You have been criticising the Minister of Petroleum, what is the point of disagreement? When you are assessing your colleagues afteryou, you are also in another context putting yourself on the line to be assessed. Of course,we are public officers and public officers must open themselves up for assessment by anybody. The assessment should be constructive and should help the system. I don’t talk to press and I don’t write anything without praying to God to guide me. My prayer has always been very simple. I thank God for granting me the talent of social analysis and commentary. I thank God for that blessing. I pray to God to direct my thoughts and pen, my words and actions. Whatever I am going to use the talent for must glorify God’s name and contribute positively to the system. If God directs me and people are not happy with what I have said and they are annoyed I haveno apologies. I know Diezani (Alison-Madueke) for as long as she was working forShell. I know her father too. But I am not happy with her stewardship, not based on my own time as a benchmark, but based on what I know. What is good everybody knowsis good. Diezani should consider what I am saying constructively. Every human being is the best judge of himself. You know your weaknessesand strengths more than anybody else. The industry, as it is, is terrible. As I have always said, any minister or government that cannot manage the Nigerian oil industry well is a failure. Over 90 percent of the money Nigeriahas abroad is from oil. Oil makes about 85 percent of our budget. Diezani is free to say whatever she likes about me. The public will judge. One of her problems is that I don’t think she does her job faithfully. She did not prepare herself well for the task of a petroleum minister. I became the minister with the background of a virologist. I didn’t know anything about oil. I never met (Maj.-Gen. Muhammadu) Buhari before he appointed me and he had been a petroleum minister before me. Buhari is a brilliant person. He can match many professors. What I did was that I first understudied him. I got a lot of instructions from him. Then the heads of the oil companies in the country became my personal friends. Mobil, Shell and a number ofthem became personal friends and not drinking friends; the ones I can ask for guidance. From them, I gained a lot. I also asked questions to cross-check from members of my staff. I discussed with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation as ifit was a seminar in the university. I didn’t take oil policies to the government without informing the oil companies that ‘this is what I want to do, what is your position?’ They will make their input. So, I never brought in a policy in which there was a friction. For example, the flaring of gas: Government after government had said that oil companies should stop flaring gas. During (President Shehu) Shagari’s time, the FG said if they flared gas, the government would seize their licence. They could not be threatened; they said if they stopped flaring gas, they would stop production. Now, the Federal Government made a political policy without studying the science behind it. Thereis no place where they do oil drilling and theydon’t flare gas. I have been to the Gulf, I travelled extensively in Saudi Arabia, they flaregas. The rationale is to consult before making a policy. The policy will affect not only Nigerians, but also the operators. They are very vital; so, we don’t have to antagonise them just as we don’t have to pamper them. We must bring them on board whenever we want to make a policy that will affect them. What I did was that I sent Mr. Green (an engineer) and two others to go round the oil producing areas. They brought the record of all the gas flaring fields.
Posted on: Sat, 03 Aug 2013 10:10:35 +0000
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