Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran, United States, China, Venezuela, Libya, Algeria, Angola, Egypt, Sudan, Nigeria, etc. Of the top 20 oil producing countries, Nigeria is the only country with no functional crude oil refining facility. Not a few oil producers with various number of refining facilities. The USA, despite being a major buyer of crude from other producers, boasts of 130 refineries. And China follows with the second largest refining capacity. In Africa, Algeria has not less than six functional refineries; Egypt boasts of 11; Angola has two; Cameroon, Chad, Eritrea, Ghana, Kenya, Libya, Niger and many other countries with no reckoning in oil production have at least one functional crude oil refining facility of theirs. But Nigeria, the so-called giant of Africa, with crude oil production capacity above one million barrels per day, has to depend on importation of refined fuel for the use of over 200 million people. Come to think of it: who are these people that turned Nigeria to a state with no capacity, a state not fit to produce anything locally for her teeming multi-million population?
Since the advent of naira devaluation in 1985, a pill from the Bretton Wood institutions, the fortune of Nigeria has moved from bad to worse. Instead of the country embracing local productions for export markets as currency devaluation demands, the existing manufacturing companies started to find the business environment very toxic. They started dying one after the other, while those with international connections started relocating out of the country. More pathetic is it that the state-owned entities, managed by the government and public sector employees, became drainpipes instead of value-givers. They became predicaments to the tax payers. Entities responsible for water distribution, power generation and distribution, as well as energy supplies became wasters of resources. The employees were earning salaries and are always quick to go protesting, time and again, for increase in pay despite lacking in productivity and delivering no values to the inhabitants of the land who sweat to pay these salaries and wages.
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Not moved a hoot and without good sense to understand the enormity of servicing other economies where basic products are brought, the Nigerian economy went spiralling downward to an extent of borrowing from wherever to fund consumption. It became clear to the simplest of brains that funding importations is no longer sustainable since there is no more money where it can be taken and borrowers are wary and are no longer willing. The people already deprived of basic livelihood and means of production are to be thrown into the free market system – to pay if they want to use any basic products. Where this is a way to go, what is clear to the simple minds (and expected from those in charge of the economy) is that adequate buffers and strategic plans are put in place with implementation of such action plan commencing before the millions of people are thrown into the free market system. Alas, what was given to over 200 million Nigerians were talks, chest-beatings, promises, huffing and puffing without any landmark project till the free market day arrived. As usual, we succeeded in putting the cart before the horse.
Now we are in it. We either get moving or we remain rooted and perish. Since the latter option is out of it, it means we need to properly situate our immediate needs and come up with a very effective approach to deliver the needful and also do it very timely. With the holes Nigeria’s leaders have dug for decades which the entire population now find themselves in, without mincing words, the tasks before the country and her over 200 million people is sustainable local production and supplies on all economic fronts, starting with the basic necessities: energy, power and agriculture. We have put the cart before the horse. Now we must work extra-assiduously to deliver production facilities if Nigeria is to reverse this crunching steep slide.
With the intractable loss of Naira value and the widening gap between the official and black market rates (despite the purported unification of the forex market), the country’s economy managers don’t need a prophet to tell that the solutions lie in local production and uninterrupted supplies of products that are gulping foreign currencies. Starting with local refining of crude oil for energy supplies, the condition of circumstances that over 200 million people are thrown into demands emergency response. Mere setting a date for local refinery to start production without a very good Work Plan to measure progress may end up as another “Dangote promise”. The fuel subsidy removal was principally hinged on Dangote Refinery, a private project, commencing operations July 2023. The Federal Government and its economic handlers would place all their eggs in this basket without any other option to ensure the fuel subsidy removal does not worsen the already terrible economic status of more than 200 million Nigerian population that boasts of more than 60 per cent multi-dimensionally poor. It won’t be out of place to touch-light the minds of these people some day.
As I had once written through this column, accomplishment of goals or establishing a new cause should start with the end in mind. A sure way to get this done is by codifying the goals’ thought processes in charted writing known as “Work Plan”. President Bola Tinubu, notwithstanding his “Renewed Hope” roadmap document, must and without delay give Nigerians this Work Plan. It should clearly indicate the deliverables with timelines and success indicators for all stakeholders to see and monitor. This will remove ambiguity and gives better clarity to everyone that will run with the set goal.
What must be ringing in the minds of Aso Rock handlers is: for how long will Nigerians be able to hold on before everything snaps? This is why it is very important, necessary and very urgent that we have the Work Plan for the energy refining facilities projects first and that of other strategic sectors (with verifiable measure of progress indicators as well as deliverable timelines) to be published. Without this to calm nerves while the people are coping with the bitter stopgap measures, may God have mercy on Nigeria. The brutal truth is that Nigeria and her people can no longer afford payment of lip-service or struggle to achieve production projects.
. Emmanuel is a business planning consultant and founder of Leacent Incorporated Trustees, a network of entrepreneurs and group of cooperatives. He works with a team of international consultants to conceptualise and plan agribusiness and housing projects. As a certified trainer authorised to use the International Labour Organisation’s enterprise development modules, he trains entrepreneurs and organises workshops and seminars for potential and practising entrepreneurs as well as business managers and cooperatives. He also speaks and facilitates at leadership and management workshops on invitation. His book, Business Planning Made Easy: Step by Step Guide On How To Turn Your Idea To Profitable Business’ is the latest of the books authored by him. Telephone: +234(0)9068602954 (call and sms), +234(0)8023257707 (WhatsApp only).
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