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By Basil Okoh

1. The extensive land of 2,635 hectares on which Dangote Refinery is built was sold to the company by Bola Ahmed Tinubu acting as agent and front to both the Lagos State government and the communities that own the land. What we don’t know is how Dangote Refinery paid Bola Tinubu for his services. Was it for equity in the Dangote refinery?
2. In 2019, Bola Tinubu made extensive moves for Wale Tinubu to be appointed as Group Managing Director of NNPC after the exit of Dr. Ibe Kachikwu. The intensive lobby failed because the northern technocrats surrounding Muhammadu Buhari had their own interests in NNPC and thwarted it, which is the reason for the angst against Buhari acolytes beginning from Godwin Emefiele. The young Turks of the north then went ahead to fill all the top positions of NNPC with northern professionals.
3. The end of the petroleum subsidy era was planned to terminate with the Buhari regime. There was no palliatives planned to ameliorate the ensuing hardship following the increase in pump prices of petrol. The $800 million palliative borrowed from the IMF vanished without records of expenditure. Bola Tinubu did not end Oil Subsidy. Muhammad Buhari did.
4. Dangote Refinery cannot go into petroleum refining until 2028. It is estimated that the project is at 70% completion and would need additional $3 billion to achieve 100% completion not earlier than 2028.
5. Dangote Refinery is believed to have made another request for $2.5 billion from the Federal Government. The Buhari government unable to borrow to provide the sum, passed the responsibility to the incoming government. The Bola Tinubu government is in lockstep with Dangote Refinery to borrow and provide the cash.
6. Until Dangote Refinery starts petroleum refining in 2028, the place will be the biggest importer of finished petroleum products into Nigeria, having the biggest and most secure petroleum products storage facility in the West African coast. In fact, Dangote is looking to establish an import monopoly on petrol as a would be beneficiary of selective import licensing by the Tinubu government. It is believed that an informal collaborative agreement has been reached on this. This has the potential of establishing the biggest and most valuable monopoly on the continent of Africa.
7. The Niger Delta Oil Producing region has been shut out of any new deal of participation in the petroleum industry going forward. The new arrangement in the industry will incorporate only the Yoruba and the Fulani. This is the reason for the forceful takeover of the political space for Bola Tinubu. The Niger Delta people including the agitators will be completely shut out.
8. To achieve the closure of this long term plan, the biggest refining capacity has been carefully taken out of the Niger Delta region to Lekki and the International Oil Companies have almost abandoned the Niger Delta lands, selling their land holdings to Nigerian investors. The IOC’s are invested mostly in offshore mining now, places where the violent agitators may not reach or can be easily put in check, away from prying eyes. Government is also transferring its investments like Pipeline surveillance to trusted private operators to avoid incessant blackmail by locals.
9. The Niger Delta region that produces the economy dependent resource has been played out of participation in the entire oil industry. Military Officers and Politicians of the major ethnic groups, using the constitution which they created and the institutions of government which they control, have taken control of the oil industry from upstream to downstream for their own enrichment and the benefit of their own regions.
10. They have also reduced the Frontline agitators of the Niger Delta region to their errand boys and proxy fighters, turning their guns against their own people and defending the oil wells and installations for the benefit and exploitation of the major ethnicities and the IOC’s.
11. Tompolo has the contract for “pipeline security” and has done well to share the proceeds with former agitators in the different ethnicities in the Niger Delta region. Alhaji Dokubo-Asari was in Abuja to “defend the mandate” of Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the present biggest beneficiary of the exploitation of the Niger Delta. These were feared warriors and defenders of the Niger Delta. They have been compromised and reduced to paid defenders of the interests of government and exploiters of the region. So the pacification of the Niger Delta is complete.
12. Control of the Oil industry is the underlying reason for Bola Tinubu’s gambit to buy and seize the presidency of Nigeria. Bola Tinubu, a former employee of ExxonMobil has been promptly visited by the President of ExxonMobil to congratulate him on the success of the steal. Bola Tinubu will be provided all the resources and protection for his office.
13. The President of Exxon Mobil Upstream Oil and Gas, Mr. Liam Mallon and the Executive Director of Mobil Nigeria, Adesuwa Dozie was with Bola Tinubu in Aso Rock be to pay him solidarity visit, less than a fortnight after his swearing in and to assure him that the oil giant will have his back.

@basilokoh.