What must be done must be such that the government will develop an implementable plan that will ensure that within 18 months or so, we can have optimal if not adequate domestic refining capacity. It must ensure that, in the interim, looted funds are recovered, corporate and individual culprits in public and private sectors are prosecuted and punished exemplarily, and that the average capacity utilisation for the four public refineries goes up to 80 to 90 percent within the shortest possible time, say within six months.
There is a severe crisis in the country at the moment. It is the latest manifestation of a perennial and long standing crisis, and one that is symptomatic of the grandiose scale of the corruption that has characterised the last sixteen years of Nigerian life, and the share scope of the impunity that drives the catastrophic steep increases in treasury looting, or the public theft rate of the last six years.
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