Lagos — Royal Dutch Shell, the dominant multinational oil corporation operating in Nigeria, reportedly warned the Federal Government last Thursday that $40 billion of planned investments in the country would be put off if the National Assembly passes the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB).

The company’s spokesman disclosed that the investments were in offshore oil sites the company was planning to explore in the future. As proof of its seriousness, Shell also announced that it was putting the projects on hold pending the final decision on the PIB, implying that it would only proceed full steam when the National Assembly kills the bill. To ensure that the Federal Government was left in no doubt about the seriousness of its intention, Shell also hinted that it could no longer depend on Nigeria as a profit-maker, despite being the dominant player in the field.

We condemn this threat by Shell – the latest in its well-orchestrated vocal campaign against the PIB. While we concur with Shell’s position that the primary objective of being in business is to earn a profit stream commensurate with attendant risks, we are fully persuaded that the PIB does not in any way hamper the capacity of oil industry operators to realize normal profits from their activities. Shell is well within its rights to mull over whether or not to continue making further investments in oil exploration, from a strictly business perspective. But one thing is clear: this nation has reached a stage where its economic lifeline can no longer be held hostage by the antics of one or more whining players in the oil sector.

In a way, Shell’s threat did not surprise us. Truth be told, no party enjoying lopsided advantages in a trading partnership likes to easily give up the benefits that have been built into the process over time. It is a fact that African nations have traditionally been providers of primary products for over 200 years for the booming industries of Europe and America. Worse still, the same raw materials are recycled to Africa, culminating in a double whammy: the prices they earn on their raw materials are not competitive because they are determined by the industrialized nations; then they pay through the nose for the finished imports!

This pattern has been in vogue since oil was discovered at Oloibiri more than 50 years ago by Shell. Billions of barrels of crude oil have been exported – and continue to be exported – while billions of cubic metres of natural gas have been unproductively flared – and continue to be flared – in the absence of an industrial complex that would have enabled the nation to maximize the synergistic potentials of a plethora of linkages.

We aver that the PIB is a long overdue bold attempt to holistically overhaul the petroleum industry in order not only to correct the skewed distribution of oil revenues and profits that favour the multinational oil companies (MOCs), but also to give oil-producing areas a greater stake in the industry.

We call on the National Assembly to speedily pass the PIB without much ado. The legislators should be clearly told that the nation is watching. There have been strong rumours that some MOCs are sponsoring key legislative committee members to conferences and workshops in places like Ghana. If these reports are factual, we ask the legislators to put the nation’s overall interests above every other consideration, by abiding by the patriotic oath of office they swore to uphold, and refusing to be used to shortchange the nation and its citizens.

Given the dearth of patriotic leadership and the ubiquity of graft in all facets of national life, it is irrational to expect that the mere passage of the PIB will turn things around overnight. But just like Rome was not built in a day, its passage would guarantee the evolution of a workable framework for changing the form and content of the oil sector in the years ahead. Happily, the historic exposures of serving and retired public officials named in bribe-for-contracts scams involving Halliburton and Siemens, among others, has shown that there is no longer any hiding place for corrupt government functionaries. No amount of short-term illicit gains is worth the shame and disgrace attendant on an exposure – long after the bribes have been collected and spent.

The Jonathan administration and the National Assembly should call the bluff of multinational firms like Shell, and send a clear message to others waiting in the wings, that this nation will not succumb to cheap blackmail from any quarter.