Go ahead, try stealing some gas!

Please don’t let the title of today’s chinwag by resident indulgees alarm you. I know they say you can scoop fuel, but even though gas is a type of fuel, you can’t scoop it up. And if you can’t scoop it, then it would be difficult for you to steal it. So, although this chinwag might sound funny, the truth is that we are always very serious at this indulgees’ Square Table, where we gather weekly to take a reflective look at ourselves, look at other people, and poke our noses into their businesses, as well as take a look at the society we all live in. Stealing gas is thus a serious matter. But when you bring such a matter before indulgees, we are able to see the funny side to it. After all, that’s what we do best, our ability sometimes too to indulge in self-deprecation! Don’t laugh because this is no laughing matter just yet!

Now, let’s see how serious it can get. In this past week, a very graphic, award-winning type of photograph was published in the general newspaper, The Guardian. The photo shows a hoard of people, our fellow citizens, in that type of forced procession, reminiscent of Vietnam, the genocidal war period in Rwanda, and the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It wasn’t funny seeing that picture, but I am sure that it reminded indulgees who like prophetic music of Bob Marley singing Exodus with the refrain, movement of Jah people. While in international conflict political discourse we would have been using the word refugees by now, these people are being called IDPs, internally-displaced people. They are our people, our fellow citizens. That photograph is a serious one and it represents the full impact of what is going on in a part of this country, hence the precarious situation that we are in!

Yet, while all this horror is happening out there, there is a monumental attempt at self-denial, acting as if all is normal. It is what indulgees like to see as the response to a crisis that looks so far away; not yet on our doorsteps! There is failure all round here – in particular, there is a great deal of citizens’ failing. The discourse is jaundiced, seriously so! In the north, the response by those who claim to know against what is happening is abysmally poor! The northern leadership is responding along political lines when they should be coming together, no matter the political party they belong to, to say that this is a consuming fire and it is consuming our people and could consume us as well. I find it difficult to understand why they won’t see that no matter what political party they belong to, that they and their people are being failed by leaders they have come to ally with just simply because of their political party affiliation.

The truth is that should this mayhem, this horror that is being unleashed on our northern brothers and sisters, extend its consumption down south – because as a jihadist movement to Islamise the entire country this appears to be the number one goal – there will be no political parties to be bigheaded about and continue to play partisanship with the lives of our people!

Now, it is this bigheadedness that you’ll see permeate the life of this country in almost everything. Now, this is expressed in human behaviours – at leadership levels. Some say corruption is the major roadblock that confronts this country and makes it not move forward. Yes, corruption plays a role. It’s dragged this country into a pit. But there is also the problem of lack of big ideas or having stunted big ideas, or having big ideas that you evilly know that you are not going to do anything about. For example – the fabled East-West Road that is supposed to run a beautiful coastal ring across a good number of South-south states. A forensic investigation of financial spend on that project is likely to show that the money that has gone out to line pockets is more likely to be why it has remained unfinished!

So, stealing is doing a lot of damage! You know it! I know it! Those who lead this country know it! But everybody continues to just help themselves; as a consequence we are elevating self-help to a height that makes it look good. The biggest casualties in all this are policy formulation and implementation. Those who know will tell you that there are small, small right things to do that are being failed by either personality clashes or ‘personality ability deficiency’. They will tell you that the right focus is not being paid to gas development in this country. And they are right.

Here’s why. Power supply is Nigeria’s major nightmare presently. Money has been literarily poured into it – money running into tens of billions of dollars. Yet, there has been no solution. Even after privatising power generation and distribution to a reasonable extent, we have found that there is a failing in gas supply. And the key reason for this is that those who should produce gas say the policy environment surrounding gas in this country is not good. Note that this is a country where there is more gas underneath its grounds than there is oil. Yet, it can’t seem to be able to get its act together. So what’s their bigheadedness about regarding gas?

Well, someone said the other day that the reason they are not keen to do something about gas is because gas cannot be stolen. They are stealing oil and a lot of the money that we are making from oil. It’s five years or more now since they have been subsidising the importation of petroleum products in a country that produces crude! Is this just about corruption? Or could it be the emptiness/lack of ideas? Or could it be that some souls have been sold to the devil and there seems to be no turning back?

For indulgees, the joke they see in this is that gas cannot be stolen. Can you imagine going to a gas field and attempting to steal it? How dangerous can that be? These leaders sure know where not to go! But here are some simple, straight-forward policy options that those in the know think can wring the changes to get our gas working for this country. (1) Hand out gas fields to private sector people to get them to add value to Nigerian lives; (2) Government should get out of ownership of these gas fields as it is failing to do anything meaningful with them; (3) Work on the fiscal terms to make involvement in gas production attractive to investors who can raise the funds to produce gas; (4) Work on a subsidy policy for gas to be used for domestic cooking. Enough said! Over to you government! Stop the stealing of oil, work on gas even if you can’t steal gas!

PHILLIP ISAKPA