Experience over the years had shown that Nigeria has not been able to find solution to frequent scarcity of petroleum products in the country.
Efforts have been made and are still being made to tackle the cankerworm called fuel scarcity, all to no avail.
Previous ministers of petroleum have severally embarked upon turn-around maintenance without positive result. The question now is how do we as a country solve this perennial problem of scarcity of petroleum products permanently. History has shown that the more effort Nigeria makes in solving this problem, the more complex it becomes.
The fact is that no matter the strength of drugs on an ailment, as long as the medication is not the right one, such illness can never subside. This is the case of Nigeria that has been visiting the wrong drugs to treat the petroleum scarcity disease.
There cannot be relief no matter how long we continue with the approach.
History has also shown that no nation has developed with foreign technology as Nigeria has been trying to do.
We have said time without number that technology is either evolved locally or stolen, adopted and refurbished.
What has been happening with our leaders is that they have not understood this natural fact that technology must be developed from within. If they (leaders) ever understand this simple logic, they are bound not to be spending fabulous amount of money on the so-called turn around maintenance on our ailing refineries. Why do we have universities if not for research and learning. No wonder an agreement of 2009 between the Federal Government and the Nigerian Universities Associations is still lingering till today.
What we are saying is that solution to the problem of petroleum products scarcity in Nigeria is the ability to build new refineries with local technology, instead of spending this whopping sums of money importing experts to come and maintain our gigantic foreign refineries that can never work. The startling funds used in paying ‘experts’ to come and service our refineries that have outlived their existence would have been better channeled into research or encouragement for the operators of illegal refineries, commonly referred to as bunkeries. Evidence abound that crude oil has been locally refined in the Niger Delta by the people we derogatorily referred to as ‘oil thieves’. What that means is that it is indisputable that local refineries exist in Nigeria and if that is the case, why can’t we count on that to build refineries to save the country, the embarrassment of importing fuel.
Refining crude oil locally will not only make available enough products for local consumption, but will provide employment for our teeming population of unemployed youths.
It also stands to beef up our external earnings, as foreign exchange rate will naturally rise.
We have said severally that Nigeria has the capacity to refine crude oil and enjoy full benefits accruable to a fifth oil producer in the whole world.
The problem perhaps has been lack of political will and the visionlessness of our political leaders who are so short-sighted that they cannot understand the trends of development or industrialization in the 21st century.
We therefore appeal to the powers that be to hearken to the voice of reasoning by encouraging the universities to embark on research, if for nothing else to produce home grown refineries within a time-frame. We don’t have any doubt in our mind that our academics will live up to expectation. They can even include the oil bunkerers in the research to achieve that endless turn-around maintenance if the refineries will soon be completed, when for years the country has been importing petroleum products.
The only way these political leaders can convince Nigerians that they do not have skeleton inside cupboard is to build new local refineries in the countries. This will not only solve the petroleum product scarcity problem, but will go a long way to exonerate the politicians that most of them own refineries overseas and as such will not like to see that our refineries work. ###
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