 Welcome back, you're still watching the Breakfast on Plus TV Africa and now to our first major conversation. It's almost 48 hours after Q's resurface in Lagos and other parts of Nigeria and almost 48 hours after those Q's resurface a tweet by a federal government agency. A federal government regulatory body, the Nigerian midstream and downstream petroleum regulatory authority, gave fuel consumers in the country some clarity amidst what has been a chaotic and confusing few days for some and days of anguish for others who are still figuring out how to fix their broken down vehicles and who to hold responsible for the unexpected damage to their cars. Now the statement released by the authority which wasn't signed by anyone, provides some answers but leaves some serious questions unanswered especially as the NNPC limited of the company which has a sole right to import fuel or petrol into Nigeria was yet to make any statement about the situation the last time we checked. Now joining us to throw some light and to give us explanations and some analysis into the situation we have Mark Adebayo who is a public affairs analyst and also Nick Agoule. A gentleman thanks for joining us and welcome to the breakfast on plus TV Africa. What do you make of the statement put out by the national Nigerian midstream and downstream petroleum regulatory agency I think we all try to get used to that name following the amalgamation of three agencies the DPR the PPPR and the other one. What do you make of that statement put out by by this authority this agency. Let's start with you Mr. Adebayo. Okay, thank you so much. You see the Nigerian midstream and downstream petroleum regulatory agency and the NNPC and the agencies that are connected with petroleum and petroleum products in Nigeria wrong with a lot of opignance in their system and so nobody can tell when what is true what is not what is fabricated what is factual so it does a lot of opignance in the particular industry in Nigeria and the earlier that is the better. The major problem we have for instance now you can see that NATO the National Association of Road Transport owners are trying to claim over 45 million in region cops. We seem to be having some issues with Mr. Adebayo as a natural connection we apologize for that but Mr. Guli are you there please? All right we'll try to reconnect it to Mark Adebayo. Mark Adebayo can you hear us? Okay you have to unmute your your microphone so we can hear you. Can you please do that? Not a problem at all. So yes you have given us your own your own take on the statement by the NMDP RA so you can continue sir. Amit, clear that between February between December 2021 and February this year the federal government has paid the total of 82.7 billionaires as bridging cost so now that's a lot of opignance. Now the issue here is that who relates who monitors this bridging cost how they may be claims how they are to the fact that they were paid 52.7 billion between December and now and now that's a claim that they have been owed 45 billion so that's a lot of opignance and then the Nigeria masses are the victims of this opignance and this is the reality of the part of the regulatory agencies and of course the government itself so we have to deal with that issue and one of the major problems that we have is that there is no punishment for criminal indiscretion in this country. How can anyone bring into the country petroleum products that are high in metal and ethanol in content and who have been arrested? Like you said the NMDP is giving quiet, if your argument is to be quiet there are claims and counter-claims that's not what we are looking at. This biting of petroleum products is skyrocketing. His father was named the village storage of the country and he came into the pockets of the agmas and that is where we should look into. I cannot explain why he got me into this. Right now I believe that whoever was responsible of bringing in high content and ethanol into the country by now should be clean in the church. Somebody must pay for this but as in Nigeria's situation it will just go like that and nobody will pay for it. Who is going to pay for all those NG's that have been knocked? Who is going to pay for people getting laid to work? Who is going to pay for people not being able to carry the aglombs to the hospital? Mr. DeBio, thank you very much. Interesting you've pointed out who's going to pay and asking some important questions. Nika Gule, this press released by the Nigeria mainstream and downstream petroleum regulatory authority which is a regulatory agency in that sector gives some, like we said in the intro, some answers but leaves some questions unanswered. For instance, it's not even apologised to Nigerians at all. There's no apology in this statement and we're not even told the quantity. We're having some noise in the background so please if there's anything on your system kindly please attend to it sir. Thank you but we're not even told the quantity or the quantum of petrol or fuel that is affected so people can have a better understanding of the situation. From our sources we're hearing things like 80 million litres, we're hearing things like 100 million litres and there's a lot of speculation going around. So what do you make of this statement? The fact that they said limited quantity of premium motor spirit, limited without giving a specific amount of the quantity, a specific number of figures of the quantity rather of the bad or dirty fuel. Thank you very much. Before I answer your question I want to say that this situation that we face now on Fusca City because of bad petrol imported into Nigeria is very shameful. Shameful in the sense that we are an oil producing country and as an oil producing country we should be refining our crude oil and turning it into petroleum products. We rely on other countries to refine our own crude oil and send it back to us. Have we considered national security? In a situation where politics of the world we make those countries to refuse to refine our petroleum products. What are we going to do? You know so these are the kind of things that you know as Nigeria we're doing that are very shameful and the international community will laugh at us because they're the only oil producing country in the whole world that is doing this kind of shameful act of sending our crude and letting other people import it for us, I mean to refine it for us. However, if there is shipping blockade and ships are not able to move around, just to make a mistake about when COVID came and flights were grounded globally, if we have an easy day like that that affects shipping, how is Nigeria going to survive as a country? Since we don't have capacity, we have the capacity but we simply don't want to refine our crude oil. So these are the things that Nigeria's are fighting against. Now coming to the question, it is also very sad that the people who are in government look at us as their servants and they are the masters and that is completely wrong. We are citizens of Nigeria and the masters we want this country. The people we have either elected or contributed to government and our servants and they owe us a duty to report to us accurately about what is happening in government. Imagine a servant refusing to report to his master. That is sacrilege and that's what we are facing here. Nobody knows about the quantity of crude oil that we are consuming in Nigeria. Nobody even knows the landing cost of this product. All these things are stranded in secrecy. They are black boxes and time has come for us as Nigeria's to begin to hold to account those that we have elected and those that have been appointed into government to cling to us on this because I don't even believe that the quantity of their concentrated product is as low as 100 million liters they are talking about. If it was, then 100 million liters is only about a day's consumption of petrol in Nigeria. If 100 million is aborted it shouldn't impact on the whole nation and start causing fuel scarcity in inland cities like Abuja because it will take many days for fuel to get to Abuja. So if it is just one day's consumption that is not written and was recalled how would there then be fuel scarcity in Abuja? So there's a lot that we are going to be told and we demand that the government must be very open and transparent to us. Okay so let's also bring in Mark Daybayo at this point in time. Mark, so a lot of persons woke up you know in different parts of the country. Lagos, Abuja and what have you, I mean to the fact that you know petrol stations are not selling the products you could find the queues everywhere. Now the government is saying that they are not deregulating and so what could be responsible because from what we see it feels like the petrol stations are actually hoarding the product and so what is really responsible for this action? If government is not deregulating why have the products been you know hoarded? Apart from the fact that the excuse that's made is that you have adulterated product and if you have adulterated product then it would mean that the people didn't know that this product are adulterated. Would that be the reason for you know the queues that we have which has actually resulted to not making the product available? Well the simple answer is that those who are responsible for making petroleum products are fairly good to my experience are irresponsible because they are not doing their job well. I am waiting to see who and who will be punished for bringing petroleum products at a high, high quantity of metal and metal into the country. So the energy they are making is not talking to us, it's not communicating. They are not talking to us, they are not giving us the reason why these things are happening. I mean now multi billion dollars amount of energy that's where we are supported with the country. Now at the cost to the taxpayers of Nigeria and at the cost to motorists and commuters you know who are either paying for knockdown engines or people who are missing their flights, people who are missing their interface, people who are getting to job needs and need fire and all those things. So the people who are responsible for making these products are feeling, are you responsible with your responsibilities and that is why we are where we are. And if you operate a system that does not punish criminal investigations and this is the kind of thing that you are, who are the people who are responsible? And this direct question, the DLDP initiative of the NLDP always seems not to be working. The problems of people are trying to sabotage so that they can go back into paying people every day to import fuel into the country. We have seen not being told why our finality are not working. Look at the cabinet finality that has not produced a liter of fuel in the last five years. But people are here drawing salaries, billions of liras worth of salaries every month. You know you begin to wonder what kind of country is that, that people earn money for doing nothing, for producing nothing. We should just forget that we have finaries, we should just slow down those things and let the workers go and find something else to do. Yes, of course, this is not the problem of the labor unions. But I mean, is it even morally correct for people to be drawing salaries for doing nothing? The finaries are not working. Why do we have refinery workers to doing nothing and collecting billions of liras worth of salary every month? Is it this openness in the body of your children? Unfortunately, why would I do that? I'm sorry to interject at this point. I'm still trying to understand and I'm sure that a lot of Nigerians are also trying to understand why we have, you know, this product not being available. Even though the NMPC has also come out to make a statement that yes, they're ensuring that the supply gets across and the government has admitted that yes, adulterated products were actually pumped into the market. They found that in the value, I mean, the chain of supply. So but what is, is it that it's because of the work experience in the scarcity? Because up until this morning in Lagos, you still have the queues, the queues have not ceased. And so what could be responsible for this hoarding or the product not being available? Because some people will think that petrol stations are just holding the product is what a lot of Nigerians are trying to understand. Well, you know, we have successive governments, they have ready made nebulas and answers to certain questions. You just give excuses that are absolutely unreasonable, that you cannot connect with the reality on ground. And that's what we are having. You are claiming that, you know, you are claiming responsibility because of their responsibility. They are claiming that they imported petrol and let that go into the country in the name of PMS, Pertrubian premium motor spring into the country. So the government has confirmed by itself that it brought in harmful products into the country for its citizens to use. So who is going, who is, somebody must go in for that. You know, is there this style that irresponsible in Senate claims, you know, people who have resigned by now, the minister of petroleum resources, who is the president himself, and the minister of state for petroleum resources. So this book should have resigned by now, and the other NDPR will see you, you have gone by now, you know. So, I mean, because they are responsible, they are the managers of our petroleum resources. So, and they are responsible for bringing in etalon and metalon into the country, that is, they are not claiming as a excuse. They are, I mean, in a sense, the government is blaming itself for this artificial scarcity. And you know, somebody somewhere wanted to make money, just like in the days of President Zagari, when sand was being imported into the country in the name of fertilizer, sand. People, people brought sand into Nigeria, imported sand into Nigeria, sand, and he claimed it was fertilizer and it was discovered and nobody wanted to eat. Is something else happening? Yes, just to follow up and start to interrupt you, my findings indicate that, you know, this is not the first time this is happening in Nigeria. And for those who are watching us who live in Lagos, they may remember that in 2008, we had the same problem. At that time, the NNPC was not the sole importer of fuel into the country. And a company called Oando, Oando was one of the importers of petrol into the country. There were issues with the fuel that Oando was bringing to the country. People complained that their engines were knocking, as we say, in Nigeria. And Oando put out a statement basically saying he regretted the situation and they went down to explain in detail what happened. That a particular Swiss, though it was called a Dutch company, but a particular Swiss company who I will mention now, was a supplier of that consignment to them. 33,000 metric tons of gasoline. And that was faulty. They said that at the time that the product went through the laid down procedures of the Nigerian regulatory system, which was handled by DPR to check whether it was fit for consumption and whether the certificate of fitness, as given at the point of origin, whether it met up to that standard that was on that certificate. Sir, in that 2008, Oando in that statement said they were going to sue this Swiss company. And of course the DPR made a statement saying that Nigerians were free to claim damages, but they would have to verify each claim. The House of Representatives invited the DG of the DPR for hearing and questioned him. And he said that they did not have the facilities in their laboratory to check for ethanol, as it was in that particular case, because it wasn't part of what the specification was for Nigerian premium motor spirit. Fast forward to 2022. We're still talking about this. The DPR is no more. After that hearing by the House of Representatives, this particular company was barred from doing business in Nigeria, because obviously they brought into the country this petrol that was of specification of the grade that Nigeria deserves or requires. Now, this company is part of the 15 companies that were given, were named by the NNPC and Melakari to be part of those to partake and approve to partake in the DSDP arrangement. This particular company that was barred by the Nigerian government from 2008 a part of those. And my findings indicate that there's a history of corruption, sir, of crime with certain companies, four or five Swiss companies that have been flagged by the Swiss government that have had to pay fines. This particular company paid a fine of $100 million to the Swiss government because it was fingered in a corruption in Ivory Coast and in Congo. And these companies, for my findings, have continued to play in the oil and gas industry in the petroleum downstream sector and midstream sector in Nigeria through corrupt deals. Four of them, four out of five Swiss companies are part of those who are named or who are given these DSDP contracts. And the UK petroleum regulator calls them the unknown knowns or the known unknown. So they have issues surrounding them. What do you say to this? The fact that we have these companies who are part of the DSDP arrangement, it's on record and investigations have been done that reveal that these companies are known to mix or blend the petrol they sent to West Africa just so that it can be economized and they can make more money off it. And there are cases in point in Ivory Coast where a company called Trafigula or something dumped what you call waste and dirty petrol. And these are the companies that the Nigerian government is doing business with. Methanol, it's not true what the NMDP IRA is saying, sir, is that this product is regularly used in petrol. That's a lie. It's used in order to reduce the harmful greenhouse gas effects of the fuel or to economize it, to make it more. But it's not used all the time. So that's a lie from a government agency. What do you say to this, sir? Exactly. Well, substantially you have answered your question by yourself. But the thing is that all of your experience is an interconnectivity of institutionalized corruption, you know, as a matter of a local and international interconnectivity of institutionalized corruption. Because like you guys like. So the corrupt elements within the NMDP IRA, which is a successor to the PPP IRA, you know, who look for people that can do business with too much to maximize the profits, which is in this seat, in this property for themselves, and the expense of Nigeria, who will be suffering the effect of this corruption. And because we have not been able to develop a template for punishing corruption swiftly and aggressively, people continue to engage in the corruption. One will have thought, actually, sincerely, that the current government will have thought corruption had done, especially at the federal control sector, you know, whether upstream, downstream or midstream, you know, front and end. And I was happy when the president confirmed himself as the president of, I mean, as the minister of political conduct, I believe that the things will go better. But this amount is not going, it needs to fire people. It needs to fire people. Whoever, no matter the number of people are responsible for this terrible situation that we are passing through. It has to fire people. It has to hold people responsible. That is when he himself will not be held responsible for this tragedy we are going through. Currently in Nigeria, if you must move around, you have to buy at the black market, or you want to kill for like 10 hours, or sleep at the finish station overnight. That is what we are going to happen to you. And that has been going on for almost two weeks now here in Nigeria. So if we don't hold people responsible for corruption and incompetency and deliberate act of, this is deliberate act of economic sabotage. People have to, the heads have to vote for it. But unfortunately in Nigeria, what we consider a necessary legion before when we commit crimes and we vote for this day is quite unfortunate. All right, Nick. Nika, Julie, what do you take of, make of this discovery that companies that have been barred by the Nigerian government for doing this same thing as Fabakas 2008 have been brought in again by this administration in giving contracts to supply fuel. And we've seen the situation again. Well, for so long as, as Nigeria, we have refused to enforce the law. We have refused to vote people to account. We have refused to use the executive powers that are handed to political leaders to run the country to make people to behave where we're going to continue to have these kind of issues. I agree very 100% with my co-panelist Mr. DeBio that if it was a center climate, what has happened, the misery and pains that Nigerians have been unnecessary to put through has been a road already. Is it that people responsible should have, by now, honorably reside or falls into resignation and even criminal charges could have been pressed. In fact, if it was elsewhere, you will have class cases now where motorists who have so far lost his either by broken down vehicles or their shadows as, you know, disrupted would have come together to sue those who are responsible for this kind of thing. So in Nigeria, we, we don't know how to do this things. You know, people just behave anyhow, do anyhow. I mean, yesterday I was, I was watching a, you know, a senator on TV. This man was responsible for the death of many people in the national stadium in Abuja, whilst he was a minister of internal affairs. Now he's a senator of the federal government. So these are the kind of things that were, that firstly in Nigeria, but let me say one thing, everywhere in the world, it is the people that hold leaders to account that makes them to behave well. In Nigeria, we sit those side, we receive all the punches from the people we have elected and appointed into government, not really about it. So Nika Gulay, I have a speech to you today. Yes. I'm really sorry to interject and that's because we're really out of time. Now, one would be thinking, because we remember in December, sometime where Lagos experienced some pipeline explosion, and then NMPC came out to say with her, of course you have a representative spokesperson for Kaari saying the pipeline explosion would not disturb and disrupt, you know, the supply of petrol products, however. And there are a lot of thoughts surrounding whether maybe that could also be an issue with the explosion over pipelines. But, you know, that's on the one hand. But as we cost it down, just in a few seconds, I'd like you to share your thought. What is the way forward of all of this? The queues are still here. It therefore means that the products are very scarce. Although you have the NMPC, the government saying we are ensuring that there's a lot of supplies. And so, you know, but this is just, you know, on the papers, because in its real sense, the product is not available. So in just a few sentences, what would be the way out of all of this right now? It's quite a difficult time for Nigeria. Like you had mentioned, inflation is also here. And I would also like Mark also, a day by, to also respond. Just in a few seconds, what's the way out? For me, in the short term, the NMPC now needs to work 24-7 to increase supply all over the nation at the scarcity goals. In the medium term, the NMPC or the Nigerian government should allow other people to also import petrol. Why would NMPC be the sole monopoly of imported petrol? And of course, for the long term, our refineries need to work. This is a commitment that this current government made to us. All right. Let's have Mark also share his thoughts on that. What do you think would be the way forward? We're still experiencing what it is despite government statement and efforts saying we're making this product available, but you can see in Lagos that the product is not here. The immediate response I want now is that I want to see those who brought metal oil and ethanol into the country. I want to see them in handcuffs. I want to see them in court. I want to see the fire. I want to see people responsible for this terrible situation. And of course, whatever we are going to do, whatever is going to cause us, we need to get our refineries working. And we need whoever is going to be President of 2023 must be first, not only promises, but how is going to get these refineries working until our refineries begin to work again. This is a decision we continue to do itself. And we just have to get our refineries working. That's what I think is the long-term solution to this. For now, the government has to do whatever they have to do to ensure that the products are, the properties are filling for NGNAT. But however they're going to do it, that's their problem because I'm going to do it and let us off this territory to solve it. All right. We have to go. Thank you very much, Nika, Julie, as a public affairs analyst, also Maka Debayo, a public affairs analyst. Gentlemen, thank you so much for your time and your expert analysis. Thank you. Thank you for everything. Thank you very much. I have a nice day. Thank you. You too. Merci. It's a very, very sensitive issue. And I do hope that we can get to the bottom of this. I do hope that Nigerians actually get, you know, it's been very difficult. The cost of transportation is on the highest we speak right now. And we're just hoping that beyond the statement that's been put out by government, there will be actual supply of this product. While we step on the brakes right now, when we return, we'll be looking at ASUS strike in Nigeria and the implications for the educational sector. What is the way forward for the Nigerian student? Please stay with us. We'll be right back.