Shifting Paradigms: A Tribute to Aret Adams
By
Kòmbò Mason Braide,
Ph.D.
[Port Harcourt, Nigeria]
In
1898, Dr. Nikola Tesla, an eccentric applied physics research fellow in
acoustics and vibrations, successfully simulated an earthquake in New York City.
Basically, Dr. Tesla attached a mechanical vibrator, the size of his fist, to a
steel beam in his laboratory. Suddenly, buildings started to tremble, windows
exploded, and the panicked residents rushed into the streets of the Soho
district of New York.
When
Dr. Tesla finally realised what was happening, he quickly smashed the vibrator.
The news and rumours about his crazy experiment ran wild. When newspaper
reporters and paparazzi rushed to his laboratory for clarification, Dr. Tesla
cool-headedly told them that he also had a similar device that could bring down
the Brooklyn Bridge of New York in less than ten minutes. He further stretched
the limits of their paranoia, and jarred their already wrecked nerves by
narrating a bizarre scenario in which controlled explosions, timed precisely to
match the earth’s natural frequency of vibration, could cause the whole planet
to self-vibrate to pieces. Weird!
Apparently,
that was not the only time that Dr. Tesla had shaken buildings. He claimed to
have experimented with his vibrator on skyscrapers under construction, making
them swing dangerously, before pocketing the vibrator, and slipping away quietly
back to his innocuous research laboratory, downtown. Thankfully, Dr. Nikola
Tesla preferred to use his knowledge for purposes that are more productive.
Not
long after his “New York earthquake
experiment”, Dr. Tesla had an idea of using sound waves to detect the
movement or the presence of objects, a process that later came to be called “radar”. During the First World War, he published a paper
that described his thinking in detail, but he was ridiculed. Lacking support,
and distracted by his other equally apparently crazy ideas, he never built a
prototype. It was more than 20 years later that scientists in far away Europe
used American Dr. Tesla’s ideas to build radar systems for use in the Second
World War.
Those
were the good old days. Today,
just over one century after his simulated earthquake of New York, Dr.
Nikola Tesla could very easily be classified as a terrorist.
His vibrator would equally be classified as a diabolical device for offensive geological
warfare, indeed, a weapon of mass
destruction. For a moment, just imagine the several generations of
improvements on Telsa’s theories of vibration, including the several orders of
magnitude of the damage potential of later-day earthquake-inducing vibrators
that may have been invented ever since Telsa’s artificial earthquake of 1898.
Furthermore, imagine the several “Dr.
Telsas” in circulation in New York, indeed, the world over, today,
post-September 11 2001.
It
is interesting to note that, though the damage potentials of visionaries like
Dr. Nikola Telsa are very enormous, if they choose to invoke the full brunt of
their latent nuisance value on their environment, and although their “invisibility” is assured, yet they always deliberately refuse
to harm society. In fact, society ultimately benefits
immensely from their usually ridiculed, outlandish, disparaged, or downplayed
visions. One such Nigerian was Chief Godwin Aret Adams (FNMGS).
For
the better part of late 1989, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC),
of which he was then the Group Managing Director (GMD), went through the
predictable initial shocks of organisational change management, following the
commercialisation, re-organisation, and capitalisation process that he
initiated, and championed on assumption of office. In the course of managing
change, he stepped on certain toes, unavoidably. In the wake of a protracted
season of anomie that descended upon NNPC after his principled confrontation
with the then Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mr. Godwin Aret Adams was
dispossessed of his career. Thereafter, he was hardly seen (or even welcome)
at public events of a corporation, through whose ranks he diligently and
deservedly rose to be its chief executive.
Soon
after his engineered exit from the NNPC, in a broadcast that announced
the coup d’état of 22 April 1990, against what they referred to as the “drug
baronish” government of General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (GCFR), Major
Gideon Okar, of all the reasons he could conjure, even expressed displeasure at
the retirement of Mr. Godwin Aret Adams as GMD of NNPC, among several other
expectedly opportunistic utterances made by that gang of coup plotters, in
justifying that failed attempt. That not withstanding, clearly, Mr. Aret Adams
had charisma without boundaries: high; low; young; old; management; union;
Nigerian; global; spiritual; temporal; professional; non-professional; serious;
comic; formal; informal; cerebral; street-sense, and more.
As
at the time he was delivering his lead lecture at the seventh (7th)
NNPC Management Development Programme (Course 007) of 1994, Mr. Aret Adams had
left the Corporation for almost five (5) stone cold years. The subject of his
lecture was the conscious application of creativity in management. He acquainted
his audience with the concept of “paradigm shift”, and its
antithesis, “paradigm paralysis”. At the end of that lecture, the
deafening ovation that boomed through the lecture hall was commensurate with the
pent up admiration, and respect that his audience had bottled up for almost half
a decade for their former GMD.
In
late-1998, shortly after his appointment by General Abdulsalami Alhaji Abubakar
(GCFR) as his Adviser on Petroleum Affairs, Chief Godwin Aret Adams had a
head-on collision with the ego of the then Secretary to the Government of the
Federation. Once again, he stood his grounds on principle, where others could
very easily have let go, all in the name of political correctness, and
for the dread of the status quo. Chief Godwin Aret Adams,
characteristically, damned the consequences. It is very doubtful if any other
CEO of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation can ever summon the altruism,
sincerity, courage, transparency, or even command the enormous respect,
charisma, indeed, awe that Chief Aret Adams had, in, and out of public service.
This
piece is a tribute to Chief Godwin Aret Adams, the Udi of Auchi, and a role
model per excellence. The
approach of this article is to apply concepts of paradigm shift in the
conceptualisation, and development of solutions to some contemporary issues,
while taking full cognisance of the prevailing national culture of acute
paradigm paralysis. We intend to jolt Nigerians out of their manifest
complacency, the way we believe, Chief Godwin Aret Adams could have, about
certain very pertinent national issues, especially the dilemma about the
suitability, or otherwise, of Nigeria’s continued meaningful membership of
OPEC.
A
clearer appreciation and understanding of the frightening scenarios that could
emerge out of the current state of sub-optimal planning of Nigeria’s strategic
petroleum resources, are unavoidable. In fact, we hope that issues
(beyond the usual mundane promises of “schools”, “hospitals”, and
“roads”) like Nigeria’s membership (or non-membership) of OPEC, should
be open to public deliberations, by
all aspiring candidates to proffer their solutions to the electorate, in the
forthcoming presidential elections in 2003. What follow are random samples of
applications of paradigm shift on contemporary Nigerian issues:
Wishful
Thinking As National Policy:
Recently,
Honourable General Obasanjo, in his capacity as the Federal Minister of
Petroleum Resources, the President, and Commander-in-Chief of the Federal
Republic Nigeria, assured the whole world that Nigeria would not
leave the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), despite hints
and speculations worldwide, particularly from the United States of America. The
public utterances of both General Obasanjo, and his Adviser on Petroleum
Affairs, His Excellency Alhaji (Dr.) Rilwanu Lukman, coincidentally one time
Honourable Federal Minister of Petroleum Resources during the dictatorship of
General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (GCFR), prior to the coup d’état
of Sunday, 22 April 1990, and incumbent President of OPEC, suggest that Nigeria
would remain within the cartel, and maximise the benefits of its membership of
OPEC, while negotiating for higher production quota. Shortly afterwards, an
announcement was made that Nigeria would like to make a case for upward review
of its production limit, as defined by the prevailing OPEC quota of about 1.94
million barrels per day (bpd).
Of
course, everyone needs a few more petrokobo,
from time to time, whether it is for national development, or to put in one’s personal
foreign piggy bank. Therefore,
in order to address the problems, and proffer meaningful solutions, we will take
the liberty to simply apply the brakes at this point, and ask a few pertinent
questions. We will deliberately raise “non-linear” queries in order
to raise our frames of reference beyond stereotypes and clichés, and hence,
enhance the mandatory process of creative brainstorming on the issues raised,
beyond the pedestrian. The incorporation of the outcome of the shifts of
paradigms into executive decision-making constitutes the necessary primary input
for developing a reasonably robust, and effective national energy policy. Here
goes:
Paradigm
Shift 101 (Preliminary Queries):
Why
have Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Sao Tome, Angola, and Gabon, the key “oil-endowed”
countries of the former “Slave Coast” of the Gulf of Guinea,
suddenly become the targets of friendship, and intensive sugar-coated lobbying
by high-level White House persuasion experts? By the way, over
60 % of foreign direct investment of the United States of America in Africa has
been focused on petroleum
and its derivatives alone, since 1996.
What
are the strategic implications of the complete collapse of the Organisation of
Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), both globally, and locally in Nigeria?
Should Nigeria leave OPEC? If so, why? How? When? Now? Later? If not, why not?
What,
if any, are Nigeria’s medium-, and long-term strategies for the effective
management of the nation’s petroleum resources, particularly in the next two
decades or so, when Nigeria’s cumulative production of crude oil would have
reached its peak, and hence, its reserves reasonably depleted?
How,
if any, and when, if ever, were such critical national energy policies
conceived, designed, evaluated, and developed? What are the counter-strategies
for managing the induced accelerated depletion of Nigeria’s crude oil
reserves given the Federal Government’s quixotic desire to increase
Nigeria’s crude oil production, with the naïve objective of attracting more
petrodollars into its porous treasury?
The
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is everybody’s favourite nightmare. People are
extremely petrified about the possibility of any military campaign spreading to
Saudi Arabia, because of that country’s overbearing spare crude oil production
capacity among the member nations of OPEC. What
could be the impact on OPEC, and by extension, on Nigeria, indeed on the rest of
the world, of a determined, ruthless, and swift terrorist attack, similar to
those of Tuesday, 11 September 2001, in New York, and Washington DC, on the
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, including the eventual collapse of that feudal
monarchy?
What
would be the consequences on the global petroleum markets, or on Nigeria, either
as a member, or as a non-member of OPEC, or on OPEC, if the United States of
America decides to stretch the boundaries of “The Axis of Evil”, and
executes its global “War against Terrorism”, right inside of the
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia?
What
would be the global and local impacts of the overthrow of the government of
Iraq, or/and Iran, or/and Saudi Arabia, and/or Venezuela, or indeed, the
deliberate destabilisation, and ultimate dismemberment of OPEC as we know it
today, by the instigation or direct provocation of the White House?
Is
the so-called “onshore-offshore” dichotomy in Nigeria serving the
strategic petroleum supply interests of the industrialised (OECD) countries, the
United States of America, in particular, and not necessarily the greed of the
land-locked non-petroleum producing, “non-oil-endowed” states of
Nigeria, and/or the select clique of beneficiaries of the “dividends of
democracy” in Nigeria: the “Aso Rockers”?
Is
there any correlation between Nigeria’s membership of OPEC, and certain
internal contradictions in the effective management of Nigeria’s petroleum
resources? Was revenue allocation, as earlier defined by the Independence
Constitution of the Federation of Nigeria, been adversely influenced by
Nigeria’s subsequent membership of OPEC, or was it as a result of the dynamics
of Nigeria’s internal power plays shortly after the Nigeria-Biafra War, during
the dictatorship of General Yakubu Gowon?
Given
their threats to investments of the United States of America in Nigeria, coupled
with General Obasanjo’s fixation for attracting foreign investors, could
escalating agitations for “resource control” in the Niger Delta
region necessitate a “mini War against Egbesu, protesting women, and
similar other irritants to secured petroleum production” in Nigeria, with
a little help from the United States of America? What if such deafening
agitations for equity get progressively better-articulated, better co-ordinated,
and better-executed vis-à-vis their political and economic damage radii and
impact?
OPEC
For Absolute Idiots:
“Therefore,
our recent ‘strategic
importance’ has nothing to do with any
sudden feelings of good will towards impoverished African states by the US
government. Pragmatism and economics, more than any benign sentiments, are what
dictated this new outlook towards Africa, and our response must also be borne on
the back of hard-faced strategic thinking, and planning”.
-Dr.
Malcolm
E. Fabiyi.
In
1943, Venezuela pioneered a move for the first profit-sharing agreement with the
multinational oil companies. Later on, those oil companies responded by shifting
oil purchases to the Middle East, with cheaper contracts. Venezuela responded by
liaising with those Arab countries to devise similar profit sharing agreements
as was in Venezuela. However, by 1960, a number of multinational oil companies
unilaterally cut posted prices. Their action resulted in the severe dislocation
of the economies of oil-endowed countries worldwide.
In
response to the damaging price cuts, the five (5) major oil-endowed countries at
the time, namely, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, formed the
nucleus, and the pioneer membership of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC), on Wednesday, 14 September 1960, at a conference in Baghdad,
Iraq.
Qatar
joined OPEC in 1961, Indonesia in 1962, Libya in 1962, United Arab Emirates (UAE)
in 1967, Algeria in 1969, and Nigeria in 1971 (eleven years after its
independence, and one year after the Nigeria-Biafra War, during the dictatorship
of General Yakubu Gowon). Other former members of OPEC are Ecuador, which joined
in 1973, and left OPEC in 1992, and Gabon, which joined OPEC in 1975, and left
in 1994.
In
1961, crude oil prices averaged US$2.50 per barrel. By 1981, prices jumped up to
US$35 per barrel, driven largely by events in the Middle East. The potential
adverse impact of OPEC has been somewhat absorbed by discoveries in non-OPEC
sources of crude oil like Russia, the North Sea, Mexico, and Norway. For
example, although Russia produces as much oil as the Saudi Arabia, but Russia
has only 19 years of recoverable crude oil reserves, while Saudi Arabia has
about 90 years of reserve capacity still in place. Therefore, in theory, OPEC
has been, and will continue to be the leading determinant of crude oil prices
for some time to come. …or
so it seems.
Beauty
In The Eyes Of The Beholder:
The
Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is a cartel, similar to the
cattle, vehicle spare parts, stockfish, second-hand clothing, kola nut, sweet
potato, onions, or “tokumbo”
cartels in Nigeria. Like any other cartel, the primary objective of OPEC is to control, and influence petroleum
prices by controlling supplies
to the world’s crude oil markets. Prior to the emergence of OPEC,
multinational oil companies were, more or less, in full control of the complex
dynamics of the global petroleum industry. Oil endowed countries had no control
on the prices or quantities of petroleum extracted from their territories.
Today,
in Nigeria, the ecological environments of the Niger Delta region are clearly
endangered because of petroleum exploration, exploitation, production,
transmission, processing, and distribution activities. Worse still, the
oil-endowed indigenous communities of the Niger Delta region of Nigeria are
developmentally challenged. Paradoxically, Nigeria’s oil-endowed indigenous
communities have no control on the consequences of petroleum extraction from
their lands. In a sense, all of the grievances, aspirations, and motivations
that constituted the driving force for the emergence of OPEC at the
international level, now constitute the logic at the community level, in the
Niger Delta region of Nigeria. In fact, the Niger Delta is demanding from
Nigeria, what Nigeria, as a member state of OPEC, demands from the world, be
they oil producers or not.
As
at now, OPEC comprises eleven (11) member states, with one member, Iraq, with
the second largest proven reserves of crude oil after Saudi Arabia, placed under
stiff economic, diplomatic, political, and military sanctions, not by fellow
members of the cartel, but by the “international
community”. Of the eleven (11) member states of OPEC, eight (8) or 73% of
them are Arab states that control about 77% of the total daily production of
crude oil within the cartel, and nine (9) of them are Islamic states that
control about 82% of the total daily production of crude oil within OPEC.
Nigeria’s
current daily production quota of
crude oil (1.94 million barrels per day) amounts to about 8% of the cartel’s
total input into the global crude oil markets. Meanwhile, Nigeria’s total
proven reserves of crude oil (about
34.5 billion barrels) constitutes just 4% of the total proven reserves (about
846 billion barrels) of crude oil available within OPEC. Simply put, Nigeria’s
current production profile is almost twice its relative crude oil reserve
capacity, precisely about 87% in excess of its reserves ranking within the
cartel: Nigeria is the fifth (5th) largest producer, with the eighth
(8th) largest reserves. In other words, Nigeria is “excreting” crude oil faster than its “stomach” can hold or digest: a kind of petroleum resource diarrhoea!
Of
the three (3) African member states of OPEC, Nigeria is the only non-Arab,
non-Islamic nation, and with the second largest proven reserves of crude oil
after Libya, but is the highest producer of crude oil in the continent. Within
OPEC, and among oil producing (OPEC and non OPEC) African states, Nigeria has
the lowest GDP per capita, the highest population, the highest population
density, the lowest energy consumption per capita, the lowest adult literacy
rate, the lowest total educational enrolment rate, and the lowest life
expectancy. Nigeria is the only country, both within OPEC and in Africa, whose
President is a Board member of Transparency International, and at the same time,
is the most corrupt, with the lowest UNDP human development index (HDI) rank, in
OPEC and in Africa.
And
so, Nigeria is the weak link, and the “sick
man” of OPEC. Therefore, Nigeria is very susceptible to the hypnotic
effects of diplomatic seduction, the exploitation of its weaknesses and
resources, and/or the manipulation or subversion of its strategic national
interests by both member, and non-member states of the Organisation of Petroleum
Exporting Countries.
The
Aerodynamics Of Quota Systems:
Worried
that Nigeria will not be able to meet its revenue projections, General Obasanjo,
on arrival from one of his uncountable foreign investors-centred air travels
overseas, said he would make a further series of trips to other OPEC member countries, to press the necessary
buttons, for Nigeria’s case for a greater share of OPEC production. What a
very brilliant, though radically flat, lame, and presumptuous excuse for yet
another round of frivolous overseas
air travels (in search of investors, weddings, owambeisms,
and kampe?) It is very likely that
Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait, in particular, will dismiss General Olusegun
Obasanjo’s wishes, and sweet dreams to increase Nigeria’s crude oil
production quota, just like that.
Algeria,
which is also looking to boost its crude oil production quota, raised the issue
at the last OPEC meeting. We have not yet heard of any tangible moves towards
discussing that problematic request, which could create strains within OPEC. The
requests from Nigeria, and Algeria would probably come up in September 2002.
However, we are not unduly concerned about the impact on OPEC’s unity, as
quota allocation is one of the organisation’s recurrent nightmares.
There
is an element of domestic politicking in General Obasanjo’s posture: This is
pre-election time in Nigeria. The Federal Government’s reaction is, at least
in part, a carbon copy of Algeria’s outburst at the last OPEC meeting.
Ironically, any domino effect will
undermine Nigeria’s claim, because, from precedence, bowing to one country’s
demand will simply encourage others to boost their crude oil production quota.
For one country to raise its quota, other producers have to agree to reduce, or
at best, not exceed their quota. Every OPEC country, with the possible exception
of the United Arab Emirates UAE), has serious fiscal problems. Debt-laden Saudi
Arabia, in particular, cannot afford a reduction in oil output now. Therefore,
Saudi Arabia will be firm in rejecting a quota reallocation, as they would have
to give up some of their quota.
Dialogue
With The Deaf:
Saudi
Arabia, OPEC’s de facto leader, has a strong argument against ceding its
share. While the kingdom has about 31% of OPEC’s total proven reserves, its
current production stands at 30% of the group’s total. In contrast, the crude
oil reserves of Nigeria and Algeria are both less than their respective
production quota. Previously, a country’s socio-economic situation was
considered when the group allocated quotas. Theoretically, Nigeria could claim a
larger share, based on its high population, low industrial growth levels, and
low GDP per capita, but the obstacles are colossal. Nevertheless, any plea from
General Obasanjo that Nigeria deserves a higher production quota will, most
likely, fall on stone-deaf ears.
Kuwait
has its own reasons for rejecting attempts by other states to raise their
quotas: The emirate wants a bigger quota itself. Kuwait feels it was
short-changed on its production quota after the 1990-1991 Gulf War, alias “Operation Desert Storm”. Kuwait, which used to produce about
2.5 million barrels per day before the Iraqi invasion, lost it quota to Saudi
Arabia and the United Arab Emirates during the war. Its quota now stands at 1.9
million barrels per day.
OPEC
output increases are assigned on a pro
rata basis. Since “Operation Desert
Storm”, Kuwait has managed to reach a ceiling of 2.1 million barrels per
day, at a time when Saudi Arabia’s production was above 8 million barrels per
day. Saudi Arabia has also picked up OPEC share from Iran and Iraq. Iran lost
share during its war with Iraq. Iraq lost even more share as the USA and its
allies expelled Iraqi forces out of Kuwait in 1991.
Iraq
is the wildcard of OPEC. If in the short- to medium-term, there is a regime
change in that country, prevailing sanctions would be speedily lifted, and Iraq
could come back into OPEC as a full member. Iraq’s current relatively low
crude oil production means that its demands for a higher output ceiling would
simply trivialise Nigeria’s request for upward review of its production quota.
Post-war reconstruction works and investments in Iraq’s oil industry could
easily push up that country’s crude oil production to over five million
(5,000,000) barrels per day, from current levels of around 2 million barrels per
day. What will Saudi Arabia do? What are other members going to do to make room
for increased Iraqi production post-Iraqi Invasion? Has the systematic
destabilisation, and subsequent dismantlement of OPEC started yet, even if in
slow motion?
The
Big Masquerade Is Afraid To Dance:
For
close to a decade, the National Security Agency of the United States of America
has been collecting electronic intercepts of discussions between members of the
Saudi Royal Family, headed by His Majesty, King Fahd. The intercepts depict a
regime that is recklessly corrupt, alienated from the country’s religious rank
and file, and so weakened, and frightened that it has brokered its future by
channelling hundreds of millions of dollars, in what amounts to protection
money, to fundamentalist groups that wish to overthrow the Saudi monarchy. In
short, the status quo of Saudi Arabia, particularly the monarchy, is facing a
tremendous and sustained amount of blackmail from within the kingdom.
Since
1996, money from the Saudi Royal family was supporting Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda,
and other radical groups in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Yemen, Central Asia, and
throughout the Persian Gulf region. US intelligence and military analysts
portray the growing instability of the Saudi regime, and the vulnerability of
its crude oil reserves to terrorist attack, as the most immediate threats to the
economic and political interests of the United States of America in the Middle
East. They also assert that the Bush Administration, like the Clinton
Administration, is refusing to confront this reality, even in the aftermath of
the terrorist attacks of Tuesday, 11 September 2001.
The
Saudis and the Americans arranged a meeting between Defence Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld, and King Fahd, shortly before the commencement of the aerial
bombardment Afghanistan. However, the Pentagon knows very well that King Fahd
has been incapacitated since suffering a severe stroke, in late 1995. With
round-the-clock medical attention, King Fahd is just about able to sit on a
chair, and open his eyes, but is unable to recognize even his close relatives
and childhood friends. Essentially, His Royal Majesty King Fahd is being kept
alive, against all (medical) odds, and made to seem to occupy the throne of
Saudi Arabia simply because of a bitter power struggle in the Saudi Royal
Family.
King
Fahd’s half brother and nominal successor, Crown Prince Abdullah, to some
extent, is the de-facto ruler of Saudi Arabia. Crown Prince Abdullah and Prince
Sultan, the Saudi Defence Minister, were the people US Defence Secretary
Rumsfeld actually went to see. However, there is infighting about petrodollars!
According to the NSA telephone intercepts, Crown Prince Abdullah has been urging
his fellow Saudi princes to address the problem of corruption
in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, unsuccessfully. In short, the only reason why
King Fahd is being kept alive, is to block Crown Prince Abdullah’s chances of
become the King of Saudi Arabia. The question remains: What
if King Fahd dies?
US
intelligence officials have been particularly exasperated by the adamant refusal
of the Saudis to help the FBI, and the CIA in carrying out name checks and
obtain other background information on the nineteen (19) men who took part in
the attacks on the Twin Towers, and the Pentagon on Tuesday, 11September 2001,
with fifteen (15) of them believed to be from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The
NSA telephone intercepts reveal the hypocrisy of the members of the Saudi Royal
Family, and why they have become increasingly estranged from the vast majority
of Saudi Arabians.
Over
the years, unnerved by the growing strength of the fundamentalist movement, the
Saudi Royal Family has failed to deal with underlying issues of severe
unemployment and inadequate education, in a country in which half the population
is under eighteen years of age. Incidentally, and ironically, only the defunct
Taliban of Afghanistan rivals Saudi Arabia’s strict interpretation of Islam,
known as “Wahhabism”, and its use
of religious policemen to statutorily enforce prayers. Meanwhile, for years,
various Saudi princes have kept gossip newspapers and magazines filled with
accounts of their boozing binges and partying sprees with local and imported
prostitutes, while looting several hundreds of billions of petrodollars from the
Saudi Arabian treasury, just like most Nigerian Heads of State, since the
overthrow of the dictatorship of General (Dr.) Yakubu Gowon, to date.
Tory
Seems To Have Developed Bow Legs:
The
NSA intercepts are specific. There have been frequent telephone calls about King
Fahd’s health since after his stroke. For example, on Wednesday, 8 January
1997, the US National Security Agency intercepted a conversation in which Prince
Sultan told Prince Bandar that King Fahd had agreed to a rather strange, and
complicated exchange with the United States of America, which would bring five
F16 fighter aircraft into the Royal Saudi Air Force. King Fahd was evidently
incapable of making such an agreement, or of preventing anyone from dropping his
name in a treasury looting scam.
In
the intercepts, princes talk openly about milking the state, and even argue
about what is an acceptable percentage to take. Other calls indicate that Prince
(Ambassador) Bandar, while serving as ambassador, was involved in arms deals in
London, Yemen, and the defunct Soviet Union. Deals that generated millions of
dollars in “commissions”. In a
press interview, Prince (Ambassador) Bandar, when asked about reports of
deep-rooted corruption in the Saudi Royal Family, was quite optimistic in his
response. He revealed that the Saudi Royal Family had spent nearly four hundred
billion dollars (US$400,000,000,000) to develop Saudi Arabia. He further argued
that, if in the process of building Saudi Arabia, the Royal Family misused, or
were corrupted with only fifty billion dollars (US$50,000,000,000), “Yes…
And so, what? After all, Saudi Arabia did not invent corruption”, very
similar to the mindset of some funny distinguished Senators of the Federal
Republic of Nigeria.
However,
the NSA intercepts make clear that Crown Prince Abdullah was repeatedly
insistent on stemming corruption in Saudi Arabia. In November 1996, for example,
he complained about the billions of dollars that were being diverted by members
of the royal family from a huge state-financed project to renovate a major
mosque in Mecca. He urged the princes to get their “off-budget”
expenses under control. Actually, such “off-budget”
expenses are the hiding place for payoff money, royal kickbacks, and executive
bribes, just like the so-called “security
vote”, and similar other variants of executive “egunje”
in Nigeria.
Despite
its oil revenues, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, just like the Federal Republic of
Nigeria, has been running a budget deficit for more than ten years, and now has
a large national debt. A few years a go, according to the NSA telephone taps,
Crown Prince Abdullah blocked a series of real-estate swindles and deals by one
of the Saudi princes, and that has been terribly upsetting to members of the
royal family. Crown Prince Abdullah further alarmed the princes by issuing a
pre-emptive decree declaring that even his own sons would not be permitted to go
into any form of business partnerships with foreign companies working in Saudi
Arabia. Prince Sultan and other Saudi princes view Prince Abdullah as a leader
who could jeopardise the kingdom’s most delicate special
foreign relationship: The Saudi princes see Crown Prince Abdullah as someone
who is willing to the unthinkable: i.e. penalise the United States of America
and its multinational oil and gas companies, because of the support that the US
gives Israel.
It
is on record that King Fahd’s regime was the major financial backer of US
President Ronald Reagan’s anti-communist campaign in Latin America, and of its
successful proxy war in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union. Petrodollars
bought the Saudi Royal Family enormous political clout, in terms of access and
leverage in the West, particularly in Washington DC. Working through Prince
(Ambassador) Bandar, the Saudi Royal Family has contributed hundreds of millions
of dollars to charities and educational programs in the United States of
America. Several US engineering, construction and oil companies do billions of
dollars’ worth of business every year with Saudi Arabia. At the end of 2001,
Halliburton, the Texas-based petroleum services company, formerly headed by the
incumbent Vice President of the United States of America, His Excellency Dick
Cheney, was doing “business unusual”, as usual, operating various subsidiaries of
Halliburton in Saudi Arabia, just like in Nigeria.
During
US President Bill Clinton’s era, the White House did business
as usual with the Saudi princes, urging them to buy American goods, like
private jets, casinos, jet fighters, tanks, yachts, credit cards, stretched
limousines, bazookas, 5-star hotel chains, private islands, and exotic holiday
resorts. The kingdom was seen as an American advocate among the oil-producing
states of the Middle East. The CIA was officially discouraged from conducting
any risky intelligence operations within Saudi Arabia, which limited the United
States government’s knowledge of the extent of boiling internal resentment and
opposition to the Saudi Royal Family.
In
1994, the first secretary at the Saudi Mission to the United Nations, defected
and sought political asylum in the United States of America. He brought with him
some 14,000 internal government memoranda, depicting the Saudi Royal Family’s
abysmal corruption, gross human-rights abuses, and financial support for
terrorists. He claimed to have evidence that the Saudi princes had given
financial and technical support to extremist groups. To date, nobody has heard
anything further from the Pentagon about those revelations. Although he was
granted political asylum, he is now living under cover in the United States of
America.
The
Saudis were also shielded from the White House’s foreign-policy bureaucracy.
For example, the Saudi Ambassador in Washington DC, Prince (Ambassador) Bandar,
deals exclusively with the men at the top, and that is deliberate. In the
aftermath of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, the Saudi Royal
Family has repeatedly insisted that Saudi Arabia has not contributed to
terrorist groups, officially. When the international press confronted the Saudis
with reports that some of the substantial funds that the monarchy routinely
gives to various charities may
actually have strayed into the hands of Al Qaeda and other terrorist networks,
they denied any knowledge of such transfers. However, the NSA telephone
intercepts have led many to conclude otherwise.
Concerns,
both in the United States of America and in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, about
the security of Saudi Arabian oil fields have become more urgent than ever,
since Tuesday, 11 September 2001. The Saudi Royal Family is nervously sitting on
a keg of ogbunigwe: Saudi Arabia’s
oil wells. They are petrified that somebody will light the fuse, eventually. US
military response has triggered an alarm in the international oil markets, and
among intelligence officials who have been briefed on a still secret CIA study
of the vulnerability of Saudi Arabia’s oil fields to terrorist attacks,
prepared in the mid-1980s. The report concluded that, with only a small amount
of cheap explosives, terrorists could shut down the entire petroleum industry of
Saudi Arabian for two years.
War
Without End. Amen:
Clearly,
the United States has been held hostage to the stability of the Saudi feudal
elite. Maybe, it is time to start facing the truth. As for the terrorists
responsible for the Tuesday, 11 September 2001 attacks, if they choose to do a
similar operation in Saudi Arabia, the price of oil could shoot up to one
hundred dollars (US100) per barrel. In such a scenario, what would be the fate
of OPEC, and its members, particularly, Nigeria, the weak link, and sick man of
OPEC? Would OPEC flood the world market with crude oil in order to bring spot
market prices down to a “reasonable”
US$22 per barrel? Cut back crude oil supplies from the Persian Gulf, the Niger
Delta, and the Orinoco Basin, in solidarity and “brotherhood”
with a “bereaved” fellow OPEC
member? Once more, could it be that the systematic destabilisation and ultimate dismantlement of OPEC has started, even if it is in slow motion?
In
the 1980s, in an effort to relieve mounting political pressure on the regime,
the Saudi Royal Family relinquished some of its authority. Theocrats took over
control of the press and the educational system. Today, over 60% of the Saudi
PhD degrees are in Islamic studies. There was little attempt over the years by
American diplomats or the White House to restrain the increasingly harsh
rhetoric against the United States of America in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It
would not take too much for a group of 20 or 30 determined fundamentalists to
take charge. How would the kingdom deal with the shock of a ruthless,
well-trained, compact, highly motivated, and highly intelligent, high velocity
terrorist group?
Obviously,
the United States of America has indulged the feudal elites of Saudi Arabia for
so many decades. The policy dilemma is this: How
does the United States of America help the Royal Family of Saudi Arabia make the
unavoidable transition, form entrenched feudalism to democracy, without throwing
the good people of Saudi Arabia and their country overboard? In the final
analysis, relative to the rising wave of religious fundamentalism brewing in
Saudi Arabia, “the kids have finally
grown bigger than their daddy”: the young have grown, and that could
affect Nigeria’s continued meaningful membership of OPEC significantly.
References:
4.
Malcolm
E. Fabiyi,
PhD:
“The
wisdom in Remaining with OPEC: A Rejoinder to David Iheanacho's
Commentary”; (Friday, 2 August 2002)..
Appendix:
Below
is the last prayer said at a public function in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, by Chief
Godwin Aret Adams, shortly before his death:
We believe that, in recognition of his inspiring
leadership of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, it would be most
befitting if the Federal Government of Nigeria names the NNPC corporate
headquarters building, The “Aret Adams” Towers. That would be very
appropriate. Indeed, it could trigger a new phase of corporate re-invention and
paradigm shift for the Corporation, and by extension for Nigeria.
Last
Prayer For A Dying Nation:
"Thank
you Almighty God, for giving us our own country Nigeria. Thank you for the
wealth and abundance of people, fertile land, water, forests, petroleum, solid
minerals, and a lot more you have blessed us with.
Father,
we know that it is through the machination of our kith and kin that the people,
love and unity we need to enjoy the blessings you have given us continue to
elude us. We are tired of suffering and wallowing in poverty in the midst of
plenty. Father, we are crying to you to release us from the bondage of hatred,
greed and sheer wickedness of man.
Uproot
and render totally ineffective O Lord, all those who fan hatred and instigate
violence in the land
Uproot
and render totally ineffective O Lord, all those who steal the wealth of our
country to enrich themselves and other nations.
Uproot
and render totally ineffective O Lord, all those whose greed impoverish the
common man.
Uproot
and render ineffective O Lord, all those whose thoughts, words and deeds
threatened peace in our land.
Uproot
and render ineffective O Lord, all those who lack the humility to serve but only
want to rule at all costs.
Grant
us all these, and more O Lord.
Amen."
- Chief G.A. Adams (FNMGS); Chairman & CEO, Multinational Expertise Ltd; past GMD NNPC.