Subianto’s Silent Posthumous Salute For Ojukwu As Indonesia Moves To Palm Oil Fuel From Diesel, Biafra’s Old Invention
The Oasis Reporters
April 21, 2026
With the difficulties being experienced in getting Diesel with other blends of fuel because of the security problems with shipping oils from the Middle East through the Strait of Hormuz due to the war between the US and Israel on the one hand against Iran on the other hand, a frustrated Indonesia has desperately turned away from Diesel to an almost forgotten technology developed by General Odumegwu Ojukwu and PRODA, a one time scientific production outfit of the ill-fated Biafran Secessionist republic.
Seeing the rising prices of petrol and diesel and its deleterious effects on the Indonesian economy, the new Indonesian president, Prabowo Subianto is believed to have ordered Sepuluh Nopember Institute of Technology in Surabaya (ITS) to quickly open their copy of the Biafran files and replicate how PRODA , a research and Production outfit manufactured Jet fuel, lubricants, Petrol and diesel under intense blockades of Biafra by the Nigerian forces led by General Yakubu Gowon from 1967 to 1970 during the Nigerian civil war.
Almost all the humanitarian planes that flew into makeshift airports like Uli were refuelled with Jet fuel blended by Biafran technologists and scientists drawn largely from the University of Biafra, hitherto known as University of Nigeria, Nsukka before the civil war. Those fuels were blended from Palm oil, grown widely in the former Eastern Nigeria that became Biafra.
“If Biafran scientists can do it, so can you “, the charge came to the institute in Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia.
Nigeria, which used to be a super power in Palm oil production now plays second fiddle to Indonesia and Malaysia, countries that learned faster while improving on Palm Tree production that they learned more recently after the introduction of the Tenera species introduced into Asia by the Dutch in the mid 1800s which they got from West Africa.
Indonesia will stop importing diesel fuel starting July 1, 2026, in line with the implementation of B50, a biofuel blend consisting of 50 percent diesel and 50 percent crude palm oil (CPO).
“We will no longer import diesel. Per July 1, 2026, we will stop (diesel import), as B50 comes into effect,” Minister of Agriculture Andi Amran Sulaiman stated at the Sepuluh Nopember Institute of Technology (ITS) on Sunday, 19th of April, 2026.
According to him, the move is part of the government’s efforts to strengthen national energy independence by utilizing palm oil as an alternative fuel.
He explained that palm oil can be processed not only into diesel but also into gasoline and ethanol, whose development is currently being accelerated.
By Greg Abolo with Agency reporting from Indonesia.
