Nigeria Is A Racket,
By
Bámidélé Adémólá-Olátéjú
Nigeria Is A Racket, By Bámidélé Adémólá-
Olátéjú
 Premium Times  May 26, 2015 Nigeria Is A Racket,
By Bámidélé Adémólá-
Olátéjú2015-05-26T09:08:39+00:00  Bámidélé
Upfront, Columns, Democracy and Governance 
Comment (7)

Nigeria is hostage to the petroleum cabal,
the electricity cabal, diesel monopoly,
generator cabal, Cement|Sugar|Rice
monopolies, steel import cabal and several
other layers of economic and political
saboteurs who hamper, marginalise and
diminish our national development
aspirations and security complex. Nigeria’s
situation is made more complex given their
amoral daliance with apostates who hide
under religion while transfixed in zealous
covetousness of Nigeria’s milk and honey
and the pockets of its citizens.
Nigeria is a huge racket and a vast criminal
enterprise. Major General Smedley Butler of the
United States Marine Corp would easily have
been describing Nigeria in his famous 1933
speech – WAR is a racket. He defined a racket
“as something that is not what it seems to the
majority of the people. Only a small “inside” group
knows what it is about. It is conducted for the
benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very
many.” What we have thriving with relish in
Nigeria is a racket. It is gangster capitalism by a
privileged few against ordinary Nigerians.
The times are turbulent, if not perilous. Nigeria is
dead broke, economic stagnation stares us in the
face due to an economy hinged on a single
product that is fast falling out of favour, an
exploding youth population, non-existent
infrastructure, and a country immersed in
corruption, mediocrity and impunity. The country
faces terrorism, education deficits and the serious
environmental scourge of desertification in the
North, oil spillage and joblessness in the Niger
Delta, erosion and fledging narcotics trade in the
South-East, while other regions are swimming in
their own oceans of despondency. The gradation
of threats confronting the country is brought
about by active racketeers and profiteers in
principalities and high places, who fatten their
wallets at a grave cost they never could pay.
Who are these faceless cabals? Without the
Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation
(NNPC), there is no cabal. Actually, the
NNPC is the cabal. The marketers are only
in an unholy alliance. The NNPC imports
kerosine with federal money for about $30
million per vessel, it sells it to marketers for
$10 million, and marketers sell it to Nigeria
for $30m. The pocketed $20m is shared by
the NNPC syndicate and the marketers.
For the sake of money from the oil in the Chad
basin and for political supremacy, a small non-
violent sect was appropriated and armed by
greedy, power thirsty Nigerians and their foreign
collaborators for violent confrontation with their
own people and the Nigerian state. Because of
the ambitions of a few, the cost in lost lives,
traumas in battle, the lasting effects of terror,
mass slaughter and deprivations visited upon the
North-East will haunt Nigeria for a long time.
Who are those who stumped for terror? Who are
those who reaped great profits from its carnages?
Who are the importers of weapons? Who are
those profit-only business mavens connected with
the massive security mega plexus associated with
war profiteers and their respective investors,
bankers and diplomatic deceivers? Nigeria is
hostage to the petroleum cabal, the electricity
cabal, diesel monopoly, generator cabal, Cement|
Sugar|Rice monopolies, steel import cabal and
several other layers of economic and political
saboteurs who hamper, marginalise and diminish
our national development aspirations and security
complex. Nigeria’s situation is made more
complex given their amoral daliance with
apostates who hide under religion while transfixed
in zealous covetousness of Nigeria’s milk and
honey and the pockets of its citizens.
For those shouting for the removal of subsidy,
you are up against racketeers. This is Nigeria,
nothing will change even after removing the
subsidy. I have no doubt, you have given no deep
thought to the veritable consortium of oppressors
who are against citizens’ and national interests,
our welfare and collective morality. In their
enhanced positions, they continue to plague
Nigerians with greater impetus for oppression. In
2009, kerosene subsidy was eliminated by a
directive from the office of the late president
Umaru Yar’Adua. Since then, nowhere in the
country is kerosene sold at a subsidised rate.
Kerosine still sells at over N200.00 per litre. At
the rate kerosine is sold to the common man, an
economic rent of about $20 million dollars is
realised per vessel of kerosine brought into the
country by the subsidy addicted cabal. Who are
these faceless cabals? Without the Nigerian
National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), there is
no cabal. Actually, the NNPC is the cabal. The
marketers are only in an unholy alliance. The
NNPC imports kerosine with federal money for
about $30 million per vessel, it sells it to
marketers for $10 million, and marketers sell it to
Nigeria for $30m. The pocketed $20m is shared
by the NNPC syndicate and the marketers.
Buhari will not be successful until he kills
the NNPC and give it a decent burial. Just
then, maybe a new creature can rise from
the ashes of its decay. Also, in the shadows
within the same sector, is a criminal
enterprise on an industrial scale. It rivals the
narcotics trade as the world’s most lucrative
crime – oil theft.
If anyone is still in doubt, when the former
governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Sanusi
Lamido Sanusi took on the cabals by revealing
the fleecing of Nigeria, he was promptly removed
from office and hounded afterwards, even after
becoming the Emir of Kano. This is because it is
the cheapest source of funds for politicians, public
servants and their cronies. Unfortunately for all
hard-working Nigerians, the billions of dollars in
deductions for petrol subsidies are funded outside
the legal budgetary framework. The NNPC
imports twice the need of Nigerians but supplies
half and takes the other half to neighbouring
countries for sale or just collects twice the money
and import only half of what it claims. Is there
any way to easier riches than that? The NNPC
cannot provide evidence that the fuel it claimed
to have imported actually arrived the shores of
Nigeria. The oil racket, also involves international
and local traders.
As Buhari gets sworn in this week, I can only
wish him luck. I hope he lays the condition
of the treasury bare as soon as he can. He
should let us know the scale of the mess he
inherited for him to secure our
understanding. We are aware, the transition
team got no cooperation because no books
were kept, the money was just spent until it
finished. We need to know how big a mess
we are in so we can plan the clean up.
The crude oil swaps in which oil is exchanged for
refined fuel imports without cash changing hands
is an opaque arrangement that is very costly to
the Nigerian state. Between 200,000 to 220,000
barrels per day is given in swaps. No one can
ascertaining the true value of the swaps because
the contract documents are destroyed a year after
contract termination. The way we are in Nigeria,
with the legal loophole, every year, contracts will
be terminated and a new one agreed to, for the
purpose of wiping off trails. Buhari will not be
successful until he kills the NNPC and give it a
decent burial. Just then, maybe a new creature
can rise from the ashes of its decay. Also, in the
shadows within the same sector, is a criminal
enterprise on an industrial scale. It rivals the
narcotics trade as the world’s most lucrative
crime – oil theft. It involves the politicians, an
amalgam of the security forces, oil industry big
boys, oil traders and militant groups in a complex
network of crime with a sophisticated
organisation. Who will bust this powerful criminal
syndicate of thieves?
Muhammadu Buhari faces a daunting task. Let no
one be deceived, many people who count in
Nigeria are moral degenerates, who love money
so much but cannot summon the balls to earn it
for themselves without creating vacuous shells of
sufferers along the way. The few manufacturing
concerns in the country are either monopolies or
oligopolies which fix prices to fleece Nigerians
and screw them royally. Beyond debate, Nigeria is
a corporation owned by racketeers where profits
are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. It
is a jungle of the unaccountables littered with
newly placed gravestones, mangled bodies,
shattered minds, broken hearts, broken homes,
suicide-inducing economic distress, depression
and every other misery possible. Worse, we will
have to contend with back-breaking debt with
nothing to show for it.
As Buhari gets sworn in this week, I can only wish
him luck. I hope he lays the condition of the
treasury bare as soon as he can. He should let us
know the scale of the mess he inherited for him
to secure our understanding. We are aware, the
transition team got no cooperation because no
books were kept, the money was just spent until
it finished. We need to know how big a mess we
are in so we can plan the clean up. I have no
doubt that Buhari will have to take an IMF loan
unless he can get some stolen funds back. How
can he go on with governance without bogging
his government down in prosecuting these
thieves? It can be done; I’m sure he will figure it
out. Too much high crimes have been committed.
In all, I thank God on your behalf that Jonathan
did not win the election. We would have begged
to be sold to China. May God save us from the
evil of ourselves.

Bámidélé Adémólá-Olátéjú maintains a weekly
column on Politics and Socioeconomic issues
every Tuesday. She is a member of Premium
Times Editorial Board. Twitter @olufunmilayo .
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