Nigeria’s Minister of Trade and Investment, Dr. Oluseguin Aganga is fast making a career out of voodoo economic projections and spurious job promises. With degrees from Nigeria’s premier University of Ibadan and the prestigious Oxford University in the United Kingdom, Dr. Olusegun Aganga parades an intimidating academic resume that qualifies him for even the job of Secretary General of the United Nations.
Aganga’s claim to competence is bolstered by an equally awesome international work experience: he lived in Europe for many years where he worked with Ernst & Young in London UK, and Goldman Sachs International in London as Managing Director heading up hedge funds consulting services, appointed Minister of Finance by then Acting President, Goodluck Jonathan, later nominated and subsequently confirmed as Minister of Trade and Investment amid protest from his supposed Lagos home state for not been eligible to occupy the state’s slot because he is not an indigene.
Two years down the line as minister, Aganga is fast consolidating on his bourgeoning reputation as a lying machine. Armed with flowing gift of the gab, the equally gap-tooth chartered accountant is in the habit of mouthing oft-bloated and bogus positive economic indicators cum job numbers, which only exist in the fictitious world of agangaconomics.
In July 2012, Aganga was at his best when he proclaimed to a refinery-thirsty nation that his ministry had concluded plans with a US company called Vulcan Energy, and its local partner in Nigeria, Petroleum Refining and Strategic Reserve Limited to construct six brand new modular refineries. In the MOU as announced by the minister, six modular refineries would be built with a capacity of 180,000 barrels a day and two of the refineries would be completed within one year all the cost of N697.5 billion ($4.5 billion).
Waxing in characteristic rhetoric Aganga stated thus: “This is a historic moment and a big step for us as a country. Apart from power, one of the critical areas which President Goodluck Jonathan has made a priority is to have functional refineries. This is the beginning of changing our old paradigm from exporting just raw materials and exporting jobs to Western countries. This is something that we have done as a country for so long time.”
Ten months after that announcement, Huhuonline.com can authoritatively reveal that nothing is on ground, apart from the paper signed as MOU. Investigations reveal that Vulcan Energy lacks the capacity to build six modular refineries. According to our findings, Vulcan Energy engages in the upstream and midstream oil and gas business in the United States and Canada. Although, Vice President/Director of the said Vulcan Petroleum Resources Limited, Mr. Jim Mansfield was present during the signing of the MOU, representing the U.S Company, One Ford Graham is believed to be the brain behind the deal.
Mr. Graham, a well-known resident at the Transcorp Hilton in Abuja is said to be a US business man with his hands on every pie, ranging from Agriculture, to construction, oil and gas and hospitality businesses. Graham, it was gathered, packaged the deal and invited Mr. Mansfield to add colour to the presentation.
Investigation of the Vulcan Energy in the United States raised more eyebrows. First, Vulcan Petroleum Resources is not listed anywhere in the US and when Vulcan Petroleum Co was called, we were informed that they had no business deals in Nigeria.
Further inquest in the US from experts indicate that it will take at least 18 months, and not 12 months as sold to Nigerians to build a 180,000 capacity refinery. Huhuonline.com however authoritatively gathered that Mr. Graham may have since abandoned the project due to frustrations encountered from the local partner and the ministry of Trade and Investment.
Mr. Graham was further traced to Washington, DC where he came to attend a meeting in February, unfortunately he left abruptly to New York the next day, as we were informed by a reliable source that he is devastated, having wasted time and resources in Nigeria. According to the source, nothing is happening with the six refineries project right now, it is more of tongue in cheek than anything else.
Before now, feelers from the Ministry of Petroleum Resources and the NNPC had indicated that both bodies were totally not in the picture. The NNPC had stated in an earlier statement that the Corporation “is not aware of any project to build six refineries”; a statement that contradicts the position of Aganga, who at the MOU signing said that, “the Ministry of Trade and Investment would work together with the Ministry of Petroleum Resources and NNPC to ensure the actualization of the projects.”
Minister of Petroleum Resources has consistently asked Aganga on every occasion to mind his Area of Responsibility (AOR) and leave the oil sector alone. Apart from the refinery mess, Aganga caused a major stir last year when he proclaimed by the strap of his boots that the Bank of Industry has created 1.3 million jobs. Shame was put to the claim days later when officials of the Bank denied such achievement.
But Aganga’s deep sense of mendacity is far from being extinguished. Last month, the minister virtually unleashed a new album with the proclamation that the National Enterprise Development Programme (NEDEP) will create 3.5 million jobs for unemployed Nigerian youths.
According to him, “Our objective is that within two years of implementing NEDEP, the programme will generate 3.5 million jobs and an estimated five million direct and indirect jobs”.
Veteran Nigerian Journalist and Columnist, Jerry Uwah had this to say about Aganga’s latest voodoo projection: “Olusegun Aganga is something of a day dreamer. The minister of trade and investment is bent on creating 3.5 million jobs in the next two years. Few of his colleagues believe him. The task is simply impossible in an economy with infrastructure in advanced stage of decay. But Aganga is pursuing the scheme with the conviction of a rocket scientist.”
Writing on the same subject, another veteran Journalist Dele Sobowale wrote thus in Vanguard newspaper: “Right away, he has created problems of arithmetic. First, ‘within the next two years’ should mean by March 2015. Is that what the Minister is promising? Next, “generate 3.5 million jobs and an estimated five million direct and indirect jobs” would imply that we should actually expect 8.5 million jobs by 2015. Is that what the Minister is saying? The obfuscation was probably deliberate and it is not the minister’s business if the people clapping don’t know that 8.5 million is 250 per cent of 3.5 million. Furthermore, 146,000 jobs per month will be expected to be created if 3.5 million is the target; 354,000 jobs per month if 8.5 million jobs are to be expected’’
Perhaps only the principle of agangaconomics would be in a position to shed more light on this, as efforts to get the Minister or close aides to respond to these allegations have so far proven abortive.
