With its liberalisation plan failing to gain traction, and no clear pathway for its four moribund refineries, the Federal Government may have finally turned to billionaire businessman, Aliko Dangote, to bail the country out of the fuel supply conundrum. On an inspection to the 650,000 barrels a day refineries complex in Lagos last week, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources Ibe Kachikwu – apparently overwhelmed by the promise of the complex effusively told his host: “I am sure His Excellency President Muhammadu Buhari will be absolutely enthused if he were to find himself, not only crystallizing the policy position we have taken so far but also coming here himself to come and open a facility as big as this before the end of his first term. Whatever configurations your engineers have come up with, I urge that they go back to the drawing board and get me my refined products before your said date.”
And on a note of reassurance, he reportedly told his host: “I think the first thing is that we must look seriously at whatever incentives this business needs. You cannot be investing $14bn in a country without sufficient incentives to drive the business”.
For a project that was a little more than a dream few years back, it is welcome news that the project has not only turned the corner but is finally coasting home.We do admit that Dangote Refinery is in every respect the stuff of big dreams. Said to be the world’s largest single line refinery and petrochemical complex and the world’s second largest Urea Fertiliser plant, it is more than just a tribute to the Nigerian spirit, but one that promises to terminate the current shameful regime of fuel importation and consequently the continuing drain on the nation’s reserves.
And so, like the minister, we cannot wait to see the refinery come alive. Indeed, considering what the citizens have put up with in the last 16 years –the cycles of Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) that have left the refineries worse off – not better, the endless promises about Greenfield Refineries that did not move beyond the pronouncement on them, and the fuel price hikes that have turned recurring nightmares to the ordinary citizen, we consider the promised respite as long overdue.
Unfortunately, if the paradox of a government seeking salvation in the private sector after being unable to fix its own refineries is lost on the minister, worse is his enthusiasm in wanting to claim credit for a project that was conceived long before the current administration. Or his attempt to conflate the singular achievement with the advertised goal of liberalisation; then of course is the minister’s opportunistic push to hijack the project for political ends.
If we understand the goal of liberalisation as advertised properly, it is supposed to open the sector to many players and to force competition.That was why the Federal Government licensed nearly two dozen players in the first place. To the extent that what we see on the horizon however is a single dominant player emerging – an oligopoly, Nigerians have very good basis to be anxious about what this portends in the short and long run.
After all, Nigerians cannot be seen to move from the clutches of government monopoly into the warm embrace of private oligopoly. That, obviously, does not fit into the advertised schema of liberalisation. Indeed, Nigerians will be hard pressed to judge the administration’s policy as successful on the strength that one out of several licensees managed to deliver. Or is the Federal Government telling Nigerians that the emergence of one big player is all there is to its liberalisation agenda?
Rather than focus on Dangote Refinery that is almost as good as delivered, what the minister should be doing is pushing for other refineries to get on board. And to ensure that nothing is allowed to deny Nigerians the fruits of true competition in all its ramifications.
