Fixing Nigeria: When Political Will Trumps Political Compromise -By Niyi Akinsiju

Niyi Akinsiju

The success of any policy enunciated by government at whatever level is usually conditioned on the political will to implement the policy. For Nigerians, political will has become so important in the delivery of promises associated with policies of government, especially in light of many failed policies of governments’ over time. Indeed, the history of leadership is replete with stories of ordinary people determinedly doing extraordinary things just by application of sheer will power.

This is just as the dustbin of history is filled to the brim with grimy details of failed leaders, men and women who once held so much hope for the social and physical advancement of their people but lost it to the easy way out, giving the right of influence to vested interests, serving at the altar of individuals who merely sought to line their pockets and play big in the local community. Leaders fail when they capitulate to these vested interests. So, it would seem this exemplifies the not too impressive records of the six years administration of Nigeria’s immediate past President, Dr Goodluck Jonathan.

Expectedly, some Nigerians, in defence of Jonathan’s administration, will still insist that if given more time, another term of four years would have enabled him the time-space to complete the projects he conceptualised while in office. Some others extended that argument into a demeaning harangue, insisting that the succeeding government of President Muhammadu Buhari, had, in fact, inherited the legacies of Jonathan in their completed forms.

The latter group say the Buhari administration cannot possibly take the credit for the revamp of the nation’s hitherto endemically prostrate refineries. These would assert that the refineries were more or less in a state of Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) completion days to the handing over ceremony from Jonathan’s government to Buhari’s.

But evidently, the TAM referenced was merely in tradition of the old Nigeria where money committed for the TAM are literally pocketed by the ‘usual’ ubiquitous vested interests without the authority batting an eyelid, no question asked, no query raised. In 2012, the Jonathan administration voted a whopping $1.6billion (about N251billion back then) to the TAM of the nation’s four refineries, petroleum sector stakeholders at that time had raised issue with the cost of the TAM, reasoning that it was going to be an exercise in futility because of the endemic corruption in the system. But the government had waved the observation aside and went ahead to fund the TAM. By October, 2014, the target date for the delivery of the overhauled refineries, the refineries were yet in a state of abysmal dilapidation.

Giving credence to the corrupting influence of the vested interests thwarting the TAM, a newspaper reports that the Crude for Petroleum Products Exchange Agreements, better known as Crude Oil Swaps, and Offshore Processing Agreements (OPAs) entered into by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and oil traders between 2011 and 2014 were to blame for the abysmally low output from NNPC’s refineries and the high importation of petroleum products into the country.

As it were, credit should be given to the management of the NNPC of that period, who in its wisdom, decided to play strategic subterfuge by deciding to form a team of local engineers working in the refineries and persuading some other retired refinery engineers to come out of their retirement to join the team. This decision was reportedly discreetly implemented away from the knowledge of the former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, who, even when she was allegedly informed of the improved operational status of the refineries still denied them of supplies of the required crude oil input to activate the operational phase of the revamped refineries.

The NNPC Engineers had projected a 16-month TAM period as undertaken to deliver in 2016, but the coming of Buhari moved forward the operational date to July 2015, when the NNPC confidently announced the resumption of refining activities in the refineries on a guarantee of supplies of crude oil feed stocks soon after Buhari took the reins of government on May 29. For the nation’s refineries under Jonathan, their derelict status in those six years can be directly ascribed to base compromise, a capitulation to vested interest.

And electricity power, that ever elusive significant ingredient to national development and personal comfort. Buhari was not three weeks in office when it became certain supplies of electricity power to consumers in Nigeria had improved tremendously with power generation moving from a low 760 mega watts in the dying days of Jonathan’s administration, to nearly 5000 mega watts, unheard of till now.

Some characters have claimed that power generation is climbing because we are in the rainy season. Very interesting prognosis! One should wonder if Nigeria recorded the highest rainfall volume in year 2015. The country had recorded rainfall that flooded communities across the country years back, a measure of the volume of the rain fall but this had never impacted power generated.

In talking of power generation, one should, as a matter of convenience, be blinded to the humongous sums in dollar expended on increasing power generation, except one becomes vulnerable to missed heart beats.

Be that as it may, most stakeholders are agreed that the infrastructure for increase power generation is in place but the functionality of the facilities is limited by non-availability of gas supply. Most of Nigeria’s electricity is generated through gas powered turbines.

Curiously, gas is sourced from the South-South region, the geo-political zone of past President Jonathan. In truth, there were news of gas pipelines been blown up in the days of Jonathan but news of such have receded with the coming of Buhari. Gas supplies to power generating plants has become so consistent that Nigeria’s largest power generation plant, Egbin Power Plc, on July 2, announced a new peak of its generating capacity standing at more than 1,000 Megawatts of electricity, the first time the plant would hit such peak in eight years.

So, who do we truly credit for the new height attained in power generation?

And yes, the Treasury Single Account (TSA)! The financial management policy that has turned a most potent tool in the battle to staunch the leakages flowing from the gaping hole impacted on the national treasury through multiple accounts operated by Federal Ministries, Department and Agencies. More than 10,000 accounts in the names of Federal Government MDAs have been closed since Buhari made a pronouncement on the implementation of the TSA. Even States like Lagos and Kaduna have adopted the TSA. But then, it is to Jonathan that the credit for conceptualising the TSA policy be given. But under Jonathan who introduced the policy in 2012, as part of the strategies to discourage the diversion of funds meant for the federation account, a corrupting tendency that had assumed monstrous dimension by the time Jonathan exited the presidential office. The TSA under Jonathan was a dead horse, MDAs generally ignored Federal Government directives with much impunity that the policy soon became a fanciful term in public offices only understood by the then Finance Minister, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.

Today, however, the TSA has become a household name, apparently facilitated by the Buhari character. This is the difference between Buhari and Jonathan, the might of will power over compromise.

Niyi Akinsiju writes from Lagos and can be reached at niyiomoakin@yahoo.com