It is a terrible thing when a man’s expectations are cut off. Proverbs 23: 18 says: “For surely there is an end; and thine expectation shall not be cut off” (King James version).

Proverbs 24: 14 also says: “So shall the knowledge of wisdom be to thy soul: when thou hast found it, then there shall be a reward, and thy expectation shall not be cut off”.

I don’t now know where preachers, including yours truly, found the addition “the expectation of the righteous shall not be cut off”. The scripture simply says our expectation shall not be cut off, be us righteous, be us otherwise – so I suppose!

But let us for a moment assume that this scripture refers only to the righteous, how do we now explain the fact that the expectations of the vast majority of Nigerians concerning the Dangote Refinery now appear to have been cut off?

We are touted as the second most prayerful country in the whole world! Is it that we are religious without being righteous? What are those expectations, to start with? One: That once the Dangote Refinery comes on stream, Nigerians will begin to enjoy cheap petrol.

One of my fellow pastors even vowed that the price of a litre of petrol will crash to what operated during the Jonathan era (N187 per liter) once Dangote begins to pump out Made-in-Nigeria petrol! Two: That the coming on stream of Dangote petrol will signal an end to the perennial scarcity of the commodity and that petrol will flow yanfu-yanfu from all the filling stations.

No queues! No bribing of petrol station attendants! No keeping vigils at petrol stations! No buying of black market at cut-throat prices! Motorists will just drive in into filling stations, have their fill and drive out with ease! No tension! No stress! No hassles! Aliko Dangote himself was quoted as saying that his refinery will bring an end to fuel importation and the strain on the Naira.

None of these expectations has materialized even as the long-awaited streaming of the Dangote Refinery took off the ground this week.

Rather, the sad news that Nigerians received was that Dangote petrol will cost more than imported petrol! Fuel scarcity has not only returned, the filling stations are empty.

Trust Nigerians, rather than sell the products they have at the moment at the prevailing price, Shylock fuel station owners prefer to hoard the commodity and wait for the new price regime to take effect for them to make a kill. Before the Dangote Refinery wahala, I bought fuel at one NNPC filling station at N855 per litre.

Now, with Dangote fuel, a litre will cost N950 at NNPC stations in Lagos. What this means is that other filling stations in Lagos will sell above that price.

Usually, the five or so majors sell at between 30 and 50 Naira above the NNPC price while independent marketers sell at between 100 and 300 Naira over the NNPC benchmark.

As we move farther away from Lagos, the price increases. In many places as we speak – that is, before the coming on stream of Dangote fuel – a litre of petrol sells for as high as 1,500 Naira or even more, especially in the black market.

Now that the official price hovers around N1000 per litre in Lagos, your guess is as good as mine concerning what to expect in the hinterland.

The coming on stream of the Dangote Refinery ought to be good news that should see the dollar crash and the Naira make appreciable gains on it; the contrary, unfortunately, has been the case as the Naira continues its downward slide at both the official and black market, inching close to N1700 to a dollar.

Why have the expectations of Nigerians over the Dangote Refinery been cut off? One explanation is that the crude oil the refinery is still using was imported; so the vagaries of foreign exchange volatility has come into play.

When the refinery begins to buy crude from the NNPC in Naira, we should expect that to have a salutary effect on the price of fuel. Another expectation for those who believe!

The discrepancies in the figures released by Dangote and NNPC over the price at which the latter lifted petrol from the former further speaks to the opaqueness and lack of transparency in the oily business of making petrol available to Nigerians.

Between Dangote and NNPC, it is difficult to know who to believe in this blame game that leaves much to be desired. If NNPC becomes the sole off-taker of Dangote’s petrol, what becomes of the independent marketers?

Buying from the NNPC leaves them with no chance of competing favourably in an open market. Should they resort to importation, the same problem we thought the Dangote Refinery has helped us resolve rears its ugly head again.

The problems bedevilling the oil sector are hydra-headed, such that the Dangote Refinery alone cannot solve. There is the problem of aging infrastructure; lack of investment in the sector, compelling the oil majors to disinvest; the problems of corruption and sabotage, vandalization of pipelines and oil theft; a Petroleum Industry Act that was late in coming, and insecurity, to mention but a few.

Why are the four government-owned refineries not working? Why may they never work, if we are to believe the statements of former President Olusegun Obasanjo?

Since the Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration came on stream, it has serially reneged on the date lines it gave for the refineries to roar back to life.

Why? How do we solve the problem of smuggling of petroleum products across the border? Cheap petrol here subsidizes our neighbours. The more they smuggle the commodity across the border, the more losses we incur.

We must factor them into the equation if we are ever to solve this problem. Why have we not taken advantage of the vast market begging to be tapped around us? This is an adversity that we ought to have translated into opportunity a long time ago.