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BURNING POT BY PRICE CHARLES DICKSON
Nigeria’s Deaf And Dumb Explanation Of Fuel Subsidies
Out of the US1billion dollar I got from the oil block, I have USD500 million left which I do not know what to spend it on"--Gen T.Y Danjuma (rtd).
I once watched with bemusement, a deaf and dumb boy who caught his mom with a stranger in bed. When his father came home, the poor young boy was at loss on how to communicate his discovery. After several futile attempts, the boy ceased trying. The father on the other hand patted him, walked into the bedroom and was scolding the wife, he asked her why she was sick, rolling on the bed and could not call for help from the neighbours or the family doctor?
What exactly is deregulation, how exactly does these subsidy work...I have talked to government officials, petroleum marketers, a few 'big boys' in NNPC, and a couple of egg heads. Truth is that they do not know, or better still they know but cannot explain what these terms means.
All the grammar boils down to an inability of a system to solve a problem because a strong group of persons are benefiting from that problem. It also is an indictment reflective of the faulty planning by those in charge, that’s if they plan at all.
Government tells us that they cannot influence the price of the product since deregulation is the in-thing, but in commonsense, no one has been able to tell us how fellow oil-producing nations have successful dealt with their petroleum needs.
A friend suggested why don't we go to Angola, Venezuela, or Brazil and just steal their blueprint, its working for them, let’s just stop this subsidies and deregulation grammar and deceit of subsidies and duplicate their success, localize it for the collective good of Nigerians, but off course the term 'collective good' is an alien term to us.
It is a sad picture of a society that has lost balance, the ruling class needs to be taught a bitter lesson, they need to be made to bleed, Nigeria's live at less than a dollar a day, while a nation's collective wealth is flaunted by a few oil moguls who donate millions to the 'cancer called corruption'.
No number of essays, commentaries can explain the impact of fuel, cooking oil and diesel to the economy; it’s like explaining the impact of constant electricity to national life. These are terms those in power do not seem to grasp; the reasons are way simple too...one, they have big power generating plants in their homes and offices. Two, some of them cannot really recall when last they were on a fuel queue and with millions of naira in remuneration and salaries.
The NLC died a long time ago courtesy of an Obasanjo inspired poisoning, aided by greed of those put at the helm of its activities.
19 fuel price increases since 1978, five times it was reduced minimally but hiked backed almost immediately. From N8.45K in 1978 to N65 in 2009 representing an increase of almost 60,000% and the trend has continued. In 1978 when the first increase was announced, one of the reasons given was that a majority of petroleum users were using it for pleasure, and there was a need to bring discipline into society. Strange thinking, another reason was that N95M was being spent a year for subsidies.
How much are we spending today on subsidies, where is this money coming from, how does this subsidy thing work, how can you deregulate when your refineries are not working.
The top echelon of the society cannot explain to Nigerians, exactly, the reason why we cannot buy fuel at an affordable price for three years in a stretch without scarcity. Not every Nigerian is a novice to the political, economic or social implications of oil pricing. However the ordinary Nigerian suffers this failure and complacency of leadership.
Just few years back, we lost a comrade in Maidugiri courtesy protesting a fuel hike. 10 years of democracy, and billions in petrol dollars earned, we cannot build a refinery, we cannot even repair or successful do 100% turn around maintenance of the ones we have.
During the Yar'adua administration it was a gas master plan thing it remained in the go-slow or infact it never got moving at all. I often say that our leaders had long lost feelings; truth is that, they never had such; they are only sensitive to their greed and self.
Subsidies and deregulation means the price will ultimately fall or money will be channelled to other areas of the economy, in local parlance...'our leaders like to mumu us'. When the broadcast industry deregulated we saw the instant benefits, same applies to telecoms (although we pay some of the highest tariffs in the world) we saw and are still seeing the benefits. But once you hear these terms in the petroleum sector, it’s like it stands for disappearance of the commodity and when it reappears its price increases.
Who are those responsible for the billions and trillions that disappear in subsidies, who are the few that want to punish the majority? All the best of explanations of government do not say how subsidy will stop elections they are rigged before they are held?
Why is it that this policy to a large population of Nigerians is simply a tightening of the screw of poverty, no massive improvement of our colonial rail system, no free education or healthcare, no social security, or unemployment benefits?
The trend will most certainly be high petrol price, weak naira, low minimum wage and increasing poverty, when one man makes a profit of USD500million just like that and questions are not asked, and we will remain where we are...
Legislators neither here nor there, governors’ supporting with both sides of their mouth at variance, everyone on top supports, and every person under suffer it, in all the noise the product disappears. Transportation fare increases, food prices sky rocket...a nation that has a disconnect between the ruled and its rulers, like the deaf and dumb boy, his mother, the stranger and his father.
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