola Tinubu’s directive on crude oil and refined product sales in naira initiative, which the Federal Executive Council, FEC, approved.
‘’We have made tremendous progress in that regard and events have overtaken this development. No party has been served with court processes and there is no intention of doing so. We have agreed to put a halt to the proceedings.

‘’It is important to stress that no orders have been made and there are no adverse effects on any party. We understand that once the matter comes up in January 2025, we will be in a position to formally withdraw the matter in court.’’

Dangote had in the suit, marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/1324/2024, queried the propriety of the licence issued to the defendants to bring refined petroleum products into the country when there is no shortfall in its production.

Other defendants in the suit are the Nigeria Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, NMDPRA, AYM Shafa Limited, A.A. Rano Limited, T. Time Petroleum Limited, 2015 Petroleum Limited as well as Matrix Petroleum Services Limited.

The plaintiff is equally praying the court to award N100 billion in damages against the NMDPRA for allegedly continuing to issue import licenses to NNPCL and the other defendants for the import of petroleum products such as Automotive Gas Oil (AGO) and Jet Fuel (aviation turbine fuel) into Nigeria.

It told the court that the licences were issued to the defendants, “despite the production of AGO and Jet-A1 that exceeds the current daily consumption of petroleum products in Nigeria by the Dangote Refinery.”

Specifically, Dangote Refinery, among other things, applied for an order of injunction, restraining the 1st defendant (NMDPRA) from further issuing and/or renewing import licenses to the 2nd to 7th defendants or other companies to import petroleum products.

It further sought general damages in the sum of N100 billion against the 1st defendant, as well as an order of the court directing the 1st defendant to seal off all tank farms, storage facilities, warehouses, and stations used by the defendants for the storage of all refined petroleum products imported into Nigeria.

Other reliefs the plaintiff prayed for, included, “a declaration that by the provisions of Section 8(1) of the Nigerian Export Processing Zone Act (NEPZA), Sections 23(h) and 55(1) of the Companies Income Tax Act (CIT Act), Paragraph 6 of the Second Schedule to the CIT Act, Regulation 54(2)(a)(i) of the Dangote Industries Free Zone Regulation 2020, and the Finance Act, the plaintiff, being an entity duly registered as a Free-Zone Enterprise, is exempted from all federal, state, and local government taxes, levies, and other rates.

“A declaration that it is against the NEPZA Act, CIT Act, Finance Act, and Dangote Industries Free Zone Regulation 2020, as well as legislative intent, for the 1st Defendant to impose or threaten to impose on the plaintiff an additional financial obligation of a 0.5% levy meant for off-takers of petroleum products directly and an additional 0.5% wholesale levy in favour of the Midstream Downstream Gas Infrastructure Fund, MDGIF.

“An order of mandatory injunction directing the 1st Defendant to withdraw immediately all import licenses issued to the 2nd-7th defendants and other companies other than the plaintiff and other local refineries for the purpose of importing refined petroleum products into Nigeria.”

“An order of injunction restraining the 1st Defendant from imposing and demanding a 0.5% levy meant for off-takers of petroleum products directly and an additional 0.5% wholesale levy in favour of MDGIF or any other levy or sum against the plaintiff.”

According to the plaintiff, NMDPRA acted in breach of Sections 317(8) and (9) of the Petroleum Industry Act by issuing licenses for the importation of petroleum products to the defendants.

In the processes filed through a team of lawyers led by Mr Ogwu Onoja, SAN, the plaintiff, such licenses ought to be issued only when there is a shortfall of petroleum products in the country.

It urged the court to declare that NMDPRA violates its statutory responsibilities under the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) for not encouraging local refineries such as the one owned by the plaintiff.

In an affidavit deposed to by the Group General Manager of Government and Strategic Relations at Dangote Refinery, Ahmed Hashem, he told the court that import licenses granted to other companies by NMDPRA for the importation of AGO and Jet-A1 are crippling the plaintiff’s business which it committed substantial financial resources in billions of US dollars.

He averred that the plaintiff’s products are largely left unpatronized due to the actions of NMDPRA.
More so, the deponent told the court that NMDPRA has threatened to impose and demand a 0.5% levy on the plaintiff on wholesales and off-takers, as well as another 0.5% levy on wholesales to the Midstream and Downstream Gas Infrastructure Fund (MDGIF) via a letter dated June 10, 2024, contrary to statutory provisions that limit the implementation of levies on transactions within Free Zones.

He alleged a grand conspiracy and concerted effort by International Oil Companies and interests, in conjunction with the defendants, who are unhappy that Nigeria has an indigenous refinery ready to solve the lingering energy crisis and save the economy.

“The intervention of the honourable court has become necessary to stem the incessant violation of statutory provisions by the 1st Defendant in favour of other entities such as the 2nd to 7th defendants,” the plaintiff added.

Meanwhile, there were indications that the matter may not be heard by the court as a member of the plaintiff’s legal team, Mr George Ibrahim, SAN, notified the court yesterday that efforts to amicably resolve the issue were afoot.

He said the defendants had indicated their intention to explore an out-of-court settlement.
Consequently, Justice Inyang Ekwo adjourned the matter till January 20, 2025, for a report of settlement.

[Vanguard]