Hon. Benedict Etanabene is a Federal Lawmaker representing Okpe, Sapele and Uvwie Federal Constituency in the Nigerian House of Representatives, and his journey into politics was preceded by over three decades of working in the oil and gas industry in different capacities. In this interview with Yange Ikyaa, he spoke about his dissatisfaction with the country’s oil and gas industry, while proffering alternative views on how to better manage the economy with available petroleum resources. Excerpts:
Kindly tell us about your training, professional life and what eventually motivated you into politics.
I read Law in Edo State University from 1990 to 1996 and then proceeded to law school. After that, I worked all the while, including teaching. I am from a teaching home, both parents of mine were principals of secondary schools. I spent 33 years teaching at the Petroleum Training Institute (PTI) until I left in January 2023 to contest elections into the House of Representatives. I was Chairman of PENGASSAN at the Petroleum Training Institute between 1999 and 2003.
So, what exactly were you not satisfied with that made you venture into partisan politics as a means of filling the gaps in governance?
Truly speaking, I am not satisfied with the way governance is going in this country. I am not satisfied one bit. I hate to say it, but we are not doing the right thing. We are not practicing the right government and governance. When I say we are not practicing the right government, first is the fact that I do not believe completely that this kind of capitalist democracy will take us anywhere. I am not trying to be pessimistic about what our future will be, but the way we are going, if we do this in the next 100 years, the way we are going, we will not take one step forward. It will only go back and backwards.
What makes you think so?
The reason I say so is that government has introduced some policies that were actually not debated. If they were debated, we probably would have had other opinions, suggestions than the ones they just ran away with. All this character of winner takes all, you just come, you just carry the “cake” and you run away, you think you are smarter than every person. Okay, go and eat, at the end of the day, it’s the same system you are destroying. If they had brought the issue of subsidy, then we would have been able to entertain other views on the issue of subsidy.
Like I told you, I was Chairman of PENGASSAN from 1999 to 2003. The first time in those days that the then President, President Obasanjo wanted to increase fuel subsidy, PENGASSAN was involved and as a NEC Member of PENGASSAN, I was involved seriously in that debate. There were issues we were raising as to the subsidy at that time. The fuel price was about twenty-something naira and they wanted to take it to N160, and the Distinguished Senator, the Former Governor of Edo State, Comrade Adams Oshiomole, was the Nigeria Labour Congress President at that time.
He led the team of Nigeria Labour Congress and, in fact, it was all these issues that brought the creation of TUC, led by a very wonderful President of PENGASSAN that we had at that time, Shina Oluwoye.
These are people who are not easily influenced. They are not influenced by power, and they are not influenced by money. We were discussing the merits and the demerits, if there were subsidy payments or not, Ben Etenabene has never believed since 2001 to date that there is actual subsidy in the petroleum sector. I don’t believe it.
And what are my premises for that? One, the duty of government is to provide welfare for the citizens. So the citizens should be entitled to free movement, good roads. They should be entitled to clean air, electricity, cheap food, cheap housing, and cheap means of transportation, including cheap energy to stimulate the economy.
Fuel, PMS in this case, is one of the items among government responsibility, to make cheap to us, so how come government is acting as if it is doing me a favor over a responsibility that it is supposed to take on my behalf. It is now finding it difficult to continue, so it wants to remove it so that we will suffer more. I can only suffer if there is good reason, in the interest of every person. But if you are removing the subsidy because it was corruption, and it is not the business of importation of fuel but all the involvement of corruption; I think it is the responsibility of government to safeguard the interest of the people, not the interest of a few persons.
So in earnest, it is an issue of corruption and government’s responsibility, why did people elect you? Please, help us apprehend and prosecute all the people who are corrupt and if you find corruption in subsidy, arrest the people. The mechanisms to catch those people are there.
Are these corrupt people not known to government?
Till date, Nigerians do not know all those who are importing fuel into this country. So when you say you are removing subsidy, what were you doing before? Again, you see the issue of this subsidy they talk about, how can you be buying fuel when you have four big refineries in Nigeria? In fact, this was a debate in 2001 too because in PENGASSAN, that is the home based association of the NNPC, and so we were looking at ourselves and saying gentlemen, what are you guys doing? You guys cannot be operating four big refineries and we cannot get a drop of PMS. Look at a debate of 2001 till date, how many years? 22 years and we are still at the point where we cannot bring out a single drop of PMS from our refineries, so we have to buy from another country. That is not governance. It is not governance at all.
How about the workers in those facilities who collect money for doing very little or sometimes nothing at all?
As for the workers, I don’t have to criticize them. I will not criticize them. I think it is more of management problem than workers’ issue because, as a staff of the Petroleum Training Institute, the main institute saddled with the responsibility to train workers for the oil industry in Nigeria, I can proudly say, 70 percent of the workers in the oil industry are former students of the Petroleum Training Institute.
The quality of training from the Petroleum Training Institute is very high and of competence. So, those guys cannot be in the refinery and cannot work the refinery to produce fuel. Meanwhile, they are getting promoted, they are undergoing training courses, so which training and courses are workers in the oil industry undergoing? So, all the monies that we are supposed to make as profit are being declared as training for oil workers, training for promotion and so on and so forth. At the end of the day, we cannot say that keeping the four refineries not working is one reason why we should make people suffer the more.
Just like Mr President declared that day that subsidy has ended, Mr President should have in the equal moment said in two months, the refineries must produce fuel, then we would have ended the issue. Whether the quantity will be enough for us, I don’t know, but again if it is not enough, of course that is why the Dangote refinery is also there to help to augment. Perhaps we should take a critical look at those ones they call illegal bunkering people. I don’t want to call them that name in the real sense because I tell you, those guys, are cooking diesel for people to use.
I live in Efurum, which is the next town to the area you call Warri, and for many people there, the diesel we use is from across the river. They are working, they also cook PMS. It works, depending on the risk you want to take.
What danger is in all of this?
The only danger I see is the pollution of the environment in that act. So, if these people can have this type of technology, yes government can come and say gentlemen, we do not want you to pollute this environment with what you are doing, it is even illegal; we don’t want you to be bursting the pipeline to do that. We want to sell crude to you and teach you, organize you to be able to produce better PMS and better diesel for commercial purposes. If we are able to get those people together to do that, perhaps, those ones can subsidize at least 20 percent of local needs. So, these are the ways I think we would have used to approach the issue of subsidy. But did we discuss it in this form like this? No, the opportunity is not there.
The next thing is government says subsidy, subsidy; you people are suffering, okay, palliative. Where did palliative come from? Even by definition of palliative, it does not suit solving the problem occasioned by removal of fuel subsidy, yet they say palliative. Now what is the palliative? You select a group of people and you transfer N25,000 to each of those persons. Which family can survive with N25,000 for three months that it is supposed to last?
Now, what would be your alternative view on palliatives from subsidy removal?
Perhaps, if we have that kind of money or if government admits that we are indeed saving money from the subsidy removal; even if I have to concede and agree, it would be good. We could take that kind of money, put it into some infrastructure like electricity, to encourage and boost the economy. We must do more regarding electricity. We must do more on roads; people are finding it difficult to move products from one place to another. If you are in Warri today, like those of us who are farmers, when you are looking for maize from the north, they take a month sometimes for them to leave Kano and get to Warri. These layer birds that we have are not going to be waiting for one month to eat. So many farms are already collapsing.
We will use that amount of money for a good military strategy to curb insecurity in the north to be able to encourage people to go back to the farm. I think the totality of spending that kind of money, for me, will make more meaning for everybody than to a section of persons. The palliative should also be something that all of us will benefit from, but when you target a group of persons, it is discriminatory. I would rather want the road from Abuja here through Lokoja to Benin to Warri to be good. I don’t need to pay N165,000 to fly from here. This is the same road in that 1999 that we will leave Warri and come to a meeting in Abuja and still return back to Warri before night fall. What is the problem? Is it that the technology of constructing roads is lost and it is no longer available?
So if we have money we should structure it well. But that debate, I am sure, did not take place. There are other issues. As a matter of fact, I had concerns with the budget. Yes, I had concerns. Perhaps, there are certain things we will do and rub minds together that can make a difference and make people know that we are even turning onto the right track.