It has never been heard that some state governors in Nigeria will openly be flouting the orders and directives of the president to the extent of issuing opposing directives asking their state residents and indigenes not to obey the president. 

Actions of such nature are nothing other than a treasonable felony. It is only when you intend to overthrow the government, plot a coup or declare your state/region sovereign and independent from the federal government that you as a state governor can exhibit that level of ungraded insolence.

In the early morning of Thursday, the 16th of February, 2023, the president in response to the protest rocking the country against the Naira redesign policy and the withdrawal of some old naira notes made a nationwide broadcast stating that the 500 and the 1000 naira notes by the reason of the expiration of the deadline ceases to be a legal tender but can be still redeemable at Central Bank of Nigeria branches nationwide.

Some state governors protested against this move stating that the presidency cannot and should not do that. The governor of Kaduna state, Mr Nasir El Rufai made his own nationwide broadcast countering that of the president telling the indigenes and the residents of the state not to pay attention to the president’s broadcast, he vehemently stated that despite the position of the president, the 500 and 1000 notes is still and will continue to be a legal tender in the state and people can still transact with it.

The president and the presidency are yet to respond or react to this outright insolence of some state governors, especially that of the governor of Kaduna state, but acts like this are not just disrespectful to the power and authority the president wields as the commander in chief and the number one citizen of the country it as well breeds coup if not quickly checked.

The argument that the president is himself flouting the directives of the Supreme Court does not provide the ground for some state governors to go against the directives of the president and the CinC. The president flouting the orders of the Supreme Court is left for him and the court to settle their scores.

The opposing concurrent order of some state governors amounts to them seeking to overthrow the authority and the office of the president and that is nothing other than a treasonable felony. Even the dictionary defines treasonable felony to mean “attempting to kill or overthrow a sovereign government” which starts from countering the stand of the president and asking your followers to disregard and undermine his authority.

A state governor making an opposing order asking his state residents to disregard that of the president can only be seen as being done with the malicious intent to overthrow the authority and the office of the president; there is no other better explanation for it.

It is a charge and a call on the DSS to invite those state governors that are openly asking their state indigenes and residents to disobey the president before we experience another coup that will land this nation into another civil war.

The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) has attributed the high volume of oil losses to measurement inaccuracies not theft as it is widely believed.

Last year, Nigeria was said to have lost up to 80% of its oil production to theft, significantly depleting its oil-based revenue generation.

Speaking at the petroleum club quarterly dinner held in Lagos, Gbenga Komolafe, chief executive officer, NUPRC, was quoted in a statement saying that about 40% of the purported crude oil theft was losses emanating from measurement inaccuracies.

He said the NUPRC uncovered the truth following a forensic audit it conducted on the volume of stolen crude oil from January 2020 to November 2022.

Nigeria’s oil revenue generation dropped to nearly zero in the third quarter of 2022, triggering a national inquest into where most of the produced crude oil went. Komolafe said the Commission conducted the audit to ascertain, with accuracy, the stolen volume of crude oil between January 2020 and November 2022.

To forestall the losses, the NUPRC boss said that the Commission is committed to dealing with the issue of metering errors by ensuring that original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are licensed directly. He added that agents of the Commission will be responsible for the deployment and maintenance of metering facilities across Nigeria’s oil and gas establishments, for transparency in hydrocarbon accounting, according to a statement.

“The reform measure adopted by the commission offers a paradigm shift from the trajectory in Nigeria’s hydrocarbon measurement since oil was discovered in Nigeria in Oloibiri in 1956 and is aimed at ensuring that no one becomes a judge in his own case,” he said.

“Admittedly, one major area of value erosion in the industry is the menace of crude oil theft. Our records indicate that the menace of oil theft has negatively impacted the oil and gas sector for about two decades with attendant huge financial losses to our nation.

“The commission, in collaboration with the various arms of the security forces, the NNPC Limited and the host communities, has been able to suppress the ugly trend of hydrocarbon value decimation. Now, our nation has continued to record good dividends of these collaborative efforts as production figures are progressively increasing.

“The January 2023 volume is approximately 1.5 million barrels per day of oil and condensates. It is expected that this number will continue to increase as further measures are introduced and sustained to remove all illegal connections that aid crude oil theft.”

Mele Kyari, the head of Nigerian National Petroleum Commission Limited (NNPCL) had in October last year, told a legislative committee that a 4-kilometer pipeline from the Forcados export terminal has been used to steal oil for nine years, resulting in the theft of hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil per day.

Kyari said as a result of the illegal pipelines, Nigeria was losing an alarming 600,000 barrels of oil every day, triple the figure initially estimated. The high volume of stolen crude oil contributed to Nigeria’s inability to meet its quota from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), enabling the country’s failure to cash in on the oil windfall orchestrated by Russia-Ukraine conflict.