N832bn Spent On Fuel Subsidy In 2013 – PPPRA

 

 

Juliet Alohan

The Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) has said that it paid a total subsidy claims of N832 billion to fuel marketers under the Petroleum Support Fund (PSF) in 2013.
This was disclosed by the immediate past executive secretary of the agency, Reginald Stanley, while handing over to his successor, Farouk Ahmed, in Abuja yesterday, after attaining 35 years of service.
Stanley noted that the N832 billion paid as fuel subsidy in 2013 was a little lower that the N862 billion paid in 2012.
The former PPPRA boss, in his hand-over remarks, also disclosed that the downstream petroleum industry witnessed total investment inflow of about N70 billion under his watch, adding that the agency was able to eliminate previous manipulation of the bill of lading and made cost savings for government.
While emphasising that the agency underwent strategic reform measures aligned with government’s plan for the oil and gas industry, he said the PPPRA saved N409 billion and N326.57 billion for government in 2012 and 2013.
The savings, he explained arose from the reduction in daily fuel consumption figure from 60.25 million litres per day in 2011 to 39.79 million litres in 2012, while it recorded 42.11 million litres per day in 2013, a reduction of 18.14 million litres compared with the 2011 figure.
“What is spectacular about the 2013 consumption figure is that it showed a modest increase of 5.5 per cent in the 2012 figure in an economy growing at 6.9 per cent per annum. Statistically, gasoline consumption tracks the gross domestic product (GDP) growth very closely,” Stanley said.
Noting that the pruning in the number of marketers, deployment of global tracking of vessels, among others, were part of measures adopted, Stanley said, “today, it has been well established that national consumption is around 40 million litres per day.”
He further appealed to the National Assembly to pass the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) in order to sustain a vibrant downstream sector, adding that in the last 24 months many depots and jetties have been built through private initiates, thereby generating thousands of jobs in the economy.
Remarking, Ahmed while thanking government for the opportunity to serve, urged staff of PPPRA to ensure the sustenance of the ongoing reform in the agency, even as he warned against any form of gossiping or sycophancy.
 Leadership

Inter Targets Mikel Obi

Chelsea midfielder John Obi MIkel is a target of Italian giants Inter who are looking for a defensive midfielder to shore up their middle.
Italian newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport reports that Walter Mazzari has sent his main scout to monitor the Nigerian whose contract at Stamford Bridge lasts till 2017.
Mikel has seen his Chelsea place come under threat with the arrival of Nemanja Matic in January and has also been curtailed by minor injuries.
Rated at 15 million Euros, the prize could be too high for the San Siro club who are also mauling a loan move in the summer transfer window.
Inter will also wait to see if Chelsea coach Jose Mourinho has an interest in signing any Inter player which could result in Mikel being thrown into the negotiations.
Mikel is expected to lead Nigeria’s charge at the World Cup in June and an impressive performance with the Super Eagles would shoot up his profile and asking fees.

Leadership

Why PDP can’t retain Rivers in 2015, by Amaechi

Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi spoke with reporters in Port-Harcourt, the state capital, on the visit of former President Olusegun Obasanjo to the state, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) crises, the future of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the 2015 elections. Excerpts:
Why did you request former President Olusegun Obasanjo to commission your projects?
He was a foremost Head of State and Government that we have had in the country. So, what is wrong in asking him to commission the projects. It was important that he came to have a look at what we have done. Like I told him in the public, we same a common friend and anytime and anytime common friends say what about these things, is Amaechi working, that can be assessed. It was important to bring him so that he can assess things for himself so that next time that question is put forward, he will give them an answer.
Don’t you think that the President will be annoyed that Obasanjo has taken the shine off him by not being invited to commission the projects as the President and Commander-In-Chief?
Today, some governors commission for themselves. Would you take offence when they commission their projects by themselves? I saw Fashola recently as he was commissioning projects. I saw Akpabio as he was commissioning a General Hospital. Why will the President take offence about that? It depends on the choice that the governor makes. I can ask the President or governor to commission projects. My colleagues have invited me to commission projects before in Jigawa. I had an invitation from Yobe. Adamawa has invited me. I don’t think that the President will take offence with that.
Will the commissioning by Obasanjo enhance your profile?
Well, looking at Obasanjo’s status, you will certainly get some benefits by identifying with him. He is a man with this national clout. I was surprised by the kind of reception he got among the people that came out to receive him. There were those that were brought by the organisers. There were those that came on their own hailing him, shouting baba, calling him all sorts of name, baba iyabo, baba this, Olusegun. Some calling him without respect by calling the former President by such name. I can share this with you. He told us how he acquired the name, Mathew. He said that his parents said that he should have a Christian name and when he got to the secondary school, they looked at how long his names were and one has to be dropped and that he decided to drop Mathew and the reason he dropped Mathew was that Mathew was a tax collector. I think you can’t ignore the fact that identifying with such an important character will rub off on you, and I think positively.
Does the likelihood exist that you will return to the PDP, which is the predominant party in Rivers?
You should be careful with your choice of words. How do you know that the PDP is the predominant party? Why can you wait and see whether it is true? You have to be careful. What you assume to be the predominance of the PDP may be the predominance of the manipulation of the elite. It is now that we will source the votes from the down-trodden and then, you can say whether it is a predominantly PDP state or not. I think we should be careful in the choice of such words.
What is likely to be the fate of the APC in Rivers in 2015?
I am not God. Don’t give me such powers.
How about your succession plan?
I leave that to God. Don’t forget the way I was anointed as the governor. Even, the greatest of all Christians never thought that it will happen. There were occasions where I had sat down in Ghana and asked: how did it happen? I started thinking about these prophets who prophesised that you will be governor and I asked, how will it happen? We don’t know. We just wash and see how God does His things. You must take that into consideration. So, there is God’s elements. Then, you do your human planning. But, I am not focusing on human planning. I am focusing on building a party called the APC because there was none some few months ago. That is why we say, if the PDP says that they are the biggest party , the largest party in Africa, I will say APC is the fastest growing party in Africa. No party has grown at the rapid rate the APC is growing. Some few months ago, there was no opposition party in Sokoto. But, the PDP is now struggling to retain its status as the opposition party in Sokoto. It is the same in Kano. It is the same in Kaduna where the Vice President comes from. And the APC is rearing its head in Bayelsa. So, you can see we are the fastest growing party.
Are you saying there is tension in the PDP?
Honestly, the tension in the PDP over the sharing of the loot in Nigeria is enough to put it into crisis. But, look at here now, all of us are at peace with one another.
What is your comment on the NNPC 20 billion dollar controversy?
You heard Asiwaju saying that the NNPC is the ATM of Jonathan. We are not involved. We are not talking about it. We will allow the country to decide.
What does the revelation about the missing oil money portends?
Nigerians should react. The Governors’ Forum has taken a position that he dwindling revenue at he state level is not because of the oil theft, but because of financial diversion.
Would all these your projects be completed before you leave or they would be abandoned, especially the mono-rail?
Where you there when I was interviewing the contractor? Everything about that mono-rail is inside the city of Port-Harcourt. They say they will complete the terminus in October. We will start the power project very soon so that the train will have power to use. The train is built in such a way that, if there is no power, automatically, it will use diesel. You can see the cost. You have power and diesel.

TheNation

Of political thugs and elections

by: Ignatius Adegoke

The great body of critical discourse on the politics of the era seems to have little good to say about those in government, the politicians and their parties. Thus, when years ago, a military ruler sought to change the face of the country’s transition chain by decreeing a five-party structure into existence, the arrangement was rubbished by a political leader of thought who called it “the five fingers of a leprous hand.”
Who would want to be part of a terminally diseased system? So, it didn’t last. Earlier, another military creation- a two-party affair that held much promise at the beginning- collapsed because of the chicanery of the evil genius behind it. Successor governments- military and civilian- have borne the scars of the woeful failures of those which came before them.
The reason they posted lack-lustre performance wasn’t difficult to locate: they did not have lofty ideas, revolutionary concepts of governance that marked them out as serious custodians of the mandate to rule. It is claimed that ideas rule the world. But they did not seem to believe this axiom and so they stormed the scene largely without a plan. In a word, they were unprepared for the high office they occupied.
He, who fails to plan, plans to fail! And how abysmally our politicians might descend again as governorship polls hold in two south west states in few months while general elections come up nation-wide in 2015, if they refuse to learn from the past; if they refuse to bring up new ideas. Apart from the preparations being put in place by the electoral umpire, INEC, where else needs better tender attention, whose neglect could make nonsense of INEC’s   “fool-proof” strategies and spell doom for the poll and the soul of the nation?
So, how are we planning in order not to fail? As I said, we must not restrict ourselves to what INEC or its state counterparts say regarding having worked out a good measure at ensuring an acceptable outing at the poll. We must put on our thinking cap to identify what can upturn the umpire’s “perfect” plans.
A governor in one of the south west states, Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo has done just that by coming up with the position that in the past, political thuggery involving the unholy alliance between governors and warring road transport union workers, was responsible for the violence that gave elections and campaign rallies a bad name.
His claim is that armed with an understanding of this ruinous enterprise, his predecessors engaged in a battle to unleash sorrow on the people of Oyo state. But this Oyo state performing governor is tell whoever cares to listen that including, he all the warring road transport union workers that his government was not interested in making use of them for election as was done in the past. He should know! He is governing the cradle of political thuggery, where one of his predecessors jettisoned the official security outfit and opted for a faction of the transport worker’s unions for protection. Members of this unofficial police killed and maimed during campaign rallies and elections as they “escorted” the governor across the state.

It was the height of impunity. These hooligans engaged open and perceived political opponents of the then sitting governor. Since the governor of that era procured the weapons and cash for them, they could not be accountable to the law. They operated above the law and trashed any outcome of the ballot. They could raid homes and offices of those not on the side of government in power. They instilled fear in the society and therefore to fear them was the beginning of wisdom.
Almost every week in the period that preceded Ajimobi’s advent, you had deadly clashes between the union on the side of the government and those on the opposite side. They were fatal encounters that led to casualties not only on the part of the thugs but alas, also on the part of innocent passers-by and motorists!
Such heavy toll on the society all because of one man’s inordinate ambition to stay put in power which he was not even wielding appropriately in the interest of those he claimed put him there! Ajimobi’s prompt and decisive rejection of these hirelings is what is responsible for the sanity and peace in Oyo in the past three years of his rule. Ibadan motor parks which used to be the hub of crime, violence and training ground of the ex-governor’s dogs of war have been tamed.
There is no governor this time around to recruit and shield them. There is no governor to pump tax payers’ money into their bottomless war chest. There is no governor to fund their insatiable taste for extravagance and lust for drugs. What you do not feed starves and dies. The present governor has refused to feed political thuggery and so the union workers who were suborned for the devil’s work have been starved to death. They have been shoved off the scene to make way for tranquillity, not only during the poll in 2015, but also for all times.
If other key political players’ nation wide follow the foot steps of Governor Ajimobi on this score, it is certain that we shall by the Grace of God enjoy a violence-free ballot in the country in the years ahead. Then the conversation will change, with critical observers reviewing their stand that there is nothing good to say about our politicians.
• Adegoke is a political scientist in Lagos.

TheNation

GusauIsBack: Army Withdrawn A Day To Yobe College Boko Attack That Killed 59

• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
•  
  EmailShare
• 
  
• 
  

• As dangerous Gusau returns as Minister of defense
• Army withdrawn a day to attack – Residents

by Hamisu Kabir Matazu, Damaturu & Isiaka Wakili
 

 Dozens of students were killed when suspected insurgents attacked a boarding co-educational school in Yobe State overnight Monday.
All the victims were teenage boys and 11 others were seriously injured, while of the most of the school was burned to the ground.
The Federal Government College Buni Yadi, in Gujba Local Government Area, is situated few kilometres away from the College of Agriculture Gujba where 40 students were killed on September 29 in a similar raid blamed on the Boko Haram sect.
In Buni Yadi, gunmen stormed the school in nine Hilux vans shortly before midnight Monday and blocked the entrance to the hostel.

• NewsRescue-Spy Gusau: Perhaps the Most Evil Man in Nigeria’s Oligarchical History

They then gathered male students and opened fire on them, survivors told Daily Trust.
Some of the dead were slaughtered, while most of the corpses were burnt beyond recognition in the razed buildings.
Governor Ibrahim Gaidam, who visited the school hours after the violence, said 29 students were killed, but Reuters news agency quoted a hospital worker as saying the total body count stood at 59 as more bodies were brought in.
“Fresh bodies have been brought in. More bodies were discovered in the bush after the students who had escaped with bullet wounds died from their injuries,” said Bala Ajiya, an official at the Specialist Hospital Damaturu.
The gunmen set fire and destroyed 24 buildings in the school, including hostels, administrative blocks and staff quarters.
Yobe State Police Commissioner Sanusi A. Rufa’i said: “All the 29 killed were male students; none from the female students was killed.”

• NewsRescue-General Aliyu Mohammed “Die-to-rule” Gusau Exposed As Top Boko Haram Sponsor

Survivors said the gunmen gathered the female students together before telling them to go away and get married, with a warning that those who remained in the school could be killed later.
Aliyu Ayuba, a JSS 3 student, who escaped the attack with a bullet in his back, said: “They were young men and boys dressed in military uniforms and mufti. They asked us to gather in one place and continued shooting sporadically. I cannot tell how I managed to escape but all my roommates were killed and burnt inside the hostel.”
“We shouted for help but nobody came to our rescue, not even Police and military men, to help,” he added.
Malam Samaila Idris, a teacher, told journalists that the attackers drove into the school premises in nine Hilux vans at around 11.20pm Monday and started the operation which lasted for more than 5 hours.
“In fact, we were all thinking they were military personnel because some that stayed at the gate were playing music, until the gun shots started. We in the staff quarters fled our homes before they came and burnt all the structures,” he said.
Idris said seven students who sustained various wounds were taken to hospital.
Residents in the town told our correspondent that the security checkpoint in the area was removed just a day to the attack.
“We were surprised when the checkpoint disappeared on Sunday and at this trying moment. The secondary school pupils were left to their fate,” a resident said.
“Some students were slaughtered, others shot dead. I counted many lifeless bodies,” he added.
Daily Trust gathered that some of the assailants rode to the school on bicycles and motorcycles.
Another student who escaped with a cut on his throat and a broken arm confirmed that no female student was hurt.
“But, I overheard them warning them to stay off school or risk being attacked whenever they return,” he said.
A resident, who was part of early rescue operation, said it was the most horrible experience he had ever since. “Most of the dead students were burnt beyond recognition,” he said.
When our correspondent visited the hospital, thousands of people were seen, including parents of the deceased as well as sympathisers.
Many of the parents could not identify copses of their sons because they were burnt beyond recognition.
“My child pleaded with me to allow him to stay back at home for a few more days after the school resumed but I refused. Now I can’t even identify his corpse,” a parent said as he sobbed.
Gaidam seeks more troops
Meanwhile, Governor Gaidam has urged President Jonathan to deploy more troops to contain insurgency in the state.
“It is most unfortunate that in the past one year, we have experienced these ugly and dastardly attacks by insurgents four times,” he said.
“This attack, like others before it, is barbaric, wicked, callous, and we totally condemn it. We are devastated.”
He added: “It is unfortunate that up to five hours when this massacre took place, there were no security agents around to stop or contain the situation. I have also been informed that the military here in Yobe State lack adequate number of troops on the ground…Even so, they must change their strategy of operation.
“If the military was pulling out some troops from the town and taking them somewhere for an operation, there must be some others left on the ground to deal with any unforeseen circumstance which might arise. So, I think, they should change their strategy.
“It is unfortunate that our children in schools are dying from lack of adequate protection from the Federal Government and this thing is happening only in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa in the northeast part of the country.
“I also want to use this opportunity to call on the President of the Federal Republic and the military high command to, as a matter of urgency, send more troops to Yobe so that they deal more effectively with the insurgency because currently there is not enough number of troops on the ground to cover all our schools in Yobe.
“The Federal Government should be much more serious than before to ensure that the inadequacies are addressed. Otherwise, they (Boko Haram) may gradually wipe out all the people in Borno and Yobe.”
In his reaction, President Jonathan described the attack as senseless and callous, and assured that the security forces were determined to end the insurgency.
“The president wholly condemns the heinous, brutal and mindless killing of the guiltless students by deranged terrorists and fanatics who have clearly lost all human morality and descended to bestiality,” Presidential spokesman Reuben Abati said in a statement.
“He assures the nation that his administration will not relent in its ongoing efforts to end the scourge of terrorism in parts of the country which has sadly claimed more innocent lives today (yesterday).
“The Armed Forces of Nigeria and other security agencies will continue to prosecute the war against terror with full vigour, diligence and determination until the dark cloud of mass murder and destruction of lives and property is permanently removed from our horizon.”

NewsRescue

My Visit to Bayelsa, Jonathan's Home State

by Okoi Obono-Obla
I was recently in Bayelsa State to supervise the Registration exercise of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in the State. On the 3rd February, 2014, I boarded Med View Airline flight from Abuja to Port Harcourt. On arriving Port Harcourt I hitched a ride from the Port Harcourt International Airport to Yenagoa, the Capital of Bayelsa State, the home State of President

Jonathan.

What immediately struck me was the derelict and deplorable condition of the East-West Highway that straddles Rivers, Bayelsa and Delta State.

This is despite the fact that on the 29th May, 2007, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan after the late President Umaru Musa Yar’ adua won a controversial Presidential Election admitted to be flawed by Yar’adua necessitating the constitution of a Panel to recommend electoral reforms in the country, became Vice President.

Unfortunately President Yar’ adua was dogged by ill health that culminated in his transition to eternity on the 5th May, 2010. And by the succession process prescribed by the Constitution, the baton of power fell into the hands of President Jonathan who was sworn into office on the 6th May, 2010, by the then Chief Justice Aloysius Katsina-Alu after the demise of President Yaradua on the 5th May, 2010.

It therefore goes without saying that President Jonathan has been in the corridors of Federal Power since 2007.

I wondered how President Jonathan who has been in the corridors of power (at the Federal Government level) has woefully and spectacularly failed to muster the political and financial will to see to the completion of the East-West Highway that is so central to the socio-economic development of the South/South Region in particular and Nigeria in general.

I also took a ride along the roads leading to the Ogbia Local Government Area of the State. It is worthy to note that Ogbia is the Local Government Area where President Jonathan comes from. This road is in such a dilapidated and deplorable condition that one of the bridges thereat has completely collapsed to the extent that an improvised bridge constructed with timber and bamboo sticks was used to hold the collapsed bridge to enable light weight vehicles pass through the road. It is an ugly sight to behold that such a bridge will be found in Bayelsa State which has large reserves of crude oil and indeed the State of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

There is such air of discontentment and disillusionment in the State that a visitor can feel it as you walk around the streets of the sleepy capital, Yenagoa. The people of the State groan under the weight of bad governance.

They openly complain that Governor Dickson runs a close government made up of a coterie of sycophants mainly drawn from his part of Sagbama Local Government Area of the State where he comes from.

They openly say that all juicy positions in government and contracts are reserved to close relations of Governor Dickson. They complain of a financial glut and lack of money.

They say the Government of former Governor of Timi Sylvia was better.

The accusation of clannishness is not only made against Governor Dickson, Bayelsan also alleged that President Jonathan only reckons with people from his own group in Ogbia Local Government Area.

The people also allege that Governor Dickson runs his government from Abuja and that he hardly stays in Yenagoa! Bayelsa has very difficult and challenging terrain and topography.

It is a low and swampy land. So it requires plenty of money to construct roads and build houses. To reach many places in the State from Yenagoa such as Brass, Southern Ijaw etc one needs to travel over turbulent and treacherous waters on boat for several hours. But with sincere and concerted efforts these challenges can be overcome or surmounted.

There is no room for excuses. It is do-able because all the city of Amsterdam is built on top of water!

Oil theft row escalates

President Jonathan risks panic among investors after he suspends Central Bank Governor Sanusi in a personal political battle

Plain speaking, combative and ubiquitous, Central Bank of Nigeria Governor Sanusi Lamido Aminu Sanusi was never going to work well with the taciturn and cautious President Goodluck Jonathan. After months of cold war between the two men over reports of billions of missing oil revenue, President Jonathan suspended Sanusi from the CBN on 20 February. That will escalate the political battle and rattle investors a year before general elections. Jonathan acted against Sanusi after the outspoken Governor had warned the Senate on 13 February of the dangers of deepening corruption in the oil and gas industry and submitted a report detailing the failure of the state oil company to transfer some US$20 billion to the federation (national) accounts.
Those revelations and the failure of Oil Minister Diezani Allison-Madueke, a close ally of Jonathan’s, to give a credible response to accusations of gross mismanagement and illegality, sent investors into a spin. For example, it was confirmed in the Senate hearings that in 2009, the previous government had banned state subsidies on kerosene yet Allison-Madueke had maintained a system of state subsidy for kerosene costing over $1 bn. a year.

The reason Allison-Madueke gave for this was that it would benefit ordinary Nigerians (kerosene is widely used for cooking as well as jet fuel) and that the law was unclear. Yet Allison-Madueke had no response when Sanusi showed the senators a series of unequivocal directives ordering the end of kerosene subsidies. Then Sanusi went further to show that Nigerian consumers received no benefit from the claimed subsidy as they paid international market prices for their kerosene. Instead, the beneficiaries were a select small group of fuel traders who shared between them profits of around $100 million a month from the subsidy racket. Sanusi’s straight explanation of this was a point-blank critique of Allison-Madueke and, by extension, a challenge to the President who was backing her. Sanusi criticised several other schemes, all of which come under the responsibility of Allison-Madueke:
• Strategic Alliance Agreements between an affiliate of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and Jide Omokore’s Atlantic Energy, which Sanusi said illicitly transferred NNPC revenue to private holdings;
• Unaudited crude oil swaps for imports of refined products handled by four local trading groups: Igho Sanomi’s Talveras, Tonye Cole’s Sahara Oil, Ben Peters’ Aiteo and Walter Wagbatsoma’s Ontario Oil and Gas together with Claude Dauphin’s Netherlands-based Trafigura;
• Illegal oil bunkering – running at over 250,000 barrels a day;
• Unaudited third-party financing claims of about $2 bn. a year.
Faced with this litany of infractions, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Economy Minister and former Managing Director of the World Bank, proposed a forensic audit of the NNPC, but one ringed with caveats. Okonjo-Iweala is now in an iniquitous position: she is the sole high-profile reformer with policy-making powers on the wider economy but still politically identified with Jonathan and Allison-Madueke. Seeing Okonjo-Iweala’s continuing foreign credibility (London’s daily Financial Times backed her for World Bank President), Jonathan’s team encourages the idea that she could run for vice-president in 2015, and president in 2019.
Yet that cuts little ice with market forces. Within hours of the 13 February Senate hearings, the naira had slumped to N165 to the US dollar, the sharpest depreciation in five years. The value of shares on the stock exchange fell faster than in any other capital market. Although CBN Deputy Governor Sarah Omotunde Alade, who will take over the governorship until June, is a well-regarded technocrat, bankers and investors worry about the signals sent by Sanusi’s suspension and the lack of concern about the state accounting issues that he raised.
The President and Oil Minister have shown an almost surreal insouciance towards data showing billions of dollars missing from state accounts, even when the data is produced by government officials and on one occasion, by a committee working under instruction from the Oil and Finance ministries.
Again on 20 February, within hours of his suspension, Jonathan’s aides were more intent on trying to denigrate and sideline Sanusi than steadying investors’ nerves. Jonathan launched unsubstantiated accusations of ‘financial recklessness’ against Sanusi, then named Alade as Acting Governor and within hours had sent his choice for the new governor, Zenith Bank’s Chief Executive Godwin Emefiele, to the Senate for confirmation. The market made its own judgement: that same day, the exchange rate fell by another four naira, to $1 = N169.
This will matter hugely, even if Nigeria’s ballooning growth is on automatic pilot. Government statisticians are just about to announce that the country is now Africa’s biggest economy, with a gross domestic product of around $400 bn. That puts it about $40 bn. ahead of South Africa and slightly less ahead of Iran, Columbia and Thailand. This was intended to make great propaganda for Jonathan’s campaign in the 2015 elections but it will be fairly meaningless for most Nigerians. Average income per capita will be about $2,400 a year: that’s much less than in an Egypt in turmoil and less than a third of average incomes in South Africa.
Central to Nigeria’s economic problems is the failure of the state to provide basic services such as electricity and water, let alone decent standards of education and healthcare. Much of this is due to chronic under-investment: that reality has given Sanusi’s critique of the mismanagement of state oil revenue great resonance among many Nigerians. In the hours after his suspension, it was Sanusi, not the government, who tried to steady nerves. He strongly praised Sarah Alade’s professionalism and managerial competence.