Tell a Tale

In their daily lives, Nigerians must cope with this open ambivalence – they have oil but they can’t see oil; they have petroleum, but they have no petrol; they pay for light but they get darkness. There is no better way to explain what we mean here than by telling our usual story of the so-called subsidy on petroleum products in its most elemental form. Nigeria is said to be the sixth largest producer of oil in the world. But with mismanagement, what was originally supposed to be a blessing from God has virtually turned a curse. At every point, we are either fighting because of the poor allocation of this resource, or we are crying that some dubious elements have stolen the total proceeds. The original arrangement was that as soon as the crude oil came out from the ground, Nigeria would sell 90 percent at the spot market, in hard currency. The remaining 10 percent was meant to be refined for local consumption. At various times, Nigeria had built four refineries – two in Port-Ha...