Maybe the solution to our current energy crisis is for our billionaire pastorprueners to pool their resources and buy the NNPC converting it into the Anointing Oil Petroleum Company to augment the work of the Dangote Refinery

Ayo Akinfe

[1] Nigeria’s current inflation crisis has its roots in the scarcity of fuel. It is the high cost of petrol and diesel that created the current set of economic woes in the country and until we resolve that matter, the prices of essential food items in particular, will not go down

[2] We have had some joy with the opening of the Dangote Refinery but only half of the job is done. We still have chronic supply problems as the facility does not have access to 2.5m barrels of crude oil a day as used to be the case. That has been Nigeria’s Opec quota historically but today, output is only about half of that

[3] Due to supply problems, the Dangote Refinery is having to import crude oil from the US. To get round this problem over the long term, we need a local company that can guarantee the constant supply of cheap crude oil at competitive prices

[4] Now, Nigeria has three comatose oil refineries in Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna that are bleeding her dry. They are costing millions to maintain on a daily basis yet do not refine one barrel of oil. This nonsense must stop immediately

[5] In any sane society, by now, these refineries would have been sold off but alas, Nigeria just loves mediocrity. Our NNPC has proven to be one of the most inefficient and incompetent companies on planet earth and it is time to get rid of what is now an albatross around our collective necks. We are wasting money on them that should he spent on schools, healthcare, roads, housing, etc

[6] A first step towards the privatisation of the NNPC must be the sale of these three refineries. I would consider selling all three together as going concerns to one buyer and cannot think of a better purchaser than our rich pastorprueners. Nobody in Nigeria today has the deep pockets of the pastorprueners. They are sitting on billions of dollars of what is known in economics as dead capital

[7] Just imagine the likes of Oyedepo, Adeboye, Oyakhilome, Okotie, Oritsejsfor, Suleiman, Ashimolowo, Joshua, etc joining forces to float a conglomerate known as the Anointing Oil Petroleum Company and then purchasing these three refineries from the federal government in one go

[8] This holding company can raise up to $10bn on the international money markets, using about $3bn to purchase these three refineries and then maybe using another $6bn to refurbish them and bring them up to modern production standards

[9] What I have in mind is a Christian company run according to ethical principles like the Quaker Companies such as Kellogg’s, Cadbury’s, Rowntree, Barclays, Quaker Oats, etc. In every industrialised country in the West, religious finance was at the centre of industrial production and wealth creation

[10] I would like to see these general overseers constitute the board of directors and lay down firm ethical guidelines that would help eliminate corruption in the Nigerian oil industry. For instance, they should ban the payment of even $1 in petrol subsidies to anyone as that is by far the biggest source of corruption in Nigeria today. Their Christian company should also have exemplary guidelines when it comes to corporate social responsibility. For instance, there should be a set threshold of spending a minimum of say 10% of profits in any community where the conglomerate operates