Gross Insensitivity
By
Wada Nas
In spite of pleadings from all segments of the Nigerian society; in spite of the voices of reason and in spite of caution by well meaning Nigerians, the Obasanjo administration remained deaf and unconcerned and went a head to effect upward review in the prices of petroleum products. Petrol jumped from N22.00 to N26.00 an increase of about 18%; diesel from N21.00 to N26.00 and increase of about 20% while kerosene, the common mains product, flew from N17 to N24 and increase of about 30%.
This policy was effected when inflation is galloping to frightening dimension; when unemployment is devastating the society to the level of insecurity; when insecurity itself is threatening virtually everybody; when the federal government has not done much to minimize the suffering of Nigerians; when the polity is quite shaky; when the transport subsector is almost dying; and when hunger and disease are the companions of the generally poor. Worse still, it is at a time when the nation is mourning the death of one of its prominent ministers, through assassination, carried out by some desperate elements, as claimed by one of them who gave himself up to the police. Simply put, the policy came into being at a time when it was not supposed to.
Nothing makes this policy worse than the 30% increase in the price of kerosene, a commodity being used by the mass of the people for cooking. As we all know, even the so called middle level Nigerians can hardly afford to use cooking gas. Kerosene and firewood are the common products they depend on for cooking.
So the policy is more on hitting hard on the lower strata of our society whose members are equally worse lit by poverty, unemployment, hunger and disease among several others. They are the forgotten segments of the Nigerian society some of whom hardly benefit much from government programmes and services. They are those who don’t know what pipe born water, electricity and such other services mean. They are the wretched of the society, ignored by all levels of government. Yet, they are the ones the government went after their heads without the least consideration of their deplorable condition of existence and living. The neglected are the greater victims and their only offence is that they have been made poor by the nature of our society.
This is why this increase cannot be described other than gross insensitivity to the plight of ordinary Nigerians who have been abandoned by government and society.
The increase in the price of kerosene means other things. At a time when desert encroachment is badly devastating our land economy, someone, in his wisdom, thought it fit to put in place a policy measure that would worsen the situation. Perhaps we are unaware of the impact of desert encroachment on the agricultural economy, an economy that offers employment to about 70% of our labour force and the highest single contributor to the Good Domestic Product GDP. When desert encroachment hits the skies and those engaged in agricultural economy are forced by it to abandon the land, it is then we would know what this insensitive policy means. For sure the increase in kerosene is going to effect the agricultural economy because those using it would now fall back on fire wood for cooking.
Yet we have been launching tree planting campaigns to fight desertification. We do one thing on the one hand only to kill it on the other. This is why we can never get our bearings right. This is also why the ordinary man would remain to complain that his plight has never been taken into consideration in the formulation of policy measures and we cannot fault his reasoning.
Coming to the issue of petrol and diesel. The latter is the common product being used to wheel products from one part of the country to the other. It is the product of the haulage industry engaged in the transportation of food stuff and other products to various parts of the country. Without doubt, transporters are going to adjust their own prices certainly higher than the margin of the increased price. Thus, the prices of food stuff and other products are equally going to be increased to be purchased by those who don’t know when the next meal would come.
As for commuters, the hardship would not be less. The poor, the jobless and the hungry would suffer more. The transportation sub sector would become more chaotic.
Worse, there would be increase in violence, insecurity and other social vices as the poor would become more desperate to earn a living. The truth about the acts of the violence we have been witnessing so far is that they are products of unemployment. The human person is born to live and live he is bound to and therefore would do everything possible to fulfill this natural law. There are two ways of doing it. He either lives by the availability, to him, of the necessary human requirements of existence, or he lives by violence in other to acquire these materials of existence. If he has no job to do and no visible means to engage in fruitful economic undertakings, he sees society as the enemy to be fought if not to be destroyed. Violence, to him, therefore, becomes a compulsory lawful means of earning a living. This is the root of armed robbery, prostitution and violence with the last offering opportunities to loot.
The saying that when the poor cries the rich would not know sleep is a valid point. This increase, therefore, will ring out loud the thrill cries of the poor and we will not know sleep. This is the serious danger inherent in this policy.
The situation would become far worse when the government embarks on yet another anti people policy, the plan and plot to ban certain categories of second hard cars. Not only is it going to make ours a careless society it would equally lead to several people losing their jobs. Thousands of Nigerians are being employed by the dealers of these cars. We have transport owners and their motor boys, drivers, mechanics, sales boys and the dealers themselves. Majority would be dropped because there would be no market for the category to be allowed in since only a few could afford their prices.
Here we are with a government preaching employment opportunities but engaging in such acts that are capable of limiting employment horizon. Here is a government vowing to light violence but adopting policies that would make it a means of earning a living, and here is a government promising to eradicate poverty but engaging in policies that would increase same by widening the unemployment scope, which would undoubtedly increase the poverty of the very poor. What a contradiction!
Keen observers can not fail to note that since coming power, this administration has been engaging more in anti people measures than anything else. The PTF which was giving employment to about 700,000 Nigerians was scrapped. We are all witnesses to the good job it did. It rehabilitated about 12000 km of roads at about N60 billion while we were recently told that 7,000 was rehabilitated at about N170 billion by this administration. Imagine the difference. But this is not our focus.
FEAP was also scrapped at a time when it was offering soft loans to ordinary Nigerians encouraging than to engage in small scale businesses and cottage industries. We may think a N10,000 loan is nothing, but it is a huge sum to a person who has never owned N1000 of his own.
From FEAP they went ahead and scrapped the Peoples Banks and Community Banks. The victims were the poor, the dregs of the society.
We all know what Abacha did with his own price increase. Contrary to some popular views only about 33% of the accruals were allowed PTF, about 18% to Army and Police PTF, 8% to NNPC and the balance to the various tiers of government shared according to the principles of the revenue sharing formula. We have seen what the PTF did with its own. As for others Nigerians are better judges except in the case of Military and Police PTF where we have seen renovated barracks. In the way the various tiers of government squandered their own so would they squander the accruals they will be getting form the recent increase.
True, the states have shown some level of performance in the last two and a half years, but can we honestly and sincerely say this of the Federal Government? Gana toured this country with about 60 journalists in tow. For a good measure almost 90 of their reports are on the achievements of the states and the rest the Federal Government, and it controls the greater percentage of the national revenue!
The Federal Government is the largest consumer of petroleum products in the country. Under it, we have about 250,000 ministerial civil servants, perhaps, 150,000 extra ministerial ones, about 150,000 strong military force and 500,000 police in due course. These personnel and their agencies are most certainly going to consume more petroleum products, which means government is going to spend more on the products. More government earnings, therefore, will be going in to petroleum products and with personnel cost, at about 60-70% of earnings, little would be left for development. And who will be the victims? The people. Contrary to propaganda therefore the increase is going to retard development because more earnings will be going in to the purchase of petroleum products to service the million of vehicles and other energy consuming agencies of government, such as NEPA, rolling mills NNPC and several others.
There is also no truth in the fad that the increase would stop the smuggling of the products. The smugglers would still be there because the consumers to whom they sell will also remain in place. So, even if the increase goes up by 1000% it would never stop smuggling simply because the consumers of the smuggled products would have no alternative but to buy at the increased price.
What perhaps could stop smuggling is the selling of the products to countries where they are smuggled to at the appropriate rate. Thus the NNPC may think of establishing refineries in such countries through joint ventures.
In the face of this increase, it is obvious that labour would be itching for increase in salaries and wages and when this is done the benefits to government, arising form the increase, would not be there as part would go in to salary and the rest in to servicing government vehicles and petrol consuming agencies. Labour may benefit, yes, but so what. Not more than 10 million people are under the employment of various tiers of government. What is 10 out of 120 million?
From what ever angle we look at this increase, there is hardly any justification for it, at least for now. The only justification is when earnings are deployed to create something similar to PTF. Even this minimal option would not be acceptable to the Briton woods.