By Festus Adedayo, PhD
Without moving his body, African Development Bank (AfDB) President, Akinwumi Adesina, watlzed his tall frame in a dance last week. He danced to the rhythm of Gwo Gwo Gwo Ngwo of Gentleman Mike Ejeagha’s trending song track, Ka Esi Le Onye Isi Oche. A rhythmic refrain track from an album titled Akuko N’Egwu Vol. 1., Ka Esi… has a lot of similarities with A o m’erin j’oba, both taken from Igbo and Yoruba cosmologies respectively.
Both are from rich traditional African folklores. While both also had Elephant and Trickster Tortoise animal totems as their major characters, these folklores teach the moral of how never to throw benefactors under a moving train. Released in 1983 by Ejeagha of Imezi Owa, Ezeagu in Enugu State, Ka Esi… recalibrated an ancient Igbo folklore of trickster Tortoise who sacrificed the huge and mountainous Elephant for his selfish desire to have the king’s daughter as wife. Elephant thought he was assisting a friend.
Folklorist/writer, Joseph Odunjo, like Ejeagha, brought A o m’erin j’oba into vivid perspective in his Alawiye Yoruba literature series. Using the animal world as a motif, Odunjo told the story of gross human deception and how human beings are easily susceptible to and capable of mischief. Represented as a character with power, majesty and acclaim, the mammoth-sized Elephant beast was the untouchable king of the jungle whose humongous size was a huge bother to other animals in the jungle. Several efforts were made to oust his prowess, to no avail. So, a plot was hatched using his majesty as his destruction.
Tortoise, a clever and serpentine animal, was procured to do the hatchet job. Tortoise resolved that, given Elephant’s size and height, violence would not bring him to his hilt but a strategy of deception, praise-singing and bootlicking. Tortoise then traveled to the wooded savannah jungle to see his friend, the Almighty Elephant. His message was that, all animals had purposed to make him King of all Animals. Elephant was to come to the palace adorned in the full regalia of a King. Prior to the day, Tortoise had dug a very deep hole by the palace that could occupy Elephant’s mammoth size, decorated with a beautiful wool carpet worthy of a king’s royal feet. He completed it with an ornamented chair just at the edge of the royal carpet. Encircling the carpet, all the animals in the town clapped and hailed the new King dressed in flowery royal robe as he walked majestically towards the royal carpet. They cheered the Elephant on, shouting A o m’erin j’oba, eweku ewele. Fascinated by the splendor and cheer, Elephant walked majestically, acknowledging the cheers, until he fell into the ditch and unto his death.
Ostensibly marrying the morale in both Ka Esi Le Onye Isi Oche and A o m’erin j’oba, Adesina deployed them to paint a picture of a Nigerian establishment in whose veins flowed the blood of cruelty, shamelessness and greed. Either intended or stray, Adesina threw a bomb into their fold, a bomb whose shrapnel hit the innermost recess of Nigeria’s sleaze and slush petroleum sector. In a tweet on X last week, while upbraiding the apparent systemic gang-up to frustrate Aliko Dangote’s refinery by the Nigerian government, Adesina said, “Investing is tough. Pettiness is easy. It sadly sends a signal that the price for sacrificing for Nigeria is to get sacrificed.” In the short tweet, Adesina denounced government’s attempt to profile Dangote as a selfish monopolist Tortoise, as reflected in Ejeagha and Odunjo’s reworking of the Igbo and Yoruba folklores. He ultimately situated the gang-ups as attempt to sacrifice the monstrous Elephant refinery of Aliko Dangote to governmental pettiness.
Adesina’s cryptic quip of “sacrificing for Nigeria (and getting) sacrificed” also finds a corollary in another ancient anecdote, the killing of the proverbial hunchback, Abuke Osin. The hunchback was the favourite servant of Obatala. Among the Yoruba, Obatalá is known as the munificent and benevolent father of all Orisa – gods – and indeed, of all humanity. Obatalá is also reputed to be the owner of all ‘heads’ and minds of all human creations of Eledumare – God. While Eledumare created the entire universe, Obatala created humanity in their entirety. Everything that is pure without blemish emanates from Obatala because he is the source of purity and wisdom. Obatala was peaceful and compassionate.
According to the anecdote as told by the renowned living archive of Yoruba traditional institution, Yemi Elebuibon, in his The Adventures of Obatala: Ifa and Santeria God of creativity, (2016) Obatala sent the hunchback on errands and impressed by his service to him, Obatala chanted some incantations which deposited precious beads, gold and other ornaments inside the carapace-like chest of the hunchback. He however chanted that anyone who made him happy and rubbed his chest would partake of the wealth deposited therein. Ojugbe, the hunchback’s neighbor, benefitted from these gifts due to his good neighbourliness. When Abuke complained of pain in the chest, Ojugbe rubbed it for him and became stupendously wealthy therefrom. Not knowing the caveat attached to Ojugbe’s wealth, Tortoise envied him. But, unable to compete with Ojugbe-kind care, one day, Tortoise lured the Abuke Osin into his house and forcefully rubbed his chest. It refused to emit money. He then resolved to kill this servant of Obatala and incurred the wrath of the god.
I do not want to go into details of the Nigerian establishment’s battle with this 650,000 bpsd state-of-the-art refinery which erupted upper week. They are in the public domain. Since 1973 when it was created, the NNPC has been a cesspit of corruption and vehicle for hemorrhaging Nigeria’s petro-dollars. It is a haven for white-collar criminals. According to Stephen Ellis in his This Present Darkness, (2016) by the late 1970s, an illegal trade in Nigerian oil flourished like a new bride. Corrupt politicians and military big epaulettes connived with NNPC officials to funnel Nigerian oil abroad.
They did this with the connivance of Greek and Lebanese traders. All manner of internal and external sharks feasted on the Nigerian crude. In the process of this feast, scant consideration was paid to the goose that laid the golden egg, the refineries of Port Harcourt, Kaduna and Warri. Today, they have become moribund, resulting in Nigeria exporting its own crude and importing petroleum products from them. The refineries are grounded due to fossilized technology, humongous corruption and a wicked ploy by petrol cabals to keep the goose perpetually castrated.
In October 2023, the Nigerian senate attempted to probe Nigeria’s expenditure on rehabilitation of the four refineries which were yet unproductive. A senator representing Kogi West, Sunday Karimi, presented a motion which revealed that, “Between 2010 to date, Nigeria is estimated to have spent N11.35 trillion (N11, 349, 583, 186, 313.40) excluding other cost in other currencies which include $592, 976, 050.00 dollar, 4, 877, 068.47 Euros and 3, 455, 656.93 Pounds, on renovation of refineries, yet they are unproductive.” Karimi further said that, “Despite the moribund state of the four refineries, the operating costs of these refineries between 2010 and 2020 were estimated at N4.8 Trillion.
The refineries are estimated to make a cumulative loss of N1.64 Trillion, within four years.” Indeed, in the last 25 years, NNPC has spent something in the neighourhood of $25b on TAM on these obsolete dinosaurs called refineries. The world was shocked recently when told that an NNPC subsidiary, PHRC, expended N23b on salaries and maintenance of a refinery that was too crude to refine even a gallon of crude. For these oil vampires who grow rotund tummies out of our ancient comatose refineries, Dangote refinery must be stopped from functioning.
President Olusegun Obasanjo, in a revelation, said he was advised by knowledgeable experts that aside their obsolete equipment and infrastructure, the refineries were mere scraps which needed to be sold. He thus sold two of the refineries’ plants in Port Harcourt and Kaduna to Blue Star, a consortium of Aliko Dangote, a man who Bloomberg assessed as worth more than $15billion, for a whopping $670m. Apparently instigated by a sleaze-steeped oil cabal, labour unions and other oil rats pressurized President Umaru Yar’Adua to reverse the purchase. Dangote Cement, his financial empire’s jewel, is also one of Nigeria’s traded companies, becoming one of Nigeria Stock Exchange’s companies to reach a market capitalization of N10 trillion. Since the reversal, Nigeria has spent multiple of the amount it would have collected from selling the refineries and is yet expending huge costs on sham Turn Around Maintenance and the bottomless pit of corruption in the NNPC. The corporation is alleged to be one of the most non-self accounting conglomerates in the world with an allegation of $32 billion hemorrhage in the Goodluck Jonathan administration’s corruption-ridden oil-for-product swap agreements.
The Dangote $20 billion refinery, biggest in Africa and second in the world, built on a 2,635 hectares land in Ibeju-Lekki, was a protest against the Yar’Adua government’s unconscionable reversal of the sale of the two Nigerian refineries by Obasanjo. With its 650,000 barrels of crude oil refining capacity per day, it surpasses the refining capacity of 435,000 of Nigeria’s total moribund refineries. It is said to be capable of supplying almost all of Nigeria’s daily consumption need.
The downside is that it will eliminate Nigeria’s bottomless pit sleaze called subsidy and kill the roaches who have over the decades fed fat on this brand of Nigeria’s cesspit. Dangote’s almost 50,000 staff is said to be made up of over 90% Nigerians and a meagre expatriate’s number of 11,000. Dangote Cement is also said to have paid N200bn tax since 2003, pays N27bn VAT monthly and corporate tax of N40.39b. FG also collects 52% tax on every N1 Dangote’s companies earn in profit. This is the context of Adesina’s X tweet of “pettiness is easy.”
Opposition to the Dangote refinery was initially amorphous. Platformed on allegation of Dangote’s famed monopolistic tendency, it soon branched into allegation that the quality of the refinery was suspect. At long last, the masquerade abandoned its costume – “ago” – to reveal Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) chief executive, Farouk Ahmed. Same last week, Ahmed openly alleged that the diesel produced by the Dangote Refinery, compared to the one imported, was inferior. Ahmed also alleged that the Dangote fuel had huge Sulphur content, which he situated at between 650 to 1,200ppm ppm. He was most likely shell-shocked when asked where his or NNPC’s test laboratory for sulphur level resides. It was only then that Nigerians learnt that Lagos labs – Sewort, SGS and GMO perform this task for Almighty Nigerian oil colossus.
A number of surreptitious, faceless persons and groups have been used to push a Mafia-like battle against the birthing of the Dangote refinery. If derobed of their identities, it will be clear that these persons are angered by the obvious reality that the success of that humongous refinery means an end to their decades-old bazaar on Nigerian oil industry. A couple of weeks ago, the media reported Aliko himself as confirming that the blood-baiting oil sharks had run a ring round him. He, in fact, acknowledged his awareness that they could even be within his organization.
The other leg of the accusation came in a last year Financial Times report. It alleged that Tinubu is putting the squeeze on Dangote for not supporting him during his presidential bid. When EFCC raided his Lagos company last year, ostensibly on allegation of investigation into the foreign exchange allocations under CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele, the thinking was that Tinubu was exerting the powers of his presidency on Aliko. It was alleged that while his business rival, Abdul Samad Rabiu and Tony Elumelu showered bounties on Tinubu during his presidential campaign, Dangote queued behind Atiku Abubakar. Anyone who knows how the Nigerian state runs will know that only Aso Rock authorizes such high-level infiltration.
Those who are opportune to visit the Dangote refinery have labeled it one of the most awesome wonders of our world. A television anchor called it the Dangote Planet. The most depressing reality about Dangote is that, in practical terms, he is not the richest Nigerian. At a conservative estimate, he could be one of the twenty richest. The bulk of the 19 others are mostly politicians who, in our sane moment as Nigerians, we ask, in American voice, we have seen the bucks, where is the shop? They take our stolen wealth to Malta, Dubai and other countries where their billions of dollar investments are beyond prying eyes. Dangote certainly isn’t richer than Olowo Eko who, in a moment of grandstanding immodesty told a monarch during a visit to Osun State, “Kabiyesi, ee l’owo mi!” – Kabiyesi, you don’t have my kind of money! But, does anyone know Baba Olowo’s shop? We are his shop!
Let’s even accept that all the charges against Dangote are true – monopolist, feeding off closeness to successive governments, and all that – investing $20b in this economy, excluding his behemoth fertilizer and cement plants – is courage, valour, patriotism. Dangote and his refinery are Nigeria’s national assets. So also are the Mike Adenugas of our world. We must protect them from the Shylocks, Saurons, Lord Voldemorts, the Ikoko aje’ran je’gungun – foxes that devour human flesh and bones – and the Komodo dragons of this world who want to swallow our economic saviours.
- ADEDAYO is a columnist, journalist, author, lawyer and political scientist. (First published by Sunday Tribune on July 28, 2024)
