“The capture of Bonny and Port Harcourt by the Nigerian Third Marine Commandos led by Brig. Adekunle was a terrible blow to Biafra, because it meant the capture of Biafra’s Oil Refinery at Eleme-Eleshi. Before the Biafran Armed Forces moved out of Port Harcourt, they succeeded in dismantling the refinery columns which were transferred to Uzuakoli to form the nucleus of Biafra’s  Oil Refinery….running the new refinery round the clock to produce enough refined products for both the Armed Forces and the civilians.”
– Prof. Eugene Arene, The Biafran Scientists and the Development of an African Indigenous Technology, National Library Press, Lagos 1997.
Ordinarily, the world’s most influential, weekly Documentary does not carry Editorials. All the same, in times of great emergencies, scientific human breakthroughs, extraordinary national achievements, the American TIME magazine would write an Editorial. When America elected John Kennedy, the first Irish Catholic President, and when that President was assassinated the TIME carried two separate Editorials. That authoritative magazine wrote an Editorial when America landed a man on the moon, when the US withdrew her forces from Vietnam. Again when the first black man, a Kenyan African was elected the first black President of the United States, Time carried an Editorial, just as it carried an Editorial following the collapse of the Biafran nation in January 1970.
Presently, my table is full with disturbing and frightening news. From Ilah on the Niger a woman was beheaded while fishing at Ngene over the weekend with her two relations listed in coma, after they were attacked by the ubiquitous ravaging herdsmen. To add to the national community scourges, the of the Avengers have ironically cut down on the world crude supply, leading to increase in oil prices, to the advantage of the other competing producers.
In the midst of all these descent to the precipice, Labor has given the government an ultimatum. Restore the oil pump price of N86.00 or they would shut down the country; today! Would the government call their bluff or risk losing face by genuflecting before organized Labor and restore the price? Significantly, the government cannot find a reliable Spokesman to address the fundamental questions that have remained unattended to since the fuel crisis jammed the gas stations. In true evaluation of the national emergency, the Minister and the NNPC helmsman Dr. Kachikwu should stop grandstanding and organize a serious Public Affairs Department which the oil company has been known for. The gentleman should immediately stop talking because nobody believes him anymore.
If Nigeria is a producer nation why not allow local refineries to operate to meet the local consumption needs and give our teeming unemployed a place under the sun? This local capacity was tested when during the war the Biafrans in the face of artillery, aerial bombardment, starvation, improvised spare parts, enabling her to support a large scale civil war campaign including logistics and transportation.
As a result of the recent hardship, some of these local refineries have resurfaced down the creeks. It is always sad viewing footages of these local enterprises being burnt to ashes on the orders of ignorant officers. In flames are those base local contents the likes that were developed upon, before the west and the Super Powers reached to their new level Technologies; in flames are the hard works and the vision of our local Scientists. They have looked at the incompetence of the NNPC, their broken down white elephants which the system employs to suck our foreign exchange in the name of “turn around maintenance.” Yet the interested importers term them illicit, illegal refineries etc. just like the British labeled the Ijaw gin, illicit gin and returned from the slave ships and gave away their own Dry Gin as gifts to their Kings!
Please let somebody read aloud for me and Nigerians this obnoxious law forbidding our people from massively going out to refine their God given crude products to assuage the crying needs of our anguished citizens.

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