Theirs is brazen, brash. It’s a determined intention. With uncanny impudence, they strive to falsify everything. And anything that’s true. Including but not limited to data, facts and figures.
They hate truth with a passion. And deliberately walk it on its head. They pursue their ulterior goals with dastardliness. Very painful indeed.
Anything that crosses their crooked paths. They pervert, distort and twist. It’s the resolve of their lives. They live on propaganda. They study it, chew it; swallow it and drink it to their greed. Never contended, can’t be satisfied.
Their in-built avarice is their undoing. They are forever insatiable. It’s never enough for them. In the process, they misinform. They malign, de-market and mislead.
They dismantle truth. And erect deodorised, fumigated lies in its stead. That’s how they live outright fake and awkward lives.
Remember their Kolmani oil search? From the blues. Like a thunderbolt of pandemic nature. Former President Muhammadu Buhari made it happen some years ago. Can you now recollect and reconnect?
Kolmani oil field took its name from the Kolmani River. It borders Bauchi and Gombe states. The exploration itself was a brainwave. We were forced into it and trapped.
All the same, Buhari celebrated his near desert oil with the weirdest enthusiasm. A jamboree. It was the zenith of deceit. They dared not deny their pretence.
They claimed they found oil in large commercial quantity. Buhari could not but testify. He could not hold back neither could he curtail or contain his excitement:
He burst into self-praise: “We are pleased with the current discovery of over one billion barrels of oil reserves and 500 billion cubic feet of gas within the Kolmani area and the huge potential for more deposits as we intensify exploration efforts.”
By their understanding and calculation, that’s enormous. Buhari was expectedly elated. He bragged: “It is, therefore, to the credit of this administration that at a time when there is near zero appetite for investment in fossil energy, coupled with the location challenges, we are able to attract investment of over $3 billion to this project.”
The shout of joy blew our space apart. We were put under siege of government propagandists. And the hailers had a seamless, unrestrained field day. They made a disturbing public show of it. They almost choked us to death. We hardly could breathe.
Soon, as it has become the norm, the dust settled. It was a weird chase. It led us to nowhere but a brick wall. Never meant to be fruitful.
It ended the very way of its predecessors. Nothing is been of Kolmani again. It was an empty pursuit. No known oil exploration company showed interest.
The NNPC could not get any reputable partner involved. No reputable oil company could be dragged into the deceit. They understandably stayed away. We were fleeced and pillaged.
Surprised? We shouldn’t be. We were warned of the futility awaiting Kolmani oil search. The warning came earlier enough. We were adequately made aware of its emptiness. All good reasoning ignored.
A study had asserted eight years ago: “While there are about 37 billion barrels of proven oil reserves and about 187 trillion standard cubic feet of gas in the South-South, what we want to explore in the North is an unproven reserve of about 2.3 billion barrels of oil reserves and about 14.65 trillion standard cubic feet of natural gas available for four or more countries in the Chad Basin.”
Henry Boise is researcher, Emerald Institute for Petroleum and Energy Economics, Policy Strategy, University of Port Harcourt (UNIPORT), Rivers State. He was sure Kolmani was not viable.
He told Daily Sun: “If you do the cost benefit analysis, you can see that it is not viable in the short and medium term.”
But Buhari elected to be adamant. He was defiant, recalcitrant as never before. The choice was his. And he acted it to very last letter. He insisted the North must produce its own oil. And at all cost. The rest of us can perish if we dare.
It did not bother him that for three decades earlier. Federal Government ineptly burnt a whopping N27 billion and $340 million exploring “for oil in the region without commensurate result.”
Buhari in his eerie characteristic cared less. So? He pounced on his Group Managing Director, NNPC, Maikanti Baru. He had been violently thrown into the wild goose chase. Baru was evidently helpless. And he displayed it in great pity:
“Now, Mr. President (Buhari) has directed me to go into that area to further explore the magnitude and prospect of those finds.” A classical case of government defiance and recklessness.
Boise promptly showed up again. He faulted the exploration. He stoutly insisted: “Exploration is an expensive activity. You can explore an entire field and you might not find anything.”
His damning revelation: “In the Chad region, oil has been found where the water is deeper. The Nigerian region has shallow waters.” He sealed all hopes on northern oil.
Nobody cared to interrogate Kolmani till date. What happened after the carnival? Were we milked, swindled? Was it a racket? Was Kolmani a monumental fraud?
The NNPCL was encouraged by our collective docility. It turned Kolmani to a handy, veritable template. With the same mentality and mind set. NNPCL approached the Port Harcourt Refinery.
It suddenly woke up last Thursday and announced: “Fuel-laden trucks rolled out of the Port Harcourt Refinery!” It was intimidating. We were caught in NNPCL’s cobwebs. It was a snare.
But the fake tempo couldn’t be sustained. Before NNPCL finished the announcement, the same refinery shut down. Who’s deceiving whom? Official deceit at its worst form!
Where do we go from here? Nowhere in particular. We’re sinking deeper in mistrust. And the rulers would want us to trust them next time. It doesn’t work that way.
Trust is earned. It’s not served a la carte. So, you can’t grab it anyhow. Neither can you run with it. It’s not given. It’s not cheap. But rather built over time meticulously. It’s a deliberate intention.
That’s why it outlasts fallacy, falsehood and fakery. Trust is never make-believe. It’s genuine, sincere and honest. Those are the guiding principles. The vital key words.
Still, this species of characters will stop at nothing. They are bent on exploiting us for life. See how they are setting the stage. Inventing another avenue to siphon our oil revenue.
They are drumming it hard into our ears. Their postulation is queer. They want us to take it hook, line and sinker.
They swore: Even if the Port Harcourt Refinery runs at maximum production. It will not in anyway crash fuel price. Not even slightly.
That brief is warped and skewed. Then, what is the essence of bringing the refinery back to full life? If it will not touch our lives positively. Let it remain moribund, dormant.
These mortals are deliberately fabricating a new cash cow. Where free money will flow into private pockets unhindered, undetected. That’s the game plan. That’s all they see in that refinery.
No synergy with integrity, honour or uprightness. The covetousness is in their DNA. It cannot be hidden. The acquisitiveness in them can’t be suppressed. They are internally and eternally selfish.
A tiny few cornering what belongs to us all! They are scheming all this in place. They want it firmly rooted and made normal.
These government inanities, fallacies litter our space with reckless impunity. They stare us in the face in such massive numbers. They confront and contest with us. They are the stinking cans of worms we have to contend with.
Name them. You will cringe. Exemplars: Abuja rice pyramid show should not be lost in your memory. A stark display of deceit, foxiness, guile.
Buhari was made to unveil a “1.2-million-bag paddy rice pyramid.” And in Abuja of all places! He fell for it. He lauded Godwin Emefiele, his Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), for “initiating the Anchor Borrowers Programme (ABP), through which the massive rice production was achieved.”
Emefiele was blown out of proportion. He responded with all the verve he could muster: “As at the end of December 2021, my team has financed 4.5 million farmers that cultivated 5.3 million hectares across 21 commodities through 23 Participating Financial Institutions in the 36 states and FCT.” He sold Buhari cheap fallacies as expensive facts.
And that ended it tragically. The voodoo rice pyramid was a disastrous calamity. Nobody was called to question. And nobody will ever be.
Another tragicomedy sauntered in boldly: Nigeria Air that never flew! Hadi Sirika, former Minister of Aviation, was the brain behind it. He is the mastermind.
He enjoyed the comedy to his last day in office. We suffer the tragedy he left behind. He now walks all our streets free. He’s having good times. He didn’t see anything amiss in the dirty deal.
Sirika has audacious guts. He asked for N5 billion to midwife Nigeria Air for us. He said Buhari gave him “only N3 billion.” His reason Nigeria Air died on arrival. It was one of the most shocking scams of our time.
Now! The boot-lickers, hangers-on are at it one more time. They’re on the march (mat?) again. They are breathing heavily on us. Choking life out of us.
They are ferocious in mood and operation. Extremely deadly in their actions and inactions. The wolves are prowling; looking for whom to destroy.
Fallacy is their password. They brandish jaundiced figures and data. They celebrate illusions with relish. They arrogantly threw some falsities at us as facts.
This is our tale of horror. It is our odd choice of absurdity. It was as if we were led to the abattoir. We have been literally slaughtered before our own very eyes.
This government’s potent, patent weapon is propaganda. Its type is uniquely deadly. They come like thief of which they are. To kill, maim, steal and destroy.
Their disinformation machinery is massive. It’s deeply rooted. It was built over decades. Its style is consistent lies, falsehoods. It dwells richly on insistence. Beating the same drum on the same spot.
Forever calling black white and white black. Standing the truth on its head and forcing it to run. Blatantly wielding heresies as facts and figures.
They care not if the moon appears in midday. And the sun in the dead of the night. Once their belly is fully loaded. They close their distorted minds to the hungry. Whatever happens to them!
So! When you opt to make propaganda your only viable option. You can be rest assured the result will be utter ruins.
You can’t prevent it. You can’t stop it. You will continue to run into turbulence. And the more you become desperate, violent. You won’t be able to help it.
You will labour hard in vain. You will want us to swallow your fallacies for facts. But we won’t make it happen.
You’re persistently pained we are not seeing what you choose to see. We elect to be holistic in our approach. But you prefer to be parochial.
Your focus is on personality. We detest that. We fix our gaze on matters germane to our existence as a people. We love to interrogate issues, particularly the unpleasant ones.
We want things done better for a better and saner clime. We’re in a hurry to return ourselves to path of honour. This has eluded us for too long a time.
We have wandered in this wilderness enough. We’ve encircled this mountain for long. We’re bewildered and overwhelmed. We are convinced we don’t in any manner deserve this.
We find it extremely difficult to trust our leaders. They have lost it totally with us. To trust them will be a monumental risk. We certainly are not ready for that gamble.
They have deceived us many times over. Proofs and evidence are glaring, legion. And you can’t fault any of them. We’re proud to part ways with them. They have no place in our hearts.
They are striving hard to convince us. They are vowing and swearing. All over. They wail all the way. Just to gain our esteemed trust and confidence.
They insist. Port Harcourt Refinery is working by all means. They shout at every opportunity. Using conventional and unconventional means. That the refinery never stopped operating since its dramatic resurgence last Thursday.
Honest. We find it difficult to be swayed. We’re only reading their thick lips with utmost caution. We won’t listen to falsities again. That we are sure of!
That’s our gain. It’s their great loss. We care less. They have taken us for a rough ride long enough. This time around, we can’t be dragged along.
They should find a better song to sing. Not that Port Harcourt Refinery is working. And working continuously, effectively, efficiently. They should tell it to the marines. We are done with inanities, fallacies, delusions, et al…
That’s our final answer.
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