Low hanging fruits of Change: Legitimize, empower and multiply illegal refineries (1)

I must first apologise for breaking our discussion around Nigeria Vision 2020 and particularly our ongoing analysis on the potentials of the automobile industry in Nigeria. This break is however necessary because like many supporters of the Commander-in-Chief, we are sensitive to the concerns of many Nigerians and probably lovers of Nigeria abroad who desire that we move at an economic faster space than we might be doing at the moment. I say this equally believing that we need time to set the economy on solid foundations. Economic growth and stability is not just about actions per se. Economic emancipation and growth is about focused actions that would put food on the table for all Nigerians; that would clothe all Nigerians; and that would employ all Nigerians. It cannot be rushed. But we must look both for immediate economic cushions, palliatives and short term dividends of the change we all believe in. Hence the need to pause our Vision 2020 analysis so as to ponder on what we can do now, immediately, in the second quarter of 2016. In any event, an immediate economic boost/shot in the arm will contribute to our long-term search for attaining the status of one of the twenty industrialized nations in the world by 2020, which is the essence and focus of the Nigeria Vision 20-2020.

Let us begin with subtitles from a BBC World Service video documenting electricity generation in a Malawian grassroots community:

“Knead some mud; build a mud stove; shape it into a cook-stove; bake it in a furnace; bolt on a thermos electric generator; light stove/cook food on it; connect up electrical devices; wait for them to charge; may be sing a song about your stove; the fire creates a heat differential in the metal rods to create electricity; the stoves burn half the amount of wood that an open fire uses.”

Let me jump to another news item, this time from Nigeria, Premium Times:

“The Commandant General of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC, Abdullahi Muhammadu, has said that about 120 suspected oil pipeline vandals have so far been prosecuted for operating over 200 illegal refineries in eight states. The Commandant General said the refineries, located in Rivers, Delta, Bayelsa, Edo, Kogi, Ondo, Cross River, Akwa Ibom states, were destroyed by the special task set up to clampdown on saboteurs as part of drive to check vandalism, illegal refineries, oil theft and illegal bunkering”.

What is common to both stories and why should we be interested? Indigenous technology; massive job creation, literally in millions instantly; energy savings; foreign exchange savings; environmental preservation. Amazing and incredible leveraging of comparative advantages; Major issues. Major advantages. Capable of radically transforming the economy in record time. What do we mean? First let me explain the two stories. In Malawi, ordinary people have found or devised a cheap creative way of generating electricity, literally from nothing or close to nothing. They gather potopoto, mud, clay, earth. They mode it into clay stoves. They bake the stove. I mean, in real language, burn it, the same way they have burnt bricks for thousands of years, to solidify it. They then attach to the fired-clay stove a small electric generator, which converts energy from the wood –fired stove into electricity.  These village people charge their various devices with the electricity and they are good to go. At the same time as they are using the fire to generate electricity, they are also using it to cook their food. The design of this clay generator-stove is such that they only use half of the wood they would have used if they had cooked with the conventional stove. The meaning is that this simple clay stove generator reduces the cost of producing fire/energy for cooking by half and even that half cost/expense is immediately written off substantially by the electricity produced by the same stove, which electricity is used to power their devices. This means they would not have spent any extra money to obtain electricity to power their devices and to cook.  It is indeed and all win situation.

I am looking at this Malawian stove and I am I seeing millions of Nigerian families struggling to afford energy to do basic home cooking and power their own electric and electronic devices. And I am looking at Kogi and from there to Enugu, at their incredible amount of coal, capable of powering Nigeria with electricity for over four hundred years. And I am looking at the Malawian stove again. And I am immediately replacing the Malawian wood with coal in Nigeria. Nigeria has too much coal than to keep cutting down trees for firewood. So I am putting the cheap coal from Kogi and Enugu States into this simple Malawian stove. And I am attaching the cheap tiny electric generator to the tiny stove. And, thereby, I am generating relatively environmentally friendly cooking fire and electricity for millions of poor Nigerian homes. And I see them feeling really pleased about it as they see their energy bill tumbling, thus saving money for other productive ventures. And I am asking: Why can’t we do that now, today, this year. That is a low lying fruit.

Next week, we shall examine the Nigerian story and show the low lying fruit in it. This is because out of the currently criminal act of ordinary local people refining Nigerian crude for motor fuel, we clearly see another win-win for the government and people of Nigeria on the one hand, and the local petroleum refiners on the other hand.