As an independent entity, naira is Nigeria’s lender tender. But today, nothing dominates Nigerians’ destinies more than the United States of America dollar. Everybody, irrespective of where they are and or what they do, speak the language of the dollar. It is interesting to realise that Nigerians know and talk about the dollar even more than the Americans who own it. And the reason for this is not far-fetched. It is because of Nigeria’s decades long culture of petrol import despite being classified as the sixth largest producer of crude in the world. That is the biggest tragic irony. With eyes wide open, all the oil refineries in Nigeria were left to rot and cannibalised to the point that not even one litre is refined locally despite the daily need of almost a million litre consumption. So when a big country like Nigeria imports every single litre of petrol, diesel, kerosene, jet fuel, name it, why won’t everyone in that country talk, think, sleep, wake, eat, breath, live, die dollar? Why won’t their destinies be dollarised? The reality today is that Nigerians are dollarised.
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Of course, so many things are being done, formulated, declared, at least to shore up the naira from the onslaught of the dollar. It is not surprising that not much will change unless Nigeria goes back to manufacturing, especially the refining of petroleum products locally. So, when Nigeria refines fuel for its own consumption, there will be less pressure on the demand for dollars, and this invariably cuts down dollar consumption by a chunk. And if this goes on for about six months without any petrol import, then the pathway to economic discovery for the giant of Africa would have opened. When President Bola Tinubu came on board, one of its promises was the refurbishment of the moribund oil refineries. The Port Harcourt refining facility had a promised start date of December last year. In December, Nigerians were told that the facility was technically ready and that after the Christmas holidays, petrol would be produced. But this February is coming to an end, the only thing heard about the facility is that two million barrels/litres of fuel will be produced. The question is that the two million barrels/litres, is it quarterly or monthly because the capacity of all the four government owned refineries is 450,000 litres daily. Shortly after announcing to the world that the facility was technically ready, the government said it was mulling the idea of seeking for an entity to manage it. When the government knew it would still travel that path, why did it have to use public funds to refurbish the place and now looking for someone to manage it? Perhaps, the government should consider the option marshalled by the former Vice President Atiku Abubakar who said left to him, he would sell off all the refineries to private entities to raise funds for government use. During his new year address on January 1, President Tinubu said there was a glimmer of hope for Nigerians to buy locally refined fuel with the Port Harcourt refinery and the Dangote refinery coming up to pump petrol. But for some time now, so much disturbing news has been coming up about the privately built refining facility. At a point, Nigerians were told that the facility had to shop for crude from America. And there we go again. If Dangote refinery goes to America for crude, it must have done so with dollars and if that is the case, how on earth will it be possible to sell such product in naira to local customers? As at today, one dollar is exchanging for N1,600. Just today, petrol marketers said they have been expecting a response from Dangote refinery about the price of fuel from the new refinery. Does anyone have to guess again what they might be told? Is there any hope that Nigerians will ever get to buy cheaper fuel refined locally in Nigeria? On February 15, it was reported that the private refinery had issued tenders to sell two fuel cargoes for export, the first from the facility. Nigerians have been eagerly looking forward to the release of products from the $20 billion Dangote refinery after it was inaugurated in May last year by former President Muhammadu Buhari. Recall that on February 8, 2024, indications emerged that lingering regulatory approvals had stalled Dangote Petrochemical Refinery’s plan to release aviation fuel (Jet A1) and diesel for sale in the Nigerian market in January. The report had stated that one week after the January 31 timeline set by the management of Africa’s largest refinery to begin sale of its petroleum product in the local market, the refinery was still battling to cross the hurdles of the several layers of regulatory approvals. It stated that the development came almost a month after the refinery began the production of petroleum products at the expansive facility. On January 12, 2024, Dangote refinery announced that it had commenced the production of Automotive Gas Oil, popularly called diesel, and aviation fuel or JetA1. All the back-and-forth stories about the refinery are not encouraging. It is like Nigerian authorities don’t appreciate the fact that refining locally is the sure way of having a break from the rampaging dollar. Of course Dangote refinery is a private entity, no doubt, but if the authorities realise how important local refining is, there is nothing wrong to adopt the new facility by dedicating the entire crude harvested from the oil fields in the Niger Delta to Dangote refinery for Nigerians to have access to petrol refined locally. Then, nobody will talk about any dollar. There will be nothing like landing cost, different costs involved in importing the item from the foreign firms. The authorities seem to forget that when petrol is bought locally, the effect will percolate down to almost all the spheres of Nigerians’ lives. Transportation will go down, then food security will be guaranteed. Of course, there is a claim that subsidy is gone, but if kerosene had crossed over N1000, ditto diesel, so it is no brainer at all to reexamine the “subsidy is gone” theory behind the N600 plus pump price of petrol because it does not add up. So, it is incumbent that Nigeria should start refining locally now, at least to have a break from the dollar craze that has turned Nigerians’ lives upside down. Now that it is becoming seemingly difficult to handle the government owned refining facilities, they should be sold outright. Then Dangote refinery should get a dedicated line of crude supply to keep Nigeria wet with petrol. It is very urgent.