Ogun Waterside: Path to political recovery

We are the makers of our own history, we have a statutory right to make a choice, it is however necessary to select the platform and purpose of which we make a choice today that becomes history tomorrow.

Firstly, let me apologize to APC leaders in Ogun Waterside, for making open this message which would have otherwise, be private and enclosed. But the ongoing events and our preparation for the forthcoming statewide local government election dictates my choice of bringing the message to public domain.

Ogun Waterside local government has ten electoral wards, eight of these wards are predominantly occupied by the indigenous owners, the Ijebus, while the remaining two wards accommodate the Ikale & Ilaje

Election is a game of number, In any election, majority dictate the space, this of course, has always been the case in all past elections held in the local government area. Past records of elections in Ogun waterside has always seen Ijebu, the rightful owners of the land producing chairman, while the position of vice chairman or SLG is ceded to Ikale & Ilaje for sense of belonging.
This political arrangement has always produced good result.
As the selection process for a candidate as the chairman of the local government commences, it is necessary to advise our political leaders in all the political parties in the waterside to promptly give consideration to the owners of the land.
The holy book, the Bible, says “love your neighbours as yourself”; we should ask ourselves what we stand to gain if we unconsciously commit our land and the administration of our valuable resources in the hands of co-inhabitants who migrated from Ondo State.
Ogun Waterside Local Government is blessed with great and mighty men and women. We cannot afford to trade off our tomorrow in exchange for a plate of porridge.
The number of residents and inhabitants of the two wards in Ikale & Ilaje areas, if put together, cannot match a ward in the areas occupied by the Ijebu.
As much as we recognize the constitutional and minority rights of our neighbours, the Ikale and Ilaje in Ogun Waterside, we should not also forget the indigenes’ rights of the owners, the Ijebu.
Therefore, it is morally justified if leaders of APC in the waterside urgently consider the danger of returning the local government to the opposition.
Giving the chairmanship ticket to a non-indigene of the local government is like imposing the co-inhabitants over the rightful owners. The consequence will be too grievous.

The people in the local government have made a choice, our leaders, the custodians of our cherished culture, our traditional rulers must do the right thing today that will justify our existence tomorrow.
The will of the masses must be respected.

Signed:

*Deacon Obatungashe I. Adebayo*
Waterside Vanguard.

Why only Nigerians call petrol PMS – Farooq Kperogi

I am taking a break from political commentary to everyday language usage this week. A few weeks ago, a British journalist who writes about oil and gas wrote to thank me for past articles I wrote that explained why Nigerians call “petrol” “Premium Motor Spirit.”

“While I have always assumed PMS meant petrol I never knew exactly why this term was so widespread in Nigeria!” he wrote. This email inspired me to republish parts of what I wrote about this.

There is a widespread misconception in Nigerian journalistic circles that “premium motor spirit” is the proper name for petrol, and this misconception appears to be percolating into wider popular usage.

Almost without exception, Nigerian newspapers refer to petrol as “premium motor spirit” or PMS. In fact, “petrol” is typically represented as the alias of “premium motor spirit.” In other words, Nigerian newspapers mislead their readers into thinking that everyone in the English-speaking world recognizes “premium motor spirit” as the real name for “petrol.”

Take, for instance, this 2017 lead from one of Nigeria’s best-edited online newspapers: “Premium Motor Spirit, otherwise known as petrol, is selling at N500 per litre in the black market in Kaduna State as government began enforcement of ban on sale of petroleum products in jerry cans.”

Almost all Nigerian newspapers feel the need to refer to petrol as “premium motor spirit” and to signal that the rest of us linguistically unwashed plebeians call it “petrol.” It never ceases to provoke loud hearty laughter in me each time I read it. It’s my go-to linguistic comic relief.

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Well, only Nigerian newspapers, and the people who are influenced by them, call petrol “premium motor spirit.” It’s an entirely meaningless phrase to native English speakers in America, Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. It also makes no sense to English speakers in India, Pakistan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and other Commonwealth countries where English is spoken as a second language.

In 2012, I asked several of my American friends, colleagues, and students what the phrase “premium motor spirit” evoked in them. They all said they had never encountered the phrase and had no clue what it meant.

I searched the 520-million-word Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) to see if any American English speaker has ever used the term. I got no matching record. I also searched the 400-million-word Corpus of Historical American English (COHA) to find out if any American ever used the expression between 1810 and 2009. Again, no luck.

I thought, perhaps, the phrase would be familiar to British English speakers, so I searched the British National Corpus to see if there is any record of its use in British English. I had no luck, either.

Finally, I searched the 1.9-billion-word Corpus of Global Web-Based English, which indexes English usage in 20 different English-speaking countries. I had some luck this time around. I got 53 matches. But of the 53 matches for “premium motor spirit” that turned up in the database, 49 came from Nigerian English users, 3 from Ghanaian English users, and 1 from a Kenyan newspaper.

When I followed the link to the Ghanaian sites that used “premium motor spirit,” I found that the writers were Nigerians who were based in Ghana. The fact that Kenya is the only other country where “premium motor spirit” was used, even if only once, as an alternative name for “petrol” alerted me to the fact that the word probably has British English roots.

Origins of “Motor Spirit”
My hunch was right. Although the term enjoys no currency in contemporary British English (as evidenced from its complete absence from the British National Corpus), it actually started life in Britain some 200 years ago.

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Carless, Capel & Leonard (now renamed Petrochem Carless Ltd), one of Britain’s first oil companies, was the first to use the term “petrol” in English, in 1870, to refer to refined petroleum products, which weren’t used to power cars at the time.

By the 1930s when petrol became the fuel used in internal combustion engines, Carless, Capel & Leonard applied to trademark “petrol” so that the company’s competitors (who frequently used the term “motor spirit” to refer to their product) won’t be able to call their product “petrol.”

But the application was denied because the use of “petrol” to refer to refined petroleum products, derived from the French petrole (ultimately from Medieval Latin petroleum, which literally means “rock oil,” from the Latin petra, which means rock or stone, and oleum, which means oil) had become widespread by the 1930s in Britain.

With the denial of Carless, Capel & Leonard’s application to trademark “petrol,” other British companies that had referred to their product as “motor spirit” freely adopted “petrol” as the name of choice for their product, and “motor spirit” fell into disuse.

“Premium” wasn’t an invariable lexical component of the name. The “premium” in the name refers to the grade of the product. There are three major grades of petrol in the UK: “ordinary unleaded,” “premium or super unleaded,” and “leaded four star.”

In the US, petrol, which is called gasoline (or gas for short), has the following grades: “Regular,” “Mid-grade or Plus,” and “Premium.”

Saudi Arabia has “premium” and “super premium” grades of petrol. Many other countries have several names for different grades of petrol.

So “premium” is one of at least three adjectives that could modify “motor spirit” when “motor spirit” enjoyed currency in Britain. There could conceivably have existed “ordinary unleaded motor spirit” or “leaded four star motor spirit”—or whatever names existed at the time for grades of motor spirit in Britain.

In other words, calling petrol “premium motor spirit” is the same thing as calling petrol “premium petrol” now, even though there are other grades of the product.

Interestingly, Nigeria is one of only a few countries in the world where petrol is ungraded. Maybe that is why our journalists assume that every petrol is of a premium grade and therefore call petrol “premium motor spirit” (never mind that “motor spirit” is obsolete).

Premium Motor Spirit a Scientific Name?
A few people have asked me if “premium motor spirit” is perhaps the scientific name for petrol since Nigerian oil industry experts, including academic researchers in petroleum studies, liberally use it. No, it’s not. There isn’t one specific scientific name for petrol.

As I said earlier, “motor spirit” is the archaic British English name for petrol, and “premium” indicates the grade of the “motor spirit.” Today, most British speakers have no idea what “motor spirit” means and would be even more puzzled by the permanent modification of the term with “premium.”

It’s mystifying that Nigerian journalists—and Nigerian academics— are about the only people who are still wedded to a phrase that died in Britain in the 1930s.

Note that different countries have different names for petrol. Most people know that Americans and Canadians call it gasoline. Germans and people who are influenced by German linguistic traditions call it “benzin,” which is derived from “benzene,” a constituent part of petrol. The French from whom the British borrowed “petrol,” now call it “essence.” Spanish-speaking people call it “gasolina.”

I also find it intriguing that Nigerians use the American English “kerosene” instead of the British English “paraffin” as the term of choice for lamp oil.

Maybe Nigeria should formally adopt “motor spirit” as its national name for petrol. After all, petrol is the “spirit” that moves “motors,” which is the alternative name for vehicles in British and Nigerian English.

Why only Nigerians call petrol PMS – Farooq Kperogi

Farooq Kperogi is a renowned newspaper columnist and United States-based Professor of journalism.

Mystery of Dangote Refinery in Nigerian oil politics – Farooq Kperogi

Many Nigerians invested hopes in the Dangote Refinery and thought it would bring stability to Nigeria’s chaotic petroleum industry. But on the cusp of its coming on stream, it began to be dogged by regulatory and other kinds of puzzling troubles from the Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration.

Why is a refinery that is supposed to be a shining light of domestic investment stymied by needless state-sanctioned controversies?

We sought answers to our question on August 31 during an impassioned and insightful two-hour discussion in the third edition of the Diaspora Dialogues, a monthly discussion show organized by Dr. Osmund Agbo, Professor Moses Ochonu, and I, which attracted scores of attendees.

My colleagues and I are by no means experts in the oil industry. That was why Professor Ochonu, who anchored the discussion, first did extensive documentary research to establish the background to the issue and later invited contributions from the audience. Although more than 10,000 people watched the discussion from my Facebook livestream, our Zoom could only contain 100 people at a time.

In response to multiple requests from people who missed the show, I offer a summary of the conversation in this week’s column in light of the continuing centrality of the issues we discussed, especially as Nigeria grapples with yet any steep petrol price hike amid availability struggles in spite of the coming on stream of the Dangote Refinery.

The Dangote Refinery began test production this week and was, according to Aliko Dangote, ready to roll out its petrol right way, but it still faced the challenge of securing enough crude locally to feed its 650,000-barrels-per-day-capacity refinery.

Prof. Ochonu, in his background to the issues, pointed out that one or more possibilities could explain why the Dangote Refinery was stuck in prolonged gestation: the NNPC and the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) wanted to withhold crude from Dangote to sabotage the refinery, or they wanted to punish him on behalf of the present administration for allegedly supporting Tinubu’s rival during the 2023 presidential election, or they didn’t have the crude to supply to Dangote and wanted to use the ludicrous and false excuses and propaganda of “substandard products,” “no license,” and non-completion to cover the fact that they were not able to supply crude to Dangote.

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It also seemed, Prof. Ochonu added, that the NNPC and International Oil Companies (IOCs), NNPC’s joint venture partners, are not able to guarantee supply of crude to Dangote for even more tragic reasons.

He pointed to the fact that two successive APC governments have mortgaged much of Nigeria’s 1.5 million bpd production to secure so-called crude-backed loans running into billions of dollars, which have to be repaid with future crude production. It started with Buhari and continues with Tinubu.

Ochonu’s research revealed that the NNPC and the NUPRC wanted to continue exporting crude because such transactions are done in dollars and are shady dealings involving middlemen, bribes, cuts, and layers of profiteering.

Even though the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) mandates the NUPRC to ensure the supply of crude to local refinery as a priority over export, the NUPRC claimed that they could not compel the IOCs to supply Dangote because the IOC’s had signed prior crude supply contracts with buyers overseas, some of whom financed their crude extraction operations in Nigeria. The IOCs, the NUPRC claimed, would be in violation of those contracts if they supplied Dangote with crude.

Mr. Dan Kunle, a respected oil industry expert and former Senior Technical Adviser to a past Minister of Petroleum Resources, in his contribution, said perhaps the reluctance of the NNPC and NUPRC to supply Dangote crude stemmed from their hope that it would derail the refinery because if Dangote started production, they’d no longer have a reason to export the 450, 000 bpd set aside for local refineries, which has been exported since the local state refineries stopped functioning over a decade ago.

Tinubu’s directive to the NNPC to sell crude to Dangote in naira is a welcome development if implemented, but the key questions are: 1) Where is the crude (650,000 needed by Dangote) going to come from when export contracts and crude-backed loan obligations have already been signed by government and its oil industry entities? 2) Will the NNPC comply with the directive, which reduces its lucrative crude export business?

The show raised several pertinent questions that arise from the accusations and counter-accusations between Dangote and government entities trying to sabotage his refinery:
One, how much of Nigeria’s daily crude production has been committed to creditors who loaned the Buhari and Tinubu administrations billions?

Two, how has the 450,000 crude set aside for domestic refining been handled over the years? According to Mr. Kunle, the NNPC exports these 450,000 barrels because local refineries are currently comatose.

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In what they call crude swap deals, the crude is then refined abroad and resold to Nigeria as petrol. But as Kunle asked during the show, apart from the petrol derived from it, what’s been happening to the other derivatives from the refining process—diesel, kerosene, etc.? The NNPC has never given Nigerians an account of these derivatives. If they’re sold, to whom are they sold and how much has been realized over these decades?

Three, how much fuel do Nigerians consume daily? The NNPC and its subsidiaries bandy around outlandish figures that are disputed by industry experts. Kunle said during the show that one of the potential benefits of Dangote’s refinery is that it will reveal the true, accurate numbers regarding Nigeria’s daily fuel consumption/demand, which will potentially expose one layer of fraud in the fuel importation regime, where many industry experts have long suspected that the importation cabal have been inflating Nigeria’s daily fuel needs to submit false invoices that rely on the bogus consumption claims.

Four, why would Nigeria’s oil law, the PIA, not trump and supersede whatever other contracts and laws NNPC and IOCS have entered into? The PIA clearly authorizes the NNPC to prioritize the crude needs of local refineries such as Dangote and other smaller ones, whose combined daily crude need is put at 597,700 barrels per day (bpd)?

Five, when will the allegedly refurbished Port Harcourt and Warri refineries commence operations (the NNPC has postponed the commencement of operations three times now, with the last postponement done to the end of August), and where will the crude come from and at what price (dollar or naira, subsidized or prevailing international price?).

Professor Ochonu pivoted to the possible motives and identities of people who might have a personal or business investment in killing the Dangote Refinery. He named three.

The first, he said, are the honchos at the NNPC and oil regulating agencies. Their motive, he pointed out, is to maintain the status quo of lucrative and fraudulent fuel importation and crude export businesses.

The second, he pointed out, is the Tinubu government. The motive might be to sabotage a businessman who allegedly funded Tinubu’s opponent during last year’s presidential election.

Another motive, Prof. Ochonu added, might be to protect the rapidly expanding midstream and downstream dominance of Tinubu family-owned OANDO in the Nigerian oil industry. Dangote would be a direct and massive competitor.

The third entities Prof. Ochonu identified were a conspiracy of international oil refineries and a crude-buying and fuel-marketing cabal. He called attention to a report by investigative journalist David Hundeyin that blew the lid on a campaign by a Western oil cabal against Dangote refinery.

The oil company offered to pay Hundeyin and perhaps local journalists to write stories against Dangote using a prepared script of environmentalism and environmental protection, which is a clear ruse to hide their true motive of wanting to maintain the status quo of their purchase of Nigerian crude, refining it poorly below European standards, and re-exporting it to Nigeria at massive profits.

A US-based Nigerian engineer and industry expert by the name of Dr. Muhammad Kabir Hassan, corroborated Hundeyin’s claims during the show.

The final issue tackled in the show had to do with the scandal of NNPC retail (NNPCL) purchasing a company named OVH (OANDO, Velar, Helios).

The OVH scandal is related to what is happening to Dangote because, after allegedly purchasing OVH (for how much, no one knows and commenters on the show said NNPC owes Nigerians an explanation and the transaction numbers), the NNPC then turned around and inexplicably asked a judge to dissolve its retail arm (NNPCL-Retail) and then, in a move that should be a first in history, turned over all of its retail operations (fuel stations and depots all over the country) to OVH to run.

This means that OVH staff and managers have replaced NNPCL staff at all NNPC fuel stations, which have now been rebranded as OVH. OVH, of course, emerged only a few years ago as a result of a merger involving OANDO, Velar, and Helios (hence the acronym). All three were small players in the retail (downstream) sector of the Nigerian oil industry, but with tentacles in fuel importation.

Dr. Hassan enjoined Nigerian journalists to investigate the true ownership of OVH at the Corporate Affairs Commission, the amount NNPC paid for OVH, the terms of the sale, and what, if any, benefits are accruing to OANDO, Tinubu’s family business, from NNPC’s purchase of OVH and its surrender of its sprawling retail business to the acquired entity.

The show is curated on my Facebook page for people who want to watch it.

Mystery of Dangote Refinery in Nigerian oil politics – Farooq Kperogi

Farooq Kperogi is a renowned Nigerian columnist and United States-based Professor of Media Studies.