There are strong indications that the
House of Representatives, the Senate and the President Muhammadu Buhari-
led executive may clash over the $38 oil benchmark for the 2016 budget.
The Senate on Friday insisted that the
$38 oil benchmark was realistic, while the House raised doubts about the
workability of the benchmark.
On its part, the executive defended the
$38 oil benchmark, saying all assumptions were taken into consideration
by economic experts before arriving at it.
It was gathered that the House would
push for a downward review of the benchmark following the prediction of
the International Monetary Fund that the oil price would fall below $20,
while the Senate would insist on the benchmark.
Both chambers of the National Assembly
had approved $38 per barrel, which was proposed by the executive as oil
benchmark in the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (2016-2018).
2016 budget’s assumptions under threat-–House Leader
But on Friday, the Leader of the House, Mr. Femi Gbajabiamila, told Saturday PUNCH that the “assumptions” of the budget were under threat because of the dwindling fortunes of crude.
Over two weeks ago, while discussing the
2016-2018 MTEF, a member of the joint committees on Finance,
Appropriations, Aids/Loans/Debt Management, Mr. Chike Okafor, had raised
doubts over the workability of $ 38.
At the time Okafor expressed his worries, oil was about $35.
He had observed, “The 2016 budget has
issues with the benchmark; we have been discussing it at the meeting of
the joint committees on MTEF.
“When the President brought the MTEF, the benchmark was pegged at $38. Now, it is $35, far below the benchmark.”
In the interview with Saturday PUNCH,
Gbajabiamila suggested that the Federal Government should consider the
option of not using oil revenues as the main financing source for the
2016 budget. He explained that the government must begin to think about
the reality that oil revenues might not be enough in the coming year.
The leader stated that non-oil revenues
should take the lead while crude oil would be an alternative source
because of the global oil price crisis.
He gave details of his position, “It is
clear we will have to look to other sources of funding and perhaps, more
borrowing on even more favourable terms. Diversification of the economy
has to be our priority.
“I would have preferred and it is not
too late, a situation where (we) close our eyes to the petrol dollar for
next year’s budget and pretend we don’t even have oil revenue. “Base
the revenue on a zero per cent benchmark and work on the expected
revenue from non oil -customs, internal revenues, etc. We work with that
and budget based on that.
“Clearly, all assumptions (of the 2016 budget) have changed.”
It was learnt that the House was
unlikely to continue to stick to the $38 proposed as the crude oil
benchmark for the 2016 budget.
While Buhari was presenting the
estimates of the N6.08trn to a joint session of the National Assembly,
many members were expressing doubts over the sustainability of $38
against the tumbling prices of crude globally.
Buhari himself admitted while presenting
the budget estimates on Tuesday that a barrel of crude was “$32”, a
figure that was $6 below the budgeted $38.
Investigations showed that members of
the key committees of the House on Finance, Appropriations, Aids /Loans/
Debt Management that would work on the budget in January, were already
exchanging ideas on “realistic oil benchmark.”
An official of the House told Saturday PUNCH that there was “no way $38 could be sustainable.”
The official spoke more, “We are all
aware of what is happening to crude oil prices. We have gone down far
below $38. “There are projections that we should expect a further dip in
prices, which could mean restructuring the entire budget.
“So, the committees, on resumption from vacation in January, should be looking at realistic figures of between $27 to $30.
“This current $38 is not realistic; it will be a huge joke sticking to it.”
Oil price will rise –Senate
But the Senate is optimistic that IMF’s
prediction will not affect all the projections and criteria already
approved by the National Assembly for the implementation of the 2016
budget. The Chairman, Senate Committee on Banking, Insurance and Other
Financial Institutions, Senator Rafiu Ibrahim, in an interview with Saturday PUNCH on Friday, said oil price would rise in 2016.
He stated, “The benchmark, which is
contained in the Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy
Paper forwarded to the National Assembly by President Muhammadu Buhari,
had already been approved.
“We are, at the moment, confident that
the oil benchmark of $38 is appropriate for the 2016 budget
implementation. We are also confident that rather than going down, the
price of crude will rise in the New Year based on the various
projections by experts. So there is no cause for alarm.”
Ibrahim said the fact that the IMF had
raised the alarm on the possible slide in the price of crude in the
international market below the projected $38 would not make the National
Assembly alter the benchmark out of panic.
Budget ministry defends $38 benchmark
When asked if the government would
reduce downward the budget benchmark price, the spokesperson for the
Ministry of Budget and National Planning, Mr. Salisu Haiba, told one of
our correspondents in a telephone interview on Friday that the budget
had already been submitted to the National Assembly, adding that it was
now left for the lawmakers to work on the fiscal document.
He said, “All assumptions have been
taken into consideration by economic experts before arriving at the $38
benchmark by the government.
“The ball is now in the court of the
National Assembly to subject it to legislative scrutiny based on their
own analysis of the situation.”
A top official in the Ministry of Budget
and National Planning confided in our correspondent that the ministry
while preparing the budget had taken steps to reduce the nation’s
reliance on revenue from oil in 2016 owing to uncertainties in the
global oil market. For instance, the official who pleaded not to be
named as he was not officially permitted to speak on the matter, said
that out of the total revenue of N3.8tn, oil related revenues would only
account for about N820bn or 21.2 per cent.
He said, “You will recall that oil
prices started dropping in June last year and that caused a serious
problem in the implementation of the 2015 budget because revenues were
down by about 50 per cent.
“So what we did while drawing this
budget was to look at the trends in the past and we observed that it
would be wise to de-emphasise revenues from oil and this made us to
choose a conservative figure of $38 per barrel so that even if oil falls
below that price, it would be easy for us to suffer a further 50 per
cent decline in revenue.
“And so it is our belief that even if
oil falls below $38 per barrel, we won’t have serious crisis in
implementing the budget because we have been proactive from the
beginning.”
President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday
expressed his administration’s readiness to put machinery in place to
persuade the Boko Haram sect that has been unleashing violence in some
parts of the country to embrace peace.
Buhari made the promise while playing
host to a delegation of residents of the Federal Capital Territory which
included the President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki, who paid him
Christmas homage in his official residence at the Presidential Villa,
Abuja.
The promise came less than 24 hours
after the President claimed that the Federal Government has “technically
won the war” against the sect.
In an interview with the BBC,
Buhari had claimed that the militant group could no longer mount
“conventional attacks” against security forces or population centres,
adding that the militant group had been reduced to fighting with
improvised explosives devices and remained a force only in its heartland
of Borno State.
But the President said on Friday that he
would use government institutions to persuade members of the sect to
allow peace to reign.
He, however, did not disclose the nature which the persuasion would take and those who would be involved.
“On Boko Haram, this government is
determined to make sure that we persuade them if they can be persuaded,
we will use government institutions to persuade them to allow peace to
reign,” he said.
The President stressed the need for all
Nigerians to come together and pull the country out of the problems that
it has found itself.
He said while everybody in the world
believes that Nigeria is a lucky country because of its natural
resources, the country’s problem remains how to organise its citizens
and how to get the right leadership in place.
He recalled that from the analysis of
the All Progressives Congress during campaign, the party discovered that
the country’s three biggest problems are security, unemployment of
youths as well as bribery and corruption.
He noted that while the youth make up 65 per cent of the country’s population, 65 per cent of them are unemployed.
Buhari reiterated his position that there could not be any development without security.
He said, “We appreciate that the
security agencies are doing their best and their best is showing and we
have to continue praying for them. There can be no development without
security; we have to continue to pray for them.
“We have two million people who are
Internally Displaced Persons and 70 per cent are women and 70 per cent
of them are children, some of them are orphans; they grew up not knowing
their parents, tradition or culture.
“As leaders, we have a weighty responsibility to ensure that infrastructure for the orphans are taken care of.
“As leaders, we wake with the feeling
for those children; the most important thing is that they must not be
denied education. Schools must be rebuilt. We also thank Danjuma and the
G7 led by the United States. They have been doing their best to help
Nigeria train our military.”
Earlier, the Minister of the Federal
Capital Territory, Muhammadu Bello, who led the delegation consisting of
Christian and Islamic leaders told the President that they were at the
Presidential Villa to wish him a merry Christmas.
Bello observed that the celebration of
the birth of Jesus Christ coming a day after the celebration of the
birth of Prophet Muhammed was a unique message to adherents of the two
religions to live in peace.
Bose Tetede was worn out by the time she
arrived home that evening. A hectic four-hour trek to and fro her home
in Imule, a small agrarian community with over 3000 residents in Ipokia
Local Government Area of Ogun State, and Itaope, a border town in
neighbouring Republic of Benin, had taken its toll on her. The sound of
her heavy breathing summarises the agonising experience.
Tetede had left home at about 7:00am
last Monday in search of help for her sick twins – Taiwo, a boy and
Kehinde, a girl. The toddlers had been struck by malaria and so needed
urgent attention to get back to their old, playful selves. With one
child strapped to her back and another carried over her shoulder, the
young mother pounded the bumpy, dusty countryside roads for more than
two hours before finally arriving in the Beninese town where her
children were attended to promptly and given drugs at the cost of N4000.
But enduring another two-hour trek back to Imule under the torrid sun
with the weight of the ailing twins resting on her frail frame was more
than Tetede could bear. On the evening our correspondent came across
her, she could barely move her body.
“I feel like a trailer just ran over
me,” she managed to utter before using her left hand to gently wipe off a
stream of sweat that had gathered on her face. “I set out for Itaope in
Benin around 7:00am with my children after we could not get proper
attention at Iropo. I trekked for more than two hours carrying the
children before arriving Itaope. After they were treated, I managed to
rest for one hour before bringing them back home through another
two-hour walk under the sun. The pain I feel all over my body is
indescribable but I had to do this to save the lives of my children,”
she said before sinking her entire body weight into a wooden bench.
Like Tetede, many residents of Imule,
Madoga, Ilagbe, Kajoola, Osooro and several nearby settlements all under
Ipokia Local Government Area, a community bordering Benin Republic and
with a population of 150, 000 people according to the 2006 census, have
learnt to endure such energy-sapping walks to save their lives and that
of their loved ones in periods of emergencies. Since the health centre
in Iropo, which serves over five towns with a combined population of
over 10, 000 people, crumbled, residents have been forced to look for
viable alternatives elsewhere – the search of which has come at a heavy
price at times.
“Several of our women on the verge of
delivery have died while being rushed to hospital in Benin Republic and
Ifonyintedo,” Adeyemi Tetede, a local chief and head of Imule community,
told Saturday PUNCH. “In fact these days, many of the women
are now delivered of their babies at home through the help of
traditional birth attendants. If you try to take any of them to Iropo
where we have the only functional hospital around this entire axis, you
will hardly get the needed attention because of the number of people who
visit and the shortage of staff and facilities there. It is a very big
problem we are facing here,” he said.
Established over 30 years ago, the
Ipokia Local Government Health Clinic, Iropo, today betrays any
semblance of a life-saving medical facility. Manned by only two members
of staff – a young nurse and a middle-aged doctor, the hospital apart
from lacking basic items required to deliver quality healthcare to the
hundreds of low-income-earning residents who throng it every month for
solution, does not have enough drugs to treat minor cases like malaria
and typhoid – the two most prevalent ailments in the area. To make
matters worse, the hospital boasts of only one bed to treat a population
size of over 10, 000 people – young and old – who rely on it for their
medical needs. The facility does not have a toilet and bathroom, forcing
patients who visit to defecate in polythene bags and bathe in the open,
under a tree behind the hospital. Newly nursing mothers who wish to be
cleaned by the hospital staff must have a relation to go in search of
water as the facility does not have a functional tap. The only well
providing water for the hospital has since run dry and has been
converted to a dump where feaces of patients who defecate in polythene
bags are littered. On occasions where there are so many newly delivered
mothers around, each is allowed to rest on the hospital’s only bed for a
few minutes before giving way to another woman and her baby. At times,
when the entire place is ‘jam-packed’, the women are sent back home to
take care of themselves almost immediately after they had been delivered
of their babies. For patients who visit this hospital and the two staff
on ground to attend to their needs, it is a helpless situation – one
whose elastic can stretch no further.
“Attending to the hundreds of patients
who visit this place from over five communities and several settlements
in this local government has been very stressful,” the nurse at the
hospital, Hannah Oke, confessed. “Sometimes when there are so many cases
for us to handle especially women on the verge of delivery, we advise
them to go to other hospitals outside the locality. In fact, as a result
of this situation, many women now give birth at home.
The only bed in the hospital
“Apart from shortage of staff and lack
of basic infrastructure like toilet, bathroom and water, electricity is
also another major problem we face here. If a woman is to be delivered
of a baby in the night, we rely only on torch to attend to her as the
hospital does not have a generator of its own.
“We are pleading with government to
quickly intervene in our situation so that we can provide the people of
this area with good health care and save many lives in the process,” she
said.
The unavailability of electricity supply
has made communication with the outside world for many of the
communities in this region very difficult. Mobile phones are gathered
once in two days to be charged at N100 each in Ifonyintedo, about 15
kilometers away. Even at that, mobile communications network in the area
is erratic and largely unstable. In extreme cases, residents rely on
visitors to bring them news of happenings in the locality and country.
“It is quite tough charging our phone
batteries in this environment as there is no electricity supply. So most
times we gather our phones and give to one of us who go to charge them
for us at Ifonyintedo. Sometimes the person can get there and not find
space to charge because everywhere had been occupied, he or she returns
the phones to the owners like that, cutting us off from communicating
for several days. Even when our phones are fully charged, receiving
network signal to make a call could be almost impossible. That is how
bad our situation is here,” said Abike Odeyemi, a mother of three.
Chilling as it sounds, the terrible
state of the Ipokia Local Government Health Clinic in Iropo, Ogun State,
and the non availability of electricity supply and its attendant
effects, is only a fraction of the horror residents of the locality are
made to contend with on daily basis. For example, primary schools in
each of the over five towns and dozens of smaller settlements across the
area, do not have more than two teachers to tutor pupils of around 200
to 400 in some of the places visited by our correspondent recently. In
Ilagbe, only two teachers oversee the education of the 400 boys and
girls who attend the community’s primary school. The town, after series
of attempts to have government post more hands to help shapen their
children’s’ future, hired a third teacher who they pay N10, 000 every
month. According to Gabriel Onipede, a respected traditional chief, the
move, though to boost the education of their wards, is an added burden
on their lean pockets.
“Our community primary school is in a
terrible state. We have only two teachers teaching about 400 pupils. How
can any child learn something meaningful under such atmosphere? So, as a
community we had to organise one extra teacher whom we pay N10, 000
every month to support the education of our children.
“However, contributing the money to pay
the teacher every month has not been easy considering the fact that many
households are just managing to get by especially now that the bad
state of our roads is greatly affecting the price of our farm produce.
The bad state of the roads in the town is not making the transportation
of our harvest to the market possible, so those who manage to come and
buy from us do so at a very lower price. It is a very big problem for
us,” he said.
While all of these towns have at least
one primary school where their children are being taught, albeit by
fewer teachers than required, majority of the villages under Ipokia
Local Government Area do not have a secondary school, forcing students
from all these communities to trek several kilometers everyday to attend
the only one at Ifonyintedo. As a result of the distance, many pupils
have dropped out of the secondary school – contributing to the high
illiteracy of the area – while those still willing to finish the ‘race’,
have been forced to rent apartments in Ifonyintedo, going home to meet
their families only at weekends.
“Our children trek over 15 kilometers
every day just to attend secondary school at Ifonyintedo,” Ezekiel
Bawola, an old farmer in Iropo told Saturday PUNCH. “As a
result of this problem, some parents were forced to rent apartments for
their children there so they could live and attend the school during the
week and return home on Fridays for weekend. Some children whose
parents cannot afford to rent an apartment and who cannot also cope with
the daily trekking, have dropped out and taken to farming. We fear for
the future of our children like this but as a community, there isn’t
much we can do to change this except government or members of the public
intervene in our situation,” he said.
As a result of the heavy
responsibilities it shoulders, the local government’s only secondary
school, Imotu Community Commercial Academy, Ifonyintedo, now bears signs
of weariness. The ceiling in most of the classrooms in the school have
either been completely destroyed or at the verge of totally caving in.
Doors, windows, desks and even blackboards – all were in terrible states
when our correspondent visited the institution earlier in the week. It
is under such unpalatable environment that Ipokia’s army of young boys
and girls are taught and groomed for a future that looks threatened even
before it had taken off.
“The poor quality of life in the
locality and bad state of the only secondary school we have here tells
you a lot about the high poverty rate across the region,” David Abraham,
a pastor and missionary of the Baptist Mission in Nigeria, told Saturday PUNCH.
“If you move all around the local government area and go to some of
these interior communities, you’ll be shocked at what will confront you.
The people are sleeping and waking up in abject poverty.
hospital signboard
“If not for the occasional medical
outreach programmes that we used to organise in some of these
communities where we conduct checks and offer free treatment to people,
the death rate could have been higher than what it is today across the
area. But even with our effort, the demand for quality medical care and
improved living condition is still very high. Something urgent should be
done to save lives and protect the future of children in this area,” he
said.
In the last few months, missionaries of
the Nigerian Baptist Convention have given free medical services to
residents of these communities. Also, students of Bowen University, Iwo,
Osun State, a Baptist institution, have helped organise free education
for both adults and children across most parts of Ipokia. But even with
such priceless interventions, the demand in healthcare and education
remains extremely high.
Local Government officials at Ipokia told Saturday PUNCH that
they were aware of the situation in these communities and were making
efforts at addressing the plight of the people. An official, who asked
not to be named, said that necessary interventions to improve the lives
of the residents would soon be made by the administration.
“We are aware of the situation in some
of the places you have mentioned and I can assure you that intervention
projects would soon commence in those places to ease the sufferings of
the people. We are a responsible government committed to serving the
interest of our people. Things shall soon improve there,” the official
said.
According to a sociologist, Grace
Warikoru, the neglect of rural communities by governments across the
country has contributed significantly to a host of problems including
illiteracy, high infant and maternal mortality, poverty and crime.
The university lecturer says except
concrete efforts are made to address the plight of rural communities,
the attendant effects like crime and disorderliness can spill to urban
areas in the not too distant future.
“If you look at majority of the crimes
committed in big urban cities like Lagos, you’ll realise the culprits
are mostly these guys who came from the rural areas not too long ago in
an attempt to escape the biting poverty in those places.
“The truth is that any government that
fails to develop the rural communities does so at its own detriment
because by the time the repercussions would come, it would spill to the
cities themselves.
“The insurgency we see in parts of the
country today is as a result of the neglect of the rural communities by
government. The moment poverty and deprivation in the basic areas of
life like clean water, food, quality health care and education get hold
of a people; the consequences could prove too costly for not just that
locality but the society at large.
“So my advice is for government to begin
to pay more attention to the needs of rural communities. The people are
not asking for too much; just an improvement in the quality of life,”
she said.
A psychologist, Buchi Anyamele, explains
that trekking several hours to and fro an institution of learning could
have negative consequences for the health, mind frame and assimilation
ability of a person.
According to him, secondary school
pupils who endure long walks in places like Ipokia may not be
psychologically stable to understand and put into good use all they are
taught in the classroom.
“Engaging in such stressful daily treks
is not good for the health and mental stability of anybody. If there are
students who trek three hours to school every day and the number of
hours while going back home, I pity them because I fear they might not
be learning anything tangible after all.
“The human brain especially for young
boys and girls needs to be properly relaxed for assimilation to occur.
There is no way you can pass through such stress and still learn
properly or even understand what you are taught by the teacher. Such
situation is not only dangerous for the health but also for the
psychology of the individuals as it could lead to a loss of confidence
and self esteem,” he said.
While shortage of schools and teachers
coupled with the bad state of roads across most parts of the local
government appear to have aggravated the people’s worries in this Ogun
community, it is the lack of a functional and well equipped hospital in
the region that has proven the biggest albatross. Towns like Madoga and
Kajola used to have fairly operational health centers until lack of
proper funding led to their complete closure recently. The Ipokia Local
Government Health Clinic, Iropo, which for a while had turned out an
able cover, is now also approaching the final stages of its hibernation.
With only one bed left standing inside its dusty and dilapidated ward
and its drugs shelf waning thin by the day, it might not be too long
before its fragile doors are completely shut from the dozens who turn to
it every day for solution.
A medical doctor, Jide Arogundade, told Saturday PUNCH
that the area could witness a rise in deaths resulting from
communicable diseases like typhoid, cholera, malaria and rheumatism if
access to quality health care does not improve in the very near future.
According to him, having two members of
staff oversee the medical needs of a population of over 10, 000 people
is not only dangerous but grossly inappropriate. To imagine that only
one bed is also available to that number is alarming, he said. But
bizarre as it is, this is the sad reality in the larger part of Ipokia
Local Government Area, a remote region tucked in the extremes of Ogun
State.
Motorists
and residents queue for fuel at a petrol station on Murtala Muhammed
Way, Ilorin, Kwara State on Christmas Day. Photo: Success Nwogu
Our correspondents
It was indeed a bleak Christmas in many
states across the country as an acute shortage of fuel kept many
families at home throughout Friday
The fuel scarcity, which began two
months ago in the country, became worsened during the Yuletide season as
many filling stations were shut. As a result of this, many people could
not go to church because there were only few commercial vehicles on the
roads.
In Jos, virtually all the filling
stations across the city were shut while only a few ones like the NNPC
Mega station sold to an endless queue of vehicles.
Black marketers cashed in on the
situation, selling a four-litre keg for N1, 500, as security operatives
took up strategic positions in most parts of the metropolis to forestall
any terrorist attack.
Also, residents of Kwara State, especially the state capital, Ilorin, celebrated the Christmas Day with less excitement.
Though, many Christians managed to find
their way to places of worship to celebrate the birth of Jesus, majority
of the residents spent most of the day queuing for petrol at filling
stations.
Many vehicle owners complained bitterly
of the hardship inflicted on them by the lingering fuel scarcity across
the country, especially in the Ilorin metropolis.
A motorist, Mr. John Bala, said he spent
over eight hours in the queue and was disappointed that when it was
almost his turn to buy petrol, the stock was exhausted at the petrol
station.
As a result of the fuel crisis, many recreation centres in the state were deserted while transport fares almost doubled.
Similarly, the fuel crisis in the country adversely affected human and vehicular traffic in Lagos on Christmas Day.
Many of the filling stations, which had
opened the previous day were shut, forcing desperate residents to
patronise black market traders, who sold fuel for as high as N170 per
litre. However, some filling stations, which were open for business, had
to deal with the long queues of vehicles.
In Ogun State, the fuel scarcity also bit hard in the state as many of the major oil dealers did not have the product in stock.
With the exception of the NNPC Mega
Station on Abiola Way and the MRS filling station at Isale Igbein, both
located in Abeokuta, many other major dealers like Mobil, Forte Oil,
Total, and Conoil, did not open to customers, as most of them claimed
they did not have petrol.
Our correspondent, who monitored the
situation in Abeokuta, Sango-Ota, Ifo and Ijebu Ode, discovered that
many of the independent marketers, who had petrol, were selling at N120
per litre.
The NNPC mega station and MRS filling
stations, Abeokuta sold at the official price of N87 per litre. These
two attracted longer queues of motorists.
Though there were queues in the few
filling stations belonging to independent marketers, not as long as that
seen at NNPC and MRS. Only one of them, SurreyB filling station,
located in Elega area of Abeokuta sold to the few motorists in the queue
at N100 per litre.
The fuel scarcity doused the excitement of the Christmas Day for Christians as most roads in the state were deserted.
Many motorists said they had to resort
to leaving their vehicles at home because the few petrol stations that
opened for business sold the product for as high as N140.
Only one filling station on the popular
Adebayo Road in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital, sold it at N118 – the
cheapest in the town.
One of our correspondents in Edo State
learnt that motorists had to pay between N150 and N180 per litre to get
the product at the few filling stations that were open for sales.
The situation was evident on the
virtually deserted Sapele Road, Akpakpava, Reservation Avenue and many
other busy roads in Benin, the state capital.
The cost of transportation also recorded
a sharp increase as many holidaymakers had to pay double the cost of
transportation to most relaxation spots.
For instance, it was learnt that the
cost of getting to the city centre from Eyaen or Ikpoba Hill increased
from N100 to N150 or N200.
Saturday PUNCH learnt that in
Kogi State, the situation was not better as the exorbitant price tag on
petrol left many parts of the state drab.
In Lokoja, the state capital, most
filling stations, particularly the major marketers, were without fuel
while long queues were visible along major routes leading to filling
stations where fuel was available at high prices.
At Perotec Filling Station along the Ganaja Road in Lokoja, a litre of petrol was sold for N160 on Christmas Day.
Consequently, commuters were forced to pay exorbitant fare for transportation within and out of the state.
For instance, Lokoja-Abuja which
ordinarily costs N1, 500 jumped to N2, 500, while Lokoja- Lagos climbed
to N7, 000 from N5, 000.
Similarly in Ondo State, many of the
towns and villages celebrated Christmas in low key as many spent the day
at the filling stations.
Many filling stations were under lock
and key while those that opened for business sold the product for
between N125 and N140 per litre.
However, some major marketers and NNPC
Mega Stations sold at the official pump price of N87 per litre forcing
many residents to endure endless queues at the stations.
It was learnt that in Ibadan, the Oyo
State capital, black market operators sold five litres of fuel for N1,
000 on Christmas Day. In Sabo area of the city, five litres of the
commodity was sold for N1, 200. A few fuel stations that sold to
motorists in Ibadan area sold a litre for N120 while one of the filling
stations in Adeoyo area of the city sold a litre of petrol for N130.
The scarcity of the product in the state
reached a new height this week as only a few vehicles were seen on
major roads in the state despite the Christmas season.
Our correspondent observed that the
scarcity noticeably affected the patronage of relaxation centres in the
state as commercial motorcyclists and transport operators charged
exorbitant fares.
It was learnt that petrol sold for
between N87 and N160 per litre in Enugu on Christmas Day, as one of our
correspondents, who monitored the situation, noticed very long queues at
the stations that sold at normal price of N87.
At some filling stations, the available stock was exhausted even before the queue dissipated.
Some motorists, who spoke to our
correspondent, expressed anger at the situation, which they said marred
their Christmas celebrations.
One of the motorists, Mr. Ekene Onyeka, said he spent most of the Christmas Day in a queue.
Onyeka revealed that some of those in
the queue were not able to get fuel, as the product ‘finished’ before it
got to their turn.
It was gathered that apart from few
stations that sold at the official pump price, petrol sold for between
N120 and N200 per litre in other states in the South-East.
Our correspondent learnt that the product was more expensive in rural areas, where very few stations had the commodity.
Residents of Rivers State also lamented
the fuel scarcity as filling stations, which opened for business, sold
the product for N140 per litre.
Many residents spent a larger part of
the Christmas Day in gridlocks in areas like Ada George, Slaughter and
Azikiwe Road in Port Harcourt, the state capital, where motorists in
fuel queues blocked the road.
At Romans Filling Station located along
Ada George Road, a litre of fuel was sold for N140 per litre. Vehicles
most times blocked the Ada George Expressway, leaving only one lane for
vehicles to pass.
Again, one indication that the fuel
scarcity in the state still persisted was the presence of scores of
black marketers, who sold 10 litres of petrol for N1, 600.
Against the backdrop, the Independent
Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, Rivers Chapter, blamed depot
owners for the scarcity and hike in the price of petrol.
The marketers said depot owners sell the
products to them above government prices, a situation that had made it
difficult for them to sell at official prices.
One of our correspondents reported that
the fuel scarcity left many motorists and commuters stranded on
Christmas Day in Calabar, the Cross River State capital.
The few filling stations that opened for business sold petrol for N140 per litre.
The situation jerked transport fares as a
journey of N1, 500 from Calabar to Ogoja, rose to N3, 000, while from
Calabar to Ugep which used to be N500, increased to N1, 500.
Some passengers were seen stranded at Etim Edem Park.
A road user, Olukunle Samuel, said apart
from fuel, the surge in vehicular movement to Calabar as a result of
the carnival, also contributed to the long queues at the few filling
stations selling the product.
The scarcity of fuel in Kano State
forced the Department of Petroleum Resources on Friday to pledge to do
everything to ease the persistent problem.
The News Agency of Nigeria reported
that a statement signed by the Comptroller of the department in Kano,
Alhaji Isa Tafida, assured all stakeholders that the department would
intensify efforts in monitoring petroleum products at all outlets during
the festive period.
The aim, it said, was to check diversion of the products and to ensure that they were consigned to reach filling stations.
The DPR promised that it would ensure petrol was sold at the Federal Government’s approved price of N87.
The department, however, reminded all
petroleum marketing companies in the state that it would apply full
sanction on filling stations found violating petroleum regulations.
However, in another northern state, Kaduna, the fuel scarcity did not stop residents from trooping out to celebrate.
Our correspondent observed that most
relaxation joints, especially in the southern part of the state,
witnessed high patronage. Even most of the eateries were not left out as
families took time out with their loved ones to sample various
available delicacies.
Earlier on Christmas Eve, the Peoples
Democratic Party cashed in on the continued fuel crisis in the country
to throw a jab at President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.
“Good morning Nigerians. Today is Day 61
of fuel scarcity. Failure is gradually becoming the identity of this
government,” the party tweeted.
A Twitter user, Kamal Kanya, also lamented over the hardship the crisis had caused Nigerians.
“President Buhari needs to do something
urgently about this fuel scarcity. People are suffering seriously. It is
not funny,” Kanya said.
This situation across the country
presents a sharp contrast to the assurances of the Minister of State for
Petroleum, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, that Nigerians would not suffer fuel
scarcity during the Christmas celebration.
While assuring recently that Nigeria had
enough supply of fuel for at least 24 days, which would cover before
and beyond the Yuletide season, he had doused fears over the scarcity at
the time, calling on members of the public to refrain from hoarding,
product diversion and panic buying of petrol.
Meanwhile, the Independent Petroleum
Marketers Association of Nigeria has advised the Federal Government to
commence total deregulation of the oil and gas sector to avert frequent
fuel scarcity.
The National Operation Controller of IPMAN, Mr. Mike Osatuyi, gave the advice on Friday in Lagos in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria.
Osatuyi said that the deregulation of the downstream sector was the best option for the nation’s oil industry.
He said that the current fuel scarcity had reawakened the call for the complete deregulation of the downstream sector.
Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu
Okechukwu Nnodim, Abuja
The Federal Government may reduce the pump price of petrol to N85 per litre from January 1, 2016.
The Minister of State for Petroleum
Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, made this disclosure to journalists at the
Port Harcourt Refining Company, Rivers State, after inspecting the
plant.
Asked when the Federal Government would
release the new petrol price template prepared by the Petroleum Product
Pricing Regulation Agency, Kachikwu said that he approved the new price
for the agency on Thursday.
Pressed to reveal when the new price
would become effective, Kachikwu, said “like I said, we have done a
modulation and it is showing us below N87. I imagine that if PPPRA
publishes it today, it will become effective immediately. But the 1st of
January 2016 is when we are looking at.”
He said the new price would be below the
current N87 per litre and it would now convince Nigerians that the
pricing modulation that the Federal Government promised to embark on a
few days ago was not a trick.
He said, “It (the template) is out, I
signed off on it yesterday (Thursday). I imagined that in the next
couple of days the marketers would get advice on that. The nice thing
about the PPPRA, where I signed up on it yesterday is that the price
will be far below N87. So for the first time people will understand that
the pricing modulation I was talking about is not a gimmick. It is for
real.
“We have gone to find out how we will be
able fluctuate this market to reflect what the reality of crude market
is. The objective is that one, we cannot afford to continue to
subsidise. We can’t even understand where those subsidies were going to.
There are a lot of fraud elements in it so we need to cut that of.”
He stated that from the applicable
market realities for the pricing modulation, government discovered that
petrol would sell for either N85 or N86 per litre.
Kachikwu said, “But in applying that
where we landed when we did the analysis for the very first time was
about N85 or N86, so it is below N87. And maybe the first price that
will come will reflect it. That was why Mr. President said that the
price will be N87 for now. And that is what we have in mind.”
A subscriber complaining to the owner of a call centre in Lagos
Tunde Ajaja
He sounded distraught as he narrated his displeasure to our correspondent that morning.
Mr. Adeyemi Linus, a peasant farmer in
Bayeku, an agrarian community in Ibadan, Oyo State, woke up that morning
to realise it was his grandson’s birthday. Hoping to be one of the
first people to wish the 17-year-old a happy birthday, Linus grabbed his
phone to check how much airtime he had as he rose slowly from bed.
With a balance of N26.58k on his phone,
he pulled out the N500 he had tucked under his pillow the previous
night, grabbed the closest of his shirts and rushed out into the street
to buy airtime so he could share the “joy of the special day” with his
“adorable” grandchild, before going to the farm.
Linus bought N400 MTN recharge card,
hoping it would enable him to make his call and still have a little left
to make a few other calls. Anticipating an exciting conversation with
his grandson as he made his way back to his house, he whistled as he
loaded the card. Time check was 8:30am.
Just as he settled into the sofa in
front of his house to initiate the call, he received four messages
consecutively. He told our correspondent that he almost ignored the
messages because he was in a hurry to make the call but that he
grudgingly clicked on the first message, which left him deflated
afterwards.
He recalled, “I was shocked to see that
N200 had been deducted from my airtime as subscription fees for some
services that I never subscribed to. It was as if I was dreaming because
I did not subscribe to anything. All I do with the phone is to make
calls and read messages, most of which are from MTN without my asking
for them. I had noticed similar deductions from my airtime in the past
and that was why I rarely recharge the phone because they bill me for
several things that I don’t know about.
“Each of the four messages cost N50 so I
lost N200 just like that. The first message gave me health tips, the
second one gave me reasons why I should do exercise; the third one said
my caller tune had been renewed and the fourth was about ‘tips to make
money from the comfort of your home,’ and I never applied or subscribed
to any of them.
“I had called the customer care many times but they kept assuring me they had deactivated it, yet they kept billing me.”
Apparently confused about the
development, Linus recalled that he read the messages several times,
hoping he received them in error and his money would be returned. But
just as he was slowly reconciling himself with the “strange billing” and
made to “quickly make the call before they removed the remaining,”
another message came in, saying his monthly subscription for “twitter
goodie bag had successfully been renewed at N100.”
“At that juncture, I felt like throwing
the phone away. My dear friend, I never subscribed to anything and I
wonder why MTN should do that. I had to quickly switch off my phone and
remove the battery so I could save the remaining amount.
“Fortunately, moments later, I switched
it on and I quickly called the boy. I spoke for about four minutes 35
seconds when I heard “one minute remaining.” I thank God that they even
allowed me to make the call, even though it was shorter than I planned.
By the time I finished, I had N2.56k. I was angry but there was nothing I
could do. These days, I only recharge when I need to make call.”
Some subscriber at one of the telecoms operators’ customer care centre in Garki, Abuja
Linus’ experience might sound strange
but such is the reality of many mobile telecoms subscribers in Nigeria
today, whereby mobile telecom operators, including Glo, MTN, Etisalat
and Airtel charge them for services they never subscribed to.
Many mobile phone users who spoke to Saturday PUNCH lamented
that they had been surcharged by their network providers, usually for
things they knew nothing about. They explained that even though the
introduction of GSM service in the country has been a blessing, they
have equally had bitter experiences that had almost robbed them of the
joy that it brought them initially.
Telecoms in Nigeria, a bitter-sweet experience
When the Global System for Mobile
communication was introduced in Nigeria in 2001, the joy and excitement
that greeted its arrival was historic and unequalled. It was like a
breakthrough from the primitive days, when people went through harrowing
experiences before they could make use of telephone services.
Then, people largely made use of
rechargeable NITEL card and they had to visit telephone booths to make
calls, and some of the few subscribers observed that what was obtainable
then was a system characterised by frustration, pronounced
dissatisfaction and poor service delivery. But since the introduction of
the GSM, efficiency and comfort became affordable.
Therefore, in the opinion of many, the
advent of GSM did not only sweeten communication experience, it was like
a migration from an old order, more so that shortly after the
commencement of GSM services, the arrival of Econet Nigeria (now Airtel)
and MTN in the same 2001 and Glo’s entry in 2003 made the experience a
sweet one. The advent of smartphones also gave Nigerians more reasons to
appreciate the development some more.
But few years down the line, many
subscribers describe their experience with their network providers as
frustrating and one plagued with a mix of instantaneous joy and
remarkable sadness. Impliedly, the pleasant experience people once had
has been taking a sharp descent for the worse.
They noted that apart from the declining
quality of service and the frustration that often accompanies it, most
of the network service providers had devised ways of cheating them.
These, consumers said, range from unsolicited ringback tunes and tips on
various subjects, monthly deductions for subscriptions they never
initiated, news alerts to undelivered SMS without refund and sometimes
promo offers.
They said even when they complain, the
usual response they often get from the customer care of the respective
network providers is ‘system error’ while they (consumers) kept losing
money. According to some consumers, even when they send the stipulated
command to end a service or they complain to the customer care officers
of the affected operator, they would be assured that the problem had
been resolved while it persists.
This is perhaps one of the reasons why
Akinyemi Janet had yet to forgive MTN for debiting her of N8,000 when
she travelled to the United States on a short visit few weeks ago. She
recalled that before she left the country, she recharged her phone to
the tune of N8,000 so as to have something to rely on in case of
emergency.
But shortly after her arrival at the
airport, she said she saw a brief message on her phone that N1,500 had
been deducted from her account but that before she could read the
message it had disappeared. “After a 12-hour flight, I was too tired to
check it or bother myself about it. I thought it might have something to
do with the change of environment,” she said.
Janet, who had been strained by the jet
lag, sprang to life when she tried to call her parents back home and she
was told she didn’t have sufficient credit to make a call. She
continued, “Initially, I felt it was bad network, so I kept trying.
Since the response persisted, I checked my balance to see what was
happening. To my greatest surprise, my credit balance was N0.02k. I
screamed!
“I knew it couldn’t be real, so I
switched off the phone to see if it would come back, but it never came
back. To avoid a repeat of same, I refused to recharge my phone until I
came back.”
Out of anger, Janet said one of the
first calls she made on arriving Nigeria was to the customer care and
that she was told that the money was for her internet connection.
She continued, “Before I left Nigeria, I
subscribed to the normal N1,000 Blackberry Internet Service on my
Blackberry and they never touched my airtime. But when I got the US,
they left my data and started deducting from my airtime. And
interestingly, I wasn’t even browsing when they deducted the money. Even
if I was browsing, do they charge N500 per kilobyte for me to have
exhausted N8,000 within five minutes. Till date that money is gone and
they expect me to forget about it.
“As if that was not enough, my Airtel
SIM did the same thing the day I came back. I bought a new smartphone
and inserted the SIM. I recharged with N2,000 airtime, hoping to
subscribe for data the following day, but before the next morning,
everything was gone. When I called the customer care line, I was told
that since I didn’t subscribe for data, they had to deduct from my
airtime, even when I didn’t browse or download anything. Since then, I
have not recharged the line and that is the way it will be.”
Like Janet, Chika Ezeobi is definitely not happy with his network provider, MTN, at the moment. He told Saturday PUNCH
that following the company’s promo, called ‘cash quest promo’ for which
subscribers were charged N100 daily with the promise that they could
win cash prize, a sport utility vehicle or electronics, he had been very
angry with his network provider.
Ezeobi, a student who was hoping to hit a
jackpot through his daily subscription, said having done the
subscription for a number of weeks, he had to visit the closest customer
care office to find out the date of the draw.
A distressed Ezeobi said he was shocked
beyond words when a customer care officer at a retail centre told him
the programme had ended since August 8, while his money was still being
deducted in November.
He said, “I was shocked and disappointed
on hearing that because it was fraudulent. If the promo had ended, why
were they still deducting my money? The person who attended to me said I
should have been following the promo to know when it ended. And I
wondered if it was not left to them to discontinue the deductions when
it ended.
“When I called the customer care line,
the person who spoke to me apologised. I asked if my money would be
refunded, he said MTN wouldn’t be able to do so because it was a system
error. I felt scandalised and till date, I lost thousands of naira to
them. If you multiply that by the number of persons that could have
suffered the same fate, it could be running into millions. That is not
fair.”
Unlike Ezeobi who actually subscribed to
the service for which he was being charged, Kingsley said he had never
subscribed to caller tunes on his Glo network, yet he has a fuji song as his ringback tune for which N50 is deducted from his account every month.
Like Kingsley, another angry subscriber,
Desmond, is yet to forgive Airtel and Glo for the amount of money he
said he had lost to the “sharp practices” of the operators. He noted
that apart from relationship tips and news update from CNN, he had been forced to pay N100 monthly to renew Twitter Goodie Bag that
he never subscribed to. He added that in spite of the repeated calls to
the customer care and the assurance that it had been cancelled, Glo
kept deducting the N100 till two years after.
“The deduction started in April, 2013
and immediately I complained to the customer care portal they gave me a
code to send. I must have sent that code for about 1,000 times but it
never stopped. I went to their outlet, they promised to stop it but they
didn’t, until September 2015.
“They also send me relationship tips, CNN news
update, all at a cost to me. Painfully, when you tell them to stop it,
they won’t even if they promise to.” The myriad of complaints from
subscribers can be overwhelming. Some lamented that after exhausting
their browsing data, the operators, without notifying them, start
deducting from their airtime. Desmond is also not happy that his N50 is
being deducted for relationship tips every two weeks by Airtel. “I even
bought an Etisalat line, hoping it would be free from these illegal
deductions, but they are all the same. Eventually, I have had to drop
the two other lines to endure MTN’s service. They are all the same, and
it is so painful,” he added.
Findings showed that many subscribers
have had to buy more than one SIM card from different operators to
reduce their losses and with the hope of getting an improved service
from another if one was deficient.
Since Moyin Akinbami travelled to the
United Kingdom sometime last year, she said Glo had been deducting an
unspecified amount from her airtime when she did not subscribe to any
service. She said, “The Mumu Comic Service is against my wish and it is
distributed under the 55501 portal. It can be up to five times a day,
starting from 12 midnight, and Glo has refused to unsubscribe me from
the service. I keep my Glo line alive by having airtime sent to me on a
regular basis, but Glo systematically drains everything through
unsolicited messages, spurious calls and many others. Does the NCC still
think it’s only MTN that deserves a fine?”
Beyond the “illegal” deduction of
subscribers’ airtime, other complaints lodged by the subscribers include
unsolicited messages and unwanted calls from the networks, such as
55990 or 7571 for Glo, 08034100 or 0757 for MTN, 08090334069 for
Etisalat, 39922227 for Airtel, etc, call jam or interruption, delay in
connection, false messages, among others.
Telecoms, a growing initiative
Between July 2014 and September 2015,
the number of active lines, including mobile and Code Division Multiple
Access, known as CDMAs in the country has risen from 132,186, 840 to
150,660,631 out of a population of about 170 million Nigerians.
As of September 2015, MTN has 62,493,732
subscribers (representing 2.1 per cent increase since the third quarter
of 2014), Globacom has 31,306,472 (representing 4.81 per cent increase
within the same period), Airtel has 31,134,625 (representing 4.08 per
cent increase within the same period) while Etisalat has 23,492,214
(representing 5.36 per cent increase within the same period).
Furthermore, the number of telephone
subscribers per 100 individuals living within an area (Teledensity)
passed 100 per cent for the first time to stand at 103.9 per cent, which
points to the fact that more Nigerians are embracing the use of mobile
phones. This is even more so, going by the information that Nigerians
spend about N212bn monthly on internet subscriptions while the country’s
telecom revenue is also estimated to have surpassed $20bn in 2015.
Given that the average revenue per user
is $6 at N196.79 to a dollar, this gives N1,181.82 as the ARPU monthly.
When this is multiplied by the number of 150,660,631 active users as of
September 2015, according to NCC, the amount spent on airtime monthly by
active subscribers in Nigeria is given as N178bn monthly. Thus, given
the many ways operators surcharge their subscribers, a part of this
might account for the over $20bn recorded by the industry in 2015.
An evaluation by Wikipedia in
2014 had shown that Nigeria ranks as the seventh country in the world
with the highest number of mobile phones in use, with about 167,371,945
mobile phones and over 90 million internet users.
An expert in Information Technology, who
spoke under the condition of anonymity, averred that given the barrage
of complaints from many of these subscribers, there are indications that
many subscribers are dissatisfied with their network providers, most of
whom, he said, appear to have benefitted from unduly surcharging their
customers.
He noted that if unchecked, the network
providers would continue to enrich themselves illegally by subjecting
their customers to discomfort. “It is fraudulent for network providers
to charge people for services they never requested for, and when they
complain, they promise to stop it but they don’t.
“In some cases, there is even no
information as to how to unsubscribe and if you call them, it takes them
forever to connect the calls. This means any busy individual might have
to endure the extortion. A similar one is the promo offers. Even though
it is optional and there are always terms and conditions, many people
don’t bother to read through, so, the blame on that is equitable,” he
explained.
The dissatisfaction of consumers with
their service providers was further strengthened by a survey conducted
in December 2015 by NOIPolls, a country-specific polling service in the
West African region to develop opinion research in Nigeria. The survey
revealed that in spite of the continuous rise in the number of
subscribers and the increase in the usage of dual lines, there is a
general decline in consumers’ satisfaction with services being provided
by the various GSM operators.
Findings of the survey, a copy of which
was received by our correspondent, showed that many subscribers say they
are not getting value for their money from the operators, and the
reasons consumers adduced for this include high tariff, poor network
service, poor promotions, poor customer service and undue credit
deductions, which they said have compelled them to have more than one
SIM card with the hope of enjoying a complementary service.
Notably, the percentage of people using
two lines has risen from 39 per cent in 2012 to 49 per cent in 2015,
with majority still left dissatisfied. Findings also showed that some
subscribers have dropped or abandoned their SIM cards and left them
inactive because of poor service delivery and what they term extortion,
which also accounts for revenue loss for the operators. A report had put
the potential revenue loss from inactive lines at over N50bn monthly.
“For instance, almost half (46 per cent)
of the subscribers who use MTN as their main line think they are not
getting value for money from this provider in 2015, although slightly
more than half (54 per cent) of the subscribers believe they are getting
value for money from this provider in 2015. However, this figure
represents a six-point decline from the 60 per cent satisfaction it had
in 2014,” the report added.
The poll notes further that even though
MTN topped the chart as the operator that provides the best services in
2015, a large number of its subscribers say they are not getting value
for their money. Perhaps, the subscribers’ complaints tilted more
against MTN, because, according to the survey, 88 per cent of mobile
network subscribers use MTN either as their main line or as a
supplementary line.
Similarly, the level of satisfaction of
Etisalat subscribers seems to have declined, according to the
respondents, as its rating by its consumers dropped from 97 per cent in
2013 to 65 per cent in 2015.
According to the survey, 15 per cent of
Etisalat subscribers said they didn’t get value for their money because
of undue credit deduction, as compared to Glo’s 12 per cent, MTN’s nine
per cent and Airtel’s seven per cent.
According to the report, between 2012
and 2015, the percentage of MTN subscribers who said they got value for
their money dropped from 57 per cent to 54 per cent, that of Airtel
dropped from 72 per cent in 2012 to 52 per cent in 2015 and that of
Etisalat drops from 78 per cent to 65 per cent, unlike Glo’s rating that
rose from 63 per cent to 69 per cent within the same period.
The NOIPolls urged the Nigerian
Communications Commission to ensure that consumers continue to have
access to high quality telecommunications service by setting basic
minimum quality levels for all operators. “With a sample of the size we
employed, we can say with 95 per cent confidence that the results
obtained are statistically precise – within a range of plus or minus
three per cent,” it adds.
The slippery road to a better telecom service
Most of the mobile network providers
have often blamed the network problems that consumers experience on high
operating cost and infrastructural deficit, such as poor power supply,
which they said makes them to spend more of their income on recurrent
expenditure. They had explained that this had not enabled them to focus
on other areas that could make their service delivery better.
According to them, given the nature of
the service they render, which must be on and stable at every time of
the day, they have had to rely on generators which they said cost a lot
of money to maintain.
It was gathered that the telecoms
companies spent about N45bn monthly (N540bn per annum) to power their
Base Transceiver Stations in 2014, and given the increasing number of
the stations and the likely increase in maintenance and personnel cost
across the country, the cost incurred by the respective operators might
have increased.
The Executive Secretary, Association of
Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria, Mr. Gbolahan Awonuga,
had said recently that operators providing 4G internet service were the
largest consumers of diesel in the country. Notably, diesel costs about
N150 per litre. Given the number of subscribers in the country and the
prevalent poor power supply, which operators have identified as a
bottleneck, Nigerians might have to endure these issues and other
shortcomings of the service providers for a longer time. Some experts in
the industry have however said there was need for more base stations
across the country. They noted that the about 30,000 base stations as of
the end of 2014 were not enough to cater for the about 150 million
connected lines.
The former Minister of Communications
Technology, Mrs. Omobola Johnson, had said that Nigeria needs at least
60,000 base stations by 2018 to overcome the poor quality service in the
sector, noting that the rate of growth of the stations had slowed down.
She pointed out that epileptic power
supply, security risk, high cost of setting up the stations and
maintenance, vandalism, stealing of equipment, delay in approval by the
government have all negatively affected the growth of base stations in
the country. Some consumers told Saturday PUNCH that the
network providers might have been surcharging them to be able to meet up
with their operating cost and boost their revenue.
Reacting to the issues raised about the
service providers, the spokesperson for the NCC, Mr. Tony Ojobo, told
our correspondent that the NCC has a platform through which subscribers
could make their complaints, saying “complaints are treated as they
come.” He added that the mobile number portability was introduced to
give subscribers an opportunity to make a choice among the service
providers.
He said, “Anyone who has complaints
should complain to the network provider and in case they don’t get any
redress, they should call our complain desk on 622 and supply the
reference number that was given to them by the network provider, which
indicates that they have already complained and nothing has been done.
And we will take it up from there.”
On the issue of unsolicited messages, he
said, “Even though some of the messages are advisory and could be
beneficial to subscribers, what we have done is to ensure that they
provide options for people to opt out and most of them have complied
with that.”
Speaking on the inadequacy of base
stations, Ojobo identified the issues confronting the deployment of base
stations to include security challenges, community restiveness and
multiple demands, approval from states and multiple taxes, noting that
the NCC had initiated discussions with the Nigerian Governors’ Forum to
draw their attention to some of the challenges being experienced by
operators in their states.
Also reacting, the spokesperson for
Airtel, Emeka Opara, said across the world, operators normally send
messages to customers to inform them of new services. He added, “The
only issue there is the message hits you when you are not expecting it
and some of them come in at such times like midnight because of network
issues, but I admit that it is wrong to harass customers with messages,
especially at late hours. I’m a customer as well, so I feel it.”
About the illegal subscription and
deductions, he said any man-made system was prone to error and
malfunctioning but that when a customer comes with a genuine complain,
the tradition is to respond to them accordingly.
He said, “These networks were not built
by God but by man, which is prone to mistakes, errors and unintended
developments. However, if your credit has been illegally deducted, go to
any Airtel shop or call the customer care and ask them to stop it and
if they don’t you have a right to complain.
“As a business, we do not set out to
annoy or exploit our customers. However, sometimes people complain
because they do not even know what they have done or what anyone else,
like their children, could have done with their phones. Regardless, we
do everything possible to resolve any complaints that come.”
Meanwhile, efforts made to get Etisalat
to respond were not successful as the spokesperson did not reply the
mail she promised to send, while MTN and Glo also did not reply the
mails sent to them.
Head of the Presidential Advisory Committee against Corruption, Prof. Itse Sagay, in this interview with GBENRO ADEOYE,
speaks about petitions against some ex-governors and activities of the
anti-corruption body- President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-corruption fight
You recently denied an
interview published in a national daily, where you were reported to have
described the President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-corruption war as
insincere. What was your reaction to the publication?
Actually someone gave me a call around
9.30pm on that night, so I didn’t actually see it. When I got the call
and the gist of it, of course, I was stunned because I did not grant any
interview to anybody. And if I had granted an interview, what I was
reported to have said would have been the opposite of what I would have
said. My relationship with the Buhari government is very solid. I hold
him in high esteem and I think that his struggle against corruption is
sincere, concentrated and committed. So all that was reported in the
publication was rubbish, and what was reported about the judiciary was
also nonsense. I admire the judiciary and I want to encourage them and
help them so they can perform better under the very difficult
circumstances they are in. The same thing applies to the All
Progressives Congress, which is a party I admire. This is the first time
that I will associate with any political party. It is because I admire
the APC government. So all the things the report said about the APC, the
Independent National Electoral Commission, and Lagos State are absolute
lies. Nobody ever interviewed me and those were the opposite of what I
would have said.
What action would you take following this?
I was planning to take an action. In
fact, I had already got a counsel who was going to file action. But the
following morning, I got information the newspaper had disowned the
report and sacked that reporter. I heard the editor had been put under
suspension and that the newspaper is also going to apologise in their
issue. With that, the question of going to court does not arise.
Do you think this is capable of damaging your relationship with the President?
Absolutely unlikely! In fact, I think it
will strengthen it because I now see and I think he too will see that
our involvement – my committee and his government together in this
struggle – is having a very telling effect.
Has the presidency contacted you about the interview yet?
Yes, the presidency has contacted me,
not directly, (but) through my committee. We have been in touch with
each other and the presidency has known the true position since Sunday
night and it is not worried at all. All it is worried about is the state
of the Nigerian press, and not the state of the fight against
corruption, which is ongoing and not going to be distracted.
You said it was not the first time that you would be misrepresented.
The last one was with the same national
newspaper but it wasn’t as bad as this. That was an actual interview but
they distorted what I said. Apparently they had their own agenda and
they twisted what I said to favour that agenda. It didn’t represent what
I said accurately. They did that before and I cut them off because of
that.
From the comments that
followed the interview and what some others have said, it appears some
people were in favour of what you were claimed to have said. It seems to
represent the view of some Nigerians and the situation on ground, is
this a pointer that people have seen the anti-corruption war is not
sincere enough?
No! No! No! What is happening is that
corruption is fighting back. All these people you said approved of the
fake interview were the people who are connected with corruption one way
or the other. Some were beneficiaries either directly or indirectly and
they were happy with the existing rotten system under which the whole
country was crashing down. So when they thought I made that statement,
they thought ‘our fortunes are being revived, corruption is on the rise
again’. But it was just for a short period, until I shut it down.
But some people and the PDP have described the fight against corruption as selective. What do you say to that?
I have always reacted by telling them
this: when a farmer goes to harvest fruits, the first set he brings out
is the low hanging ones. These are the ripe ones that he can pluck with
his hands without having to climb the tree or use a ladder. The PDP’s
corruption of 16 years constitutes low hanging fruits which have
weakened our faces and bodies. They cannot hide and we cannot hide from
them, so we have to deal with them first and that is what is happening.
PDP’s corruption is the worst, the greatest, the most frightening this
country has ever seen and the most obvious and we are going to deal with
it. We are not going to go to esoteric things like going to look for
what (Ozumba) Mbadiwe did in 1962 or (Tafawa) Balewa in 1960. We are not
going to go there first; we will go to the obvious ones. The heavy
ones, the ones that involve billions and billions of dollars right under
our noses and wrecked this country in the last 16 years.
Is that an assurance that
the anti-corruption war will not leave out anyone found to be corrupt
irrespective of their party or closeness to the President?
Any case where there is obvious
corruption, a palpable case, prima facie, strong case, we will follow
up. Particularly, one of the agenda which this federal administration
has is the recovery of stolen resources. So most of these people still
have those resources in banks and under their beds and so on, we have to
recover all those for the benefit of the social welfare of Nigerians,
in addition to the pursuance of prosecution and imprisonment.
People say that this
government is taking the anti-corruption fight too seriously at the
expense of real governance. What do you say to that?
You know that is nonsense. Governance
has been going on at all levels. Before ministers were appointed, there
were permanent secretaries working in those ministries, which were being
overseen directly by the presidency. Now that there are ministers, they
are working in their various areas like education, power, transport,
sport. You have seen the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr.
Babatunde Fashola, with all the plans he has unveiled for the future of
this country. You have seen the Minister of Transportation, Mr. Rotimi
Amaechi, with the plans for the railway and so on. They are all working.
Every one of them is working. So governance is going on. What the
President has done is to set up various bodies doing the jobs; the
President is not directly fighting corruption. He is inspiring and
appointing the people who are doing it. The people doing the job are my
committee and the anti-corruption agencies, which are the executive
agencies against corruption like the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related
Offences Commission, and so on. Those are the people carrying the
anti-corruption fight forward. He is not wasting his time with the day
to day appointments in the areas where he has appointed capable people,
and everybody is working.
Now that you even mentioned
Fashola and Amaechi, some people criticised the presidency for
appointing them as ministers when they had not satisfactorily dealt with
the petitions against them. How do you react to that?
You see; if the PDP says something is
good, know that it is bad. If the party says something is bad, know it
is very good. PDP is the most corrupt institution this nation has ever
seen. The President is a very intelligent man, knowing they were trying
to deprive him of the best hands to run his government, he quietly
allowed the PDP to fool itself. After it had finished fooling itself,
the President went and took the best and the best, which are the likes
of Fashola, Amaechi, Dr. Chris Ngige, and the others. The Minister of
Agriculture, Chief Audu Ogbeh, was the best minister in Shehu Shagari’s
government at the time. The President picked a galaxy of stars as his
ministers and we are going to see results. So he did the right thing. He
knew those people were up to mischief, so he just quietly let them fool
themselves and at the end, he did the right thing. They will do great
things for this country.
But a lot of APC members today joined from the same PDP you have described as corrupt. So what difference is there between them?
We have an upright leadership that would
not tolerate that kind of indiscipline so they would not have access.
We have a leadership that is upright and in very strong control of what
happens.
But should the petitions have been ignored?
They should be discountenanced. They are
rubbish; they were done out of what Nigerians call ‘bad belle’ to
prevent this government from performing well and it was a vindictive
action against innocent Nigerians who have served this nation very well.
There are very wicked, thoroughly despicable characters, who do not
deserve anything positive in this country. There were some characters
behind it who wanted to drag the country down and prevent Buhari from
giving the best government that Nigerians deserve.
Fashola allegedly spent
N163m on two boreholes in Lagos among other allegations. So if such
petitions are not investigated, how do we know that the allegations are
spurious or sponsored by the PDP?
We are talking of people’s records;
these are people with solid records. And if you look at the whole
environment and atmosphere, they were about to be made ministers and a
group of very corrupt people wanted to stop them. That’s all. This was
because they didn’t want people of high capacity, ability and commitment
to be in this government. It was an attempt to scuttle their chances to
become ministers; that was the main purpose behind it. You cannot
investigate every person based on an allegation that was made; there
must be a basis. There must be some level of prima facie, evidence and
so on. In these cases, they were just mere allegations. Even if you say
the person spent a lot of money putting up a building, you are still a
long way off from establishing that corruption took place. Have you
looked at the quality of the building or if there was misjudgement in
terms of paying more than necessary for the construction of the
particular facility? That does not mean that the person is corrupt. It
does not mean so. Maybe it was poor judgement on a particular occasion.
The point I’m trying to make is that there was so much remoteness and
implausibility in the allegations being made that they were not worth
investigating. If you look at what is being investigated now, they are
cases that are so obvious. When you are talking about money being taken
by people on particular dates and they are not even being disputed. So
there is a lot of difference between what is happening now and the
venomous and hateful accusations against those great achievers.
