Lagos — Dr. Rilwanu Lukman is the minister of petroleum resources. He had occupied the same position 20 and three years ago, in 1987, under the regime of the ,military president, General (rtd) Ibrahim Babangida. He was among the young northern turks, mostly from the royalty, who were assembled in the 1960s to go and get that 'western education that makes the south proud' by the late Premier of the Northern region, Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sarduana of Sokoto.

A good number of them are late now but, Lukman, with the likes of Prof Jibril Aminu, Adamu Fika, Prof Iya Abubakar, Gidado Idris, Tunji Oyinloye, Umaru Dikko, Babagana Kingibe, Mike Angulu, Ibrahim Tahir who died recently, among others was one of them. Whereas, they actually acquired the knowledge as instructed by the Sarduana, many of them came back being 'prouder' than those they were running after.

Lukman, who studied mining engineering from Imperial College London, is widely regarded as one of these 'prouder' northerners. He does not also broach opposition. Indeed, he resents it and willfully crushes it anytime he sees one. For instance, he never wanted late Mr. Aret Adams, as Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). That explained why he forced him out of office as soon as he became Minister of Petroleum. Many marvel at his arrogance and impunity on issues about the Nigerian project. Very often, it is alright and okay as long as it suits the north. Again, when the issue of siting an oil college or university in Kaduna crept up in 2008, Lukman waved it aside that England, where he trained as mining engineer, does not have oil.

The fact that an existing facility like that has been in the country without proper development and funding did not matter to him. Today, the Kaduna Petroleum College is being pursued with some ferocity that would make it ready for commissioning in August, according to the authorities of Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF).

Why is the Petroleum Training Institute (PTI) Effurun, Delta state, not being pursued with the same speed that PTDF is doing in the Kaduna College? Why is the Kaduna College being founded from the coffers of PTDF, whose moneys come from crude oil produced in the Niger Delta, since England built its school without oil?

Aristocratic Lukman may be too proud to provide these answers, because the producers or bearers of the oil are more or less conquered people.

Perhaps, that also explains why he could cavalierly dismiss the directive of Vice President Goodluck Jonathan that no minister should travel and 'jet out' to Austria, nonetheless.

The fact that an aide of his has since claimed that Jonathan approved his principal's trip to Austria does not exculpate him. For one thing, it still beggars to his arrogance to have made such critical clarifications through an aide who, many still insist, could have not been saying the whole truth. After all, Jonathan, who has been insulted and disdainfully treated since the period President Umaru Yar'Adua's hospitalization in Saudi Arabia on Nov 23, 2009, would not naturally go into debate with Lukman or his so-called aide.

But assuming that such approval was given, it was equally a moral failure for Lukman to ask for such a leave at a time his ministry was causing Nigerians untold hardship for not putting enough petroleum products into the market. The scarcity, which still lingers, was such that motorists slept at filling stations to obtain rationed fuel to cope with the Yuletide season. At present, the scarcity has not abated as most filling stations in the entire north and south south and south east have had no products to sell in recent times.

Many Nigerians see Lukman's action as unbecoming of his status, moreso, as he was well aware that the lingering scarcity does not help the image of the administration whose head, Yar'Adua is lying sick in a Saudi hospital. Indeed, patriotism should have compelled Lukman to cancel his Austria trip to stay home and address the challenges posed by the scarcity of petroleum products. Yet he was only being himself.

When in 1988, he appointed an inexperienced northern marketer into an engineering post at NLNG, Lukman gave no hoot. To him the opposition by Adams and Dr. Ejike Onyia, who was the managing director of NLNG, then to the appointment, was mere noise-making. He had his way and in consequence both Adams and Onyia were relieved of their positons.

Under him too, the International Oil Companies (IOCs) operating in the country, were given unfettered powers to sack their Nigerian staff at will. Before then, IOCs especially those under the Joint Venture partnership with the government obtained approval to sack or retire their Nigerian staff. All that changed with Lukman in 1987, during his first 'missionary journey' as minister of Petroleum Resources.

It is not however clear why President Yar'Adua brought Lukman to be a minister in his administration. The worry is several and bothers on his vision, for the industry, despite, the level of his expertise. Many Nigerians are aghast to his single-minded pursuit of deregulation as the all-inclusive solution to the hydra-headed difficulties facing the oil industry. The questions must be asked: Will the deregulation of the downstream sector bring about integrity among the staff of the NNPC? Restore the capacity of the NNPC to run the refineries profitability and efficiently? Compell the NNPC to carry out a Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) of the refineries in a most efficient and professional manner?

The refineries have over the years become a 'big lie' by the NNPC, as management after management use the TAM to exploit and cheat the Nigerian tax payer. The questions may still be asked: Will deregulation resolve the corruption-driven allocation of oil wells, a development that has led to the constant removal of the heads of department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), some on alleged refusal to bend the rules for favoured official bidders? Lukman knows, like some other Nigerians, that the entire NNPC stinks with corruption, hence the ease with which the operating joint venture partners abuse the financial regulations in the cash call deals. Today, it is said in the oil industry that Nigeria pays highest in the cost of producing a barrel of crude among oil producing nations, despite the ease of mining the crude. He knows that the claim of insecurity in the Niger Delta as the reason for the high cost of crude production does not hold water because the practice had been perpetuated since the past two decades and during which he had been privileged to be involved in the running of the sector.

While the likes of Lukman are hell-bent on deregulation as the cure-all solution for the downstream sector, Venezuala, another prominent member-country of the OPEC, sells a litre of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) or petrol for just six naira as against N65 as at October last year and thereafter, N100 or more in most other parts of the country. Beyond the issue of deregulating the downstream sector, which requires Nigerians to pay higher for fuel products, what other innovations are being engineered by this old engineer? Nigerians are minded to know because they want to have a national oil company comparable to the ones in Brazil, Mexico and Venezuela where their governments have continued to run profitable petroleum companies in both the down-and-up stream sectors. And until this happens, many Nigerians would only know Lukman as an agent of pain in the fuel supply matrix.

A man of rich pedigree, Dr. Lukman has been severally OPEC president and secretary general. He is not given to double tongue and is highly regarded in both local and international oil business. He is over 70 years with half of that spent in the oil industry. He hails from Kaduna state but has Austrian citizenship. Indeed, it is said he spends most of his week ends in Austria. Even now.