Edmund Otudeko mni

Mr President, I write this as a supporter of your administration and as a Nigerian who wants you to succeed. But support must never become sycophancy. Sometimes, the greatest service a supporter can render is to tell the President what others around him may be too comfortable—or too frightened—to say. Mr President, Nigeria needs more mad men in your government. And before anybody deliberately misunderstands me, let me explain what I mean by mad men. I mean men and women who are crazy enough to confront a broken system, step on powerful toes, offend entrenched interests and refuse to accept mediocrity simply because mediocrity has become normal. We need people who wake up every morning obsessed with results. We need people who are prepared to become unpopular in Abuja if that is the price of becoming useful to Nigeria. Look at the Central Bank under Olayemi Cardoso. Whatever disagreements anybody may have with individual policies, there is no question that the institution has undergone a serious reset. Discipline and credibility have returned to monetary policymaking. That is one mad man. Look at Mallam Nuhu Ribadu. Nigeria still has serious security challenges, and nobody should pretend otherwise. But there is a seriousness, coordination and strategic direction in the national security architecture that deserves recognition. Ribadu is prepared to work, confront problems and take responsibility. That is another mad man. Mr President, two mad men are not enough for a country of more than 200 million people. We need another one in petroleum. In fact, give us two more. Nigeria cannot continue to behave like a poor country sitting on the assets of a rich country. We produce crude oil. We possess enormous reserves. We have decades of petroleum expertise. We have spent fortunes on refineries. Yet for years we became accustomed to exporting crude and importing the products refined from it. That is economic madness of the wrong kind. Now we need madness of the right kind. Mr President, make the rehabilitation and commercially viable operation of the Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna refineries a national obsession. And please, no more excuses. Nigerians have heard enough explanations about turnaround maintenance, contractors, technical reviews, committees, timelines and billions spent. We want products coming out of those refineries. If government cannot operate them efficiently, find the structure that can. Bring in world-class technical partners. Introduce private capital where necessary. Restructure them. Concession them if that produces the best outcome. But whatever model is chosen, the objective must be brutally simple: MAKE THE REFINERIES WORK. Dangote has shown what is possible on Nigerian soil. Its refinery was designed for 650,000 barrels per day and has reportedly demonstrated even higher throughput during performance testing. So let us establish an audacious benchmark. Mr President, let the three government-owned refining complexes target, at minimum, the equivalent of 50% of Dangote’s nameplate refining capacity—about 325,000 barrels per day of reliable, commercially viable throughput. Then push beyond it. Nigeria should not merely aspire to satisfy its domestic demand. Our ambition should be much bigger. We should become a refining powerhouse for Africa and a major exporter of refined petroleum products. And upstream, the instruction should be equally uncompromising. Your administration already has a stated ambition of taking Nigeria towards 4 million barrels of oil per day by 2030. Mr President, find the mad man who will deliver it. Find somebody who considers 1.5 million barrels unacceptable when the national ambition is 4 million.