Beyond that book entitled: ‘The Presidential Courage,’ written by Michael Beschloss and published in the United States of America in 2007, the concept of courage of Presidents and Prime Ministers as the case may be is fast becoming a key component of contemporary leadership studies. George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Harry Truman, John F Kennedy and Ronald Regan were among the exemplars mentioned by Beschloss for courageous decisions, even when such decisions were harmful to their political careers.
Fuel subsidy that was introduced about fifty years ago with the goal of cushioning the impact of the rising fuel prices in Nigeria, later turned into a monstrous thorn on the economy. There was so much oil at that time, and domestic consumption was presumably low. It also exposes the short-sightedness of the military administrations of that time. As the oil subsidy grew in size and complications, it signalled the birth of an atrocious corruption cartel. Successive administrations have groped around it without hope. International bodies and western countries persistently cautioned against subsidizing petroleum products, which they claimed was a misdirected economic policy. The Nigerian government later found itself subsidizing fuel for many West African countries and even beyond. International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned that the economic policy was not sustainable. But successive presidents feared the subject for fear of public outrage or the horror of losing re-elections. Rather, they opted to live with it. At least one sitting president lost his re-election bid after retreating in his avowed war against the oil cartel.
Up till May 2023, oil subsidy cost taxpayers a whooping 10 billion dollars every month to sustain. During the twilight of the last administration, Nigeria almost got evaporated, at least economically, because of the intense borrowing to stay afloat. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in his inaugural speech on May 29, 2023, punctured the dreadful oil subsidy with a historic shot; “subsidy is gone!” Even the cabals were caught napping. His critics suggested he could have done better by regimenting the removal. They clearly underrated the power of the cartel called oil subsidy thieves.
Presidential courage comes with uncommon boldness; the kind that inspires citizens. As soon as Tinubu made that surprise proclamation, the more discerning citizens got inspired and tightened their belts in readiness for the bitter pill of fuel increase. They probably trusted him that there will be light at the end of the tunnel. Manifestly, in less than six months of the administration, local production of petroleum products has resumed. Dangote refinery has so far received six million barrels of crude oil at its two Single Point Mooring (SPM) facility within one month. The first crude delivery was done on December 12, 2023, while the 6th cargo arrived on January 8, 2024. Port Harcourt refinery, formerly a notorious case study for corruption, has also bounced back. There is hope that the Warri and Kaduna refineries would soon start production, and there are no more lamentations from the operators of modular refineries.
Oil experts have maintained that the prospects of refining crude petroleum locally would catapult the nation into a new level of prosperity and development. Momoh Oyarekhua, leader of the modular refinery operators in Nigeria, stated that the rising inflation was a consequence of doing oil deals in dollars. He maintained that if NNPCL sells crude in naira denomination to local refineries (Dangote, Modular operators, and others), inflation would fall speedily. There is need therefore to encourage more investors into the local production. Dangote refinery costs about 20 billion dollars to build while modular refinery takes about 2 million dollars or less to install. Modular refineries are built to produce kerosene, diesel, naphtha, and heavy fuel oil, though naphtha can also be treated as PMS. They can also be enabled with additional reforming machines to produce PMS directly. Nigeria, therefore, needs more of them to meet local consumption while Dangote and the big conventional refineries can produce for export to generate enough foreign exchange to grow the economy. And because modular refineries are usually sited on land, near well-heads, the cost of transportation through pipelines and vessels are often eliminated. There are hundreds of oil-heads across onshore Nigeria.
The idea of modular refinery was first mooted by Goodluck Jonathan to replace the illegal bush refining called ‘kpo’ in the creeks of Niger Delta. The idea crawled through the eight-year administration of President Buhari. With over 100 modular licenses issued to potential investors, Nigeria may just be entering a new frontier of economic growth under the Tinubu administration. Transfer of technical knowledge comes with local refining, and so Nigeria may soon be totally dependent on local expertise in the petroleum sector. This hope was escalated a few days ago when the industry giant, Shell Petroleum Development Company, announced the sale of all its onshore assets to Renaissance; a consortium of local firms.
As President Tinubu delivers the oil sector from crumbling, his courage will also be required to, among others; deal with insurgency and bring their sponsors to justice, fight corruption by strengthening government institutions and restore hope to the education sector. The closure of the nation’s porous borders will curb insurgency tremendously. The presidential handling of the corruption scandal at the Humanitarian Affairs ministry is a body language that the EFCC, ICPC, Police and other security agencies must take away proportionately; no more sacred cows. President Tinubu has vowed that there won’t be an ASUU strike under his watch. Last week, N683 billion was released to public tertiary institutions nationwide as part of the administration’s funding of tertiary education. Presidential courage is as vital as the peoples’ support for any administration to succeed. Such interface helps citizens to set agenda for good governance.
● Dr. Ikpasaja teaches Leadership Studies at the University of Abuja.
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