THE ROCKEFELLER IN DANGOTE AND THE GOAL OF GOING FOR GOLD
By Bala Ibrahim
The topic on the tongue of every Nigerian today is hardship. Hardship occasioned by hard, or harsh policies, as advanced by some. Whichever way we look at it, Nigerians are screaming, and the scream is coming from every segment of the society. For the best part of yesterday, my heart was beating with abnormality, and everything in me was reflecting on that danger sign you see in the House of horror, depicting a skull-and-crossbones symbol.Wherever you see that warning sign, consisting of a human skull and two bones crossed together, just know that death may be lurking behind the corner, and so be ready to activate your survival kit, or survival kits, if you are fortunate enough to have more than one.
The situation of Nigeria yesterday, and even today, seems like a signal to the rescuers, for assistance in finding the way back to the help for health, healthy living. Everyone was talking about the pump price of petrol, and the consequential effect it would bring to the Nigerian citizens. Yes, the average price of petrol per litre now is around N1,000 .
Two distinctive things happened yesterday. The first can be called relatively palatable, while the second is clearly unpalatable. The palatable was the commencement of operations by the Dangote refinery, which announced that, effective from that yesterday, it would strive to be supplying a total of 25 million litres of petrol to the Nigerian market, daily. According to the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, NMDPRA, that figure would rise to 30 million litres later in the month, this month of September. The NMDPRA said it met with the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited to agree on local crude supply to the Dangote refinery. With that piece of information, and the pomp and pageantry that followed the launching of the petrol production by the refinery yesterday, Nigerians were expectedly excited, because the assumption is that, the ghost of fuel scarcity is sighted for slaughter. But the reverse was the case almost immediately. Petrol price jumped up.
Speculations became widespread everywhere, to the effect that the Government has officially announced an upward review of the pump price of petrol, nationwide. People were calling me left, right and centre, asking for the true position of things. I had to do a re-check on my self, to confirm that I have not been unknowingly assigned the responsibility of being the spokesman of the NNPC Plc, or whatever the company’s name is. When I became convinced, or rather confused, that indeed I am not, I commenced replying with an, “I doubt it” response.
Later in the day, perhaps, after being inundated with similar questions, a rebuttal came out from the company. But the rebuttal only succeeded in compounding the situation, because terrible and terrifying news began to circulate on the social media, in some cases, with pump price pictures, showing an “un-Islamic” increase in the price of petrol, at the fuelling stations. Baffled by the unexplained action, the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, was quick to issue a statement, signed by the NLC President, Joe Ajaero, saying the action of the federal government was a betrayal. “We are filled with a deep sense of betrayal as the federal government clandestinely increases the pump price of PMS. One of the reasons for accepting N70,000 as national minimum wage was the understanding that the pump price of PMS would not be increased even as we knew that N70,000 was not sufficient”-Ajaero.
The NLC said it would meet in earnest, to take a decision on the way forward. My fear was amplified when I came out on the streets, as everywhere was filled with people struggling to catch commercial vehicles. The roads were literally empty, because of the sudden surge in fuel price, and it’s evident scarcity. My heart was panting as I drove home, because the anger on the faces of people was signalling danger, real danger that reads like- Those of you with cars are the real enemies. But we are not. We are equally disturbed. The enemy is capitalism, which is an economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit. Capitalism says, the primary purpose of a business is to maximize profits for its owners or stakeholders while maintaining corporate social responsibility. Capitalism has no sympathy or human perspective for patriotism. It is simply a friend of profit, and has no regards to the feelings of the people, the consumer.
Driven by capitalism, and certainly the motive of profit, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, hitherto a state oil company, had it’s status changed in July 2022, from a limited liability company NNPC Limited, to the only entity licensed to operate in the country’s petroleum industry, for the purpose of making profit. Although it’s still a fully-owned government company, by the definition of transformation, it ought to be acting profitably. If it would make profit, it is expected to be acting differently by rendering the requisite service of a profit making venture. From its actions, and the comments coming from its operators, the ambition of the transformation is being achieved in the reverse. Which means, the goal of going for gold is a gimmick that has since gone.
And that brings me to the place of Alhaji Aliko Dangote, the promoter of the Dangote refinery, and I want to juxtapose his position to that of the famous Rockefeller, who founded the Standard Oil Company, which dominated the oil industry, and was the first great American business trust. Although Rockefeller later in life turned his attention to charity, he raised his oil business to near monopoly. Driven by the motive of profit, Rockefeller’s five oil companies dominated the oil business in the US and some parts of the world, merged with some companies to form the seven sisters, where they continued with their monopoly, until the arrival of OPEC, which came as a checkmate to their monopoly in 1973.
Is Dangote going to go that way? Well, everyone knows that the company is registered as a business venture and not an NGO. He has a goal. And I believe he has chosen to go for gold. If the state owned NNPC can not be that patriotic, by crashing the price of petrol, it would be naive to expect that particular patriotism from Dangote.
Yes, like the advert of Harrods, the British luxury department store, located in the highbrow Knightsbridge, petrol in Nigeria is now , “For more than money can buy”.
THE ROCKEFELLER IN DANGOTE AND THE GOAL OF GOING FOR GOLD