Published 30th Dec,2011,National Accord Newspaper By Ibrahim Muhammed Sani Hadejia. FUEL SUBSIDY DEBATE: A PRODUCT OF INCOMPETENCE As we all engaged in various festivities to mark the end of 2011, and usher in a new year, many issues had dominated the sphere of our national discourse. The issues of gross insecurity, abject poverty, electoral reforms, and judicial reforms amongst others had been in the front burner. Quite recently, the debate on whether or not to remove subsidy form PMS (petrol) tends to dominate the sphere of our intellectual diagnoses. After the presentation of 2012 budget proposal to the National Assembly by President Jonathan, it then became clear that the government is determined to carry out the plan removal of fuel subsidy. What I thought was a mere policy distortions when it was first muted is now being debated by the National Assembly and being vehemently pushed ahead by the National Economic Management Team (NEMT) under the captainship of Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. This is presently causing unnecessary confusion in the minds of ordinary Nigerians; the market women and cart pushers. The so called educated ones amongst us including the Aso Villa Advisers and members of NEMT seemed to have been caught napping between truth and falsehood; between illusion and reality as the case of “We know it all” syndrome; a simple problem of megalomania becomes their major challenge. In a simple term, subsidy means the consumption of a product (good or service) below the production cost. This implies that Nigerians have been consuming petrol at a price below the cost of production. When the Senate committee led by Senator George Abe recently probed the activities of the NNPC and other oil subsidiaries, the oral evidence revealed that it costs the government about one hundred and forty four naira (#144) to produce a litre of petrol for domestic consumption, from which Nigerians are paying only sixty five naira (#65) leaving the burden of about seventy nine naira (#79) for government to pay in the form of subsidy. This is the only social benefit, per se, that touches the lives of every Nigerian irrespective of social status. Considering the level of infrastructural decay, acute poverty and unemployment in Nigeria , subsidizing essential products such as fuel remains imperative. Thus, the idea of subsidy was a good policy arrangement from the onset. However, the Nigerian government has finally found two reasons why such arrangement would no longer be feasible. The first reason adduced by President Jonathan is that the subsidy had for long been hijacked by a cabal. The so called faceless cabal had perfected a strategy to ambush the funds meant for this purpose. This makes it impossible for ordinary Nigerians to feel the impact of the subsidy. The simple question begging for answer is: If we remove this subsidy and channel the fund to another place in the same Nigeria with the same civil servants and the same political class, would it not also be ambushed? The second reason is that since the country is in dire need of infrastructure and government is said to be facing serious financial burden, then, making funds available for subsidy and also infrastructure at the same time, is to them, a near impossibility. So there must be a trade-off in a way, by forfeiting the subsidy in lieu of infrastructure. Nigerians should suffer today in order to enjoy tomorrow. This is ridiculous. This is an early sign that the present administration is incompetence, clueless and confused. I keenly watched on air, the “Nollywood-like townhall meeting” where the debate on petroleum subsidy was trashed. Dr Okonjo-Iweala, Mrs Allison Madueke and Sanusi Lamido Sanusi tried to use figures and semantics to persuade us to believe that with this removal, Nigeria is going to be like the United States in the next one year. I could remember how Dr Okonjo-Iweala was patriotic enough to collect dollars as salaries and allowances when she served Obasanjo’s government as Finance Minister. She did a lot by securing debt relief for the country from the Paris and London club of creditors, with the promise that having saved the nation from huge debt, the hope of a greater country was imminent. Today, we are worse off and more indebted than ever. I believed they have tried in their own professional ways to defend the indefensible but they must not forget that the real meaning of sustainable development is “providing the needs of the present generation, without compromising the needs of the future generation”. If anybody is telling us to suffer now with the caveat that our children would feel better in the future, then that person should be considered an enemy to this nation. It is simply sheer wickedness for anyone to think of such. They had looted us blind, took away all the resources meant for our generation to survive, and finally create a more hopeless situation for the masses. I equally understand that the government needs more money to pursue its development agenda but subsidy being enjoyed by the very poor cannot be sacrificed for this end, the jumbo pay being dished out to the public office holders should be slashed to a reasonable degree as a way of showing their level of commitment to national development. We must not ignore the possibility that the fuel subsidy removal may create more insecurity in the country. As we battle hopelessly to contain the Boko Haram crisis, which I simply believed was caused by age long neglect and insincerity on the part of our leaders; we must not do anything that would increase the sufferings of the already suffering masses. There is no transparency in the entire government businesses in Nigeria that is why it becomes difficult to convince us about government plans to make us a great country after the removal of subsidy. In as much as we want to be a great country, the roadmap to such greatness must be transparent. If government is looking for more money, the security votes are enough money for them, afterall the fund meant for security is a complete waste since we do not have security in Nigeria . Telling Nigerians to trust the present federal government is like telling a complete blind man to describe the features of an elephant; it is not possible because we can’t trust what we don’t understand. A government that recognizes and honours a cabal cannot be trusted. Ibrahim Muhammed Sani Hadejia wrote in from NOUN,Makurdi Study Centre,Kanshio,Makurdi,Benue State
Posted on: Sun, 03 Nov 2013 22:24:24 +0000