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The Nigerian Airways Flight: NNPC, Refineries, and Privatization Flying
To Crash By Prince Charles Dickson Jos,
Plateau Nigeria Nigerian
Airways: flight No Return Good
morning, ladies and gentlemen. This is your captain
(Boniface) welcoming you on board of Nigeria Airways. We
apologize for the four-day delay in taking off, it was due to bad
weather and some overtime I had put in at the bakery. This is flight no
return to Nigeria
Airways has an excellent safety-record. In fact our safety standards are
so high that even terrorists are afraid to fly with us! It
is with great pleasure; I announce that since starting this year over
50% of our passengers have reached their destination. If our engines are
too busy for you, on passenger request, we can arrange to turn it off! To
make your free fall to earth pleasant and memorable, we serve
complimentary Bongo tea and Okin or Nasco biscuits! For our not-so
religious passengers, we are the only airline who can help you find
out if there really is God! We
regret to inform you, that today’s in- flight movie will not be shown
as we forgot to record it from the television. But for our movie buffs,
we will be flying right next to Al Barka, where their movie will be
visible from the right side of the cabin window. There
is no smoking allowed in this plane. Any smoke you see in the cabin is
only the early warning system on the engines telling us to slow down! In
order to catch important landmarks, we try to fly as close as possible
for the best view. If, however, we go a little too close, do let us
know. Our enthusiastic co-pilot sometimes flies through the landmark! Kindly
be seated, keep your seat in an upright position for-take and fasten
your seatbelt. For those of your who can’t find a seatbelt, kindly
fasten your own belt to the arm of your seat…and for those of you who
can’t find a seat, do not hesitate to get in touch with a stewardess
who will explain how to fasten yourself to your suitcase. The
above is the path the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation NNPC, and
the present government is towing with its cronies, especially with the
refineries that would soon be sold. A
meeting was held, very recently, in attendance was the Ministry of
Petroleum (without a Minister as usual), the Department of Petroleum
Resources DPR, Bureau for Public Enterprise BPE, the Nigerian National
Petroleum Corporation NNPC, the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff
Association PENGASSAN and the Nigerian The
result was an ‘agreement’ on refineries ‘to privatize the
nation’s four refineries, the government is telling 51% its shares to
core investors’ sounds like good news. The
workers under both PENGASSAN and NUPENG have condemned the move, stating
that it cannot work that way, why? Because the refineries are not
working…the refineries are dead. The
government as usual lied that the refineries would be working by
August…Government figures which sorry enough cannot be trusted says
that they are currently producing 10 million litres of petrol daily. accept
they have failed the nation, the fact that the President doubles as the
Minister of Petroleum is an indictment of the same level with suspended
Governor Dariye of None
of the four refineries are working, the so-called Turn Around
Maintenance TAM has been beset with one scandal after the other, with
well over #700 million dollars already expended, its become obvious that
only Jesus Christ can perform a mandatory TAM. It
becomes more ‘stupid’ that one of Obasanjo’s campaign promises was
to bring life back to the refineries, which were performing optimally
during his first coming. However the picture today looks like this,
last week, I found out that the Petrol-Chemical Plant in Warri barely
months after French firm Dellre Bezons Ltd finished a TAM…Glory
Hallelujah the plant is producing…oh1 I meant to say not producing a
drop of fuel. Yet
the craze to sell the refineries continue, sell to whom at what price
and for why remains a mystery. The four refineries are older than
themselves. TAM
is not different from the conventional car maintenance we carry out
periodically. You buy engine oil, oil filters to replace worn out ones,
change the changeable, do some cleaning here and there and hey, you car
is running fine like new again,. Our case in For
an industry that is responsible for over 90% of the nation’s wealth,
we have leaking pipes, power outage related problems, propanes are never
available and compressors are always compressed. I begin to imagine,
how sane people are even able to work under such constraints. Nigerians
are miracle workers. I
read the other as the NNPC Group Head, Engr. Funsho Kupolokun
shamelessly say” I am not comfortable with my current (NNPC) cash
flow, NNPC is fast running out of cash” NNPC GO SOON CRASH, IF E NEVA
CRASH. For
a corporation that has failed its people, they are running to Gabon,
Equatorial Guinea and Angola for oil blocks, the oil for Nigerian block
don finish or is no longer sweet, they tell us they want to be like
Petrobras of Brazil and Malaysia’s Petronas, the same NNPC
is subsiding fuel imports to the tune of 400million Naira daily, so what
let them make sacrifices for the poor masses and stop crying, it is also
does same for gas to an amazing 11.9 billion Naira annually, well Allah
be praised at least they are serving us something on their flight unlike
the Nigerian Airways. So
much for the noise on privatization, TAM on refineries and all the
related jargons, I am yet to see a nation where its supposed natural
wealth is killing it like |