From my mail bag: Timely roar from the Villa

BUHARI HASSAN: “Timely roar from the villa? Not by a long shot. A long retired top NNPC management staff once narrated to us about what may qualify as the first roar from PMB. In the mid-seventies, the Federal Military Government decided to address the perennial shortage of petroleum products. Top management staff of the corporation were summoned by the federal commissioner of petroleum resources about the government’s intention to build new refineries, expand existing one, and build new product depots and connect them with a network of pipelines, pump stations and terminals. Confronted with such a momentous proposal, the top brass responded with typical bureaucratic-induced inertia with proposed multiple feasibility and market surveys, front end engineering and final investment decisions etc. They were granted a grace period to revert with firm project timelines. At the expiration of the grace period they had hardly moved from their previous position.

The then Federal Commissioner of Petroleum Resources, and you guessed right, Muhammadu Buhari, presented a complete project brief with studies, designs, original equipment suppliers and contract documents. The startled management staff quietly but firmly decided to sit up and fall in line, to use the military term. This short account is how the country increased its refining capacity and constructed over 3000 km of product pipelines, later expanded to 5000 km, 14 pump stations and 21 storage depots. The second PMB roar is the flagging off of the 614 km Ajaokuta, Abuja, Kaduna, Kano gas pipeline on June 30 2020. The cantankerous politicians and some of the garrulous retired generals you mentioned were simply outmanoeuvred and out-flanked by the wily general.”