Deregulating Robbery in
By Kola Ibrahim
Against all opposition, the Yar’Adua government has again come out boldly
to announce total deregulation of fuel come November 1, this year. This
crude and rude behaviour of government against the hues and cries of the
toiling people is highly condemnable. The labour movement must immediately
commence mass mobilization through a One-Day national warning strike, with
mass mobilization through rallies, pickets of government places including
national assemblies and state government houses, leafleting, etc before
this month runs out to prepare for an all-out mass movement against this
obnoxious policy. Local, community and state mobilization committees must
be immediately set-up to include workers, students, youth, market women,
peasants, artisans and community groups.
The
labour movement must not wait until the terrible policy start taking its
tolls on the poor masses of this country; when government will be using
the argument of ‘negotiation’ to water down the opposition before taking
action. Even if Yar’Adua government is forced to concede for now, it will
rebuild its arsenal to launch this and other anti-poor policies. Thus, the
labour movement and pro-labour groups must demand open democratic probe
into the over 3 trillion-naira oil subsidies and public declaration of
financial assets and business of all oil companies in the country and
nationalization of the commanding oil industry under the democratic
control and management of the working people and consumer association.
This is the real alternative to the fraudulent deregulation policy of the
government.
With
the government’s announcement, a civil war has already been declared on
the working masses by the government, the labour movement should not wait
any longer. It should be recalled that already prices of kerosene, diesel
and industrial fuel have already been deregulated without any formal
announcement. Therefore, to wait for an official announcement of
government before responding to this declaration of open war by the
government, is giving government time to re-strategize attack and mobilize
all its forces of reaction against working people. The labour movement
should not take the masses to the barricade with a white flag.
Indeed, the implementation of this policy is a leeway to the expansion of
all the anti-poor, neo-liberal policies, being introduced for over two
decades which have made the rich corrupt few richer while making life more
miserable for the working but poor people. However, the leadership of the
labour movement must not only re-strategize its opposition to this policy,
it must take a revolutionary, working class. It must be totally and
unflinchingly opposed to not only deregulation but all anti-poor,
neo-liberal capitalist policies if it must to secure a better living for
the working people.
To
the Yar’Adua government, the Governors’ Forum, the big business and the
capitalist pundits in the media and boardrooms, deregulation is necessary
because the subsidy on fuel pricing has led to huge corruption and looting
of the treasury by “unknown” leeches within the ruling class, which the
government claim is holding it to ransom. How many of these public looters
have been probed or prosecuted the Yar’Adua government and its town-criers
have failed to tell the people? What an irony: an “anti-corruption”
government accepting the superiority of gangsters! Maybe they are the real
sponsors of the variously rigged elections in
The
argument of Yar’Adua government to justify deregulation is a continuation
of the old worn-out excuses of the ruling class. The excuse of the
Obasanjo government for incessant increase in fuel prices was that it was
spending tens of billions on fuel subsidy; therefore the poor people must
bear the brunt through fuel price hike. Yar’Adua government has only
stepped this up by exposing that the subsidies running to over 3 trillion
Nigerian naira have only gone to the sharks in big oil marketing business
and government. But, what are government’s alternatives to this obviously
maddening scenario painted by the government itself: arrest the looters?
Stop the financial hemorrhaging of the nation? Obviously not – but making
the people the direct victims of the looting: more deregulation.
According to the Nigerian economist, Prof. Sam Aluko, oil marketers make
over $160,000 on a ship-load of refined petrol fuel imported into this
country. This is aside profit being made on other crude products like
Paraffin and jet fuel. Neither is it part of the profit being made by
shipping companies and private port managers, among other sundry charges
that will add up to extra 40 percent of fuel cost. With the country’s
refineries working at less than a third of its capacity, Nigerian
government has already privatized fuel production and deregulated its
importation, while only using public resources to subsidize the profit of
the oil marketers. Therefore, the latest attempt is only a
re-deregulation of this obvious robbery. In this what can be
termed “subsidized” deregulation system, the Nigerian
government use public resources meant for the development of social
infrastructures to service the profit interests of fuel marketers, their
bank creditors (some of whom are now being made scapegoats for massive
fraud perpetrated by all shades of big business class), shipping
companies, private port managers, stock gamblers, etc. In the planned
re-deregulation, the poor people are to directly bleed out billions in
profit for these fat-cats while government also doles out billions through
other means to them.
Private Refinery: Sheer
Mirage
Worse still, whenever there is crisis for oil importers, government will
immediately intervene on their behalf (tax break, special offer, price
flexibility, cheap credit, etc) in the name of ‘encouraging investment’ –
the same way that it arbitrarily fixed the price of petrol at 65 naira,
even when it should be less than 50 naira. Therefore, the planned
re-deregulation is a cover to insure super-profit. Some have argued that
deregulation will ‘encourage’ private investors to invest in oil refining.
But, funny enough, while tens of persons were given licenses by Obasanjo
government to build private refineries, these shylocks have converted
these into license to import refined fuel, no thanks to the connivance of
the Obasanjo government. According to reports, it will cost around $2
billion to build a standard refinery. How many local investors can commit
this amount to a long term project like refining?
The
main reason why these oil companies (local and foreign) will not build
refinery is because they depend on short term profits and not long-term
investment that will tie down their capital. This explains why the world’s
financial sector overtook the industrial sector (in US, manufacturing
share of GDP fell from 25% to 12% while financial share increased from 12%
to 20.5% from 1973-2008), which led to the current global economic crisis
that has foreclosed any tangible investment in the third world – except
financial gambling.
However, assuming without conceding that private individuals invest in oil
refining, as is being hoped by some pundits, can this alleviate the
suffering of Nigerians? In the first instance, the refining will be
hijacked by a clique as most of these moneybags can hardly bear the risk
alone thus leading to formation of cartel and monopoly – the example of
NNPC privatization in 2007 where a cartel of big companies, banks and
foreign firms bid to buy less than a third of NNPC at fraction of its
value is instructive. Thus, the question of competition and consequent
price reduction is out of it as demand and supply will be manipulated for
price increase. A vital example is the deregulation of paraffin
(kerosene), diesel, cooking gas and jet fuel, which prices have
skyrocketed daily.
Moreover, these companies will have to provide their own power, transport
system, etc, as the nation’s infrastructures are dilapidated, which will
bear on the cost and availability of the products while prices will have
to be hiked meet international profit level. Meanwhile, there is no way
government can get provide these infrastructures without impinging on the
super-profit of the business and political class. More important is the
profit flight by multinational companies which will escalate devaluation
and balance of payment. All this will worsen the already comatose
industrial sector with attendant job losses and associated social crises.
Labour’s limited
opposition to deregulation
In a
statement by the NLC, the central labour union, it tasked government to in
the immediate, refine petroleum products from neighbouring countries (so
as to reduce landing cost) and then start the process of building new
refineries. This may sound pragmatic, but it is clearly unrealistic. This
NLC’s position fails to take into cognizance, the political economy of
Nigerian ruling class. It assumed that the government is acting
independent of big business. The question we must ask is: Is it not the
same private companies, and Nigerian looters who have majority shares in
oil refineries in these neighbouring countries that will refine, import
and distribute the fuel? Will government not continue to subsidize their
profits?
The
demand for building more refineries is correct but limited. The labour
movement must be aware that many of the Nigerian politicians at all levels
are directly linked up with the business class. The labour movement must
ask itself why Nigerian governments for the past ten years of civil rule
have not added a tangible value to the nation’s refineries (despite over
$300 billion that had accrued to the country’s coffer) but have actually
used it as a conduit pipe to drain billions of dollars to private accounts
of corrupt government officials, bank-sters, big business, contractors and
foreign corporations. Yet more working people are being thrown into the
dungeon of poverty, want and misery. That Yar’Adua government could not
build more refineries or undertake an ambitious sustainable and
environmental friendly energy project more than two years in office is not
accidental. It is a product of the neo-colonial, neo-liberal capitalist
arrangement where the rich few rent-seekers are in control of the economy
on behalf of the international imperialist capital. If at all Nigerian
government commit itself to building new refineries it will result from
either government’s intervention to restore oil oligarchs’ falling
profitability or a product of intense mass political struggle which tend
to overturn the system.
The
labour unions like PENGASSAN (oil workers’ union) and TUC even stated that
they are opposed to privatization unless ‘it is necessary and
transparent’. The question is: what transparency is needed for a policy
that is in itself robbery of the whole country by a tiny clique? The same
unions oppose deregulation and privatization because it will lead to
worsening living standard of the working people; why then must the same
policies be necessary in any form? Comically, the same government that
failed to probe into hundreds of billions wasted on refurbishing the
country’s refineries now wants to sell the refineries to their plunderers,
in the name of encouraging private investment.
Democratic Public
Ownership
Without working class movement, through organized mass political
movements, opposing not only deregulation but also demanding public
ownership of the oil industry under democratically control and management
of elected representative of working people and consumers’ organizations,
building new refineries, if at all it is undertaken by government, will
become another conduit pipe for massive looting of public treasury,
collapse of these refineries (through nepotistic and corrupt managements)
and their eventual privatization. Public ownership under democratic
management of the working people and consumers will imply that management
officials of oil industry will be elected by the workers and consumer
associations, and such officials will collect salaries of averagely
skilled workers and be subject to immediate democratic recall. This will
also mean opening of financial records of oil companies while huge profit
going to private coffer of big business sharks will be used to undertake
long term plans for sustainable energy development.
With
this,
it will be possible to
have plans of not only building new refineries on sustainable basis but
also developing other sustainable energy and power sources. All this can
only be possible by developing other sectors of the economy. Meaningfully,
this will require the extension of public ownership to the commanding
height of the economy. The tens of billions of dollars in the nation’s
foreign account will be used to undertake a long term development of all
sectors of the economy and energy resources. This will means among others,
free, quality, massively funded, expanded and democratically-run education
and healthcare system, provision of employment for all able bodied
citizens, efficient social infrastructures – cheap, efficient and
environment friendly transport system (road, water, rail and air), energy
system, mechanized, poor-peasant-oriented and environment friendly
agricultural, potable water and mass public housing.
For a new social order
But
all the above programmes cannot be achieved by ‘advising’ Nigerian
capitalist ruling class. It needs to be demanded by the labour movement
through mass movement built democratically from the grassroots and
communities, which will place the working class in power. The rot in the
oil industry is also glaring in other sectors of the economy – social
services, power generation, financial sector, etc. So, the working class
movement must understand that resistance to deregulation policy needs mass
actions which must start with re-building mass organizations of the
working people, especially the labour movement (as a fighting and
democratic organization) that will combine struggle for N52, 200 wage
without retrenchment, massive funding of education, healthcare, etc, with
the political struggle to take over governance. The labour movement need
to call an immediate summit of all working people’s organizations,
pro-poor organizations, student/youth movements, peasants/market women
organizations, socialist movements, leftwing political parties,
self-determination groups, etc to draw up plans of building a mass working
people’s political platform that will champion the struggles. Such
platform will have to adopt a revolutionary democratic socialist stand
against neo-liberal capitalism.
A
genuine socialist system will combine nationalized economy with workers’
democracy (as against monstrous bureaucracy of Stalinism that collapsed
the nationalized economy of Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the 1990’s)
while taking an internationalist outlook as a nationalized economy cannot
operate in isolation. A successful movement of the working people in
Kola Ibrahim
Obafemi Awolowo Univeristy (OAU), Ile-Ife.
|