The unnecessary hullabaloo over petrol subsidy removal or retention

IKNOW of no other country that has developed resistance to hardship, adversity and difficult times like Nigerians. It is trite that endurance leads to perseverance and the two can be easily described as typical Nigerian virtues. Nigerians born few years before independence and those born in the first two decades post- independence enjoyed what may be regarded as the fruits and promise of a new, vibrant, resilient, and promising nation.

It was an era when the country’s currency was gladly preferred and accepted over many European currencies long before the introduction of the Euro. I can go on and on detailing how interesting and promising life was back then. Sadly, we are now the same country statisticians now describe as the poverty capital of the world. Yet, since 2003 up until few years ago, we were regarded prominently among the happiest people on earth.

The Guardian, a little over a decade ago, published the result of a poll which revealed that Nigeria despite its challenges was the most optimistic nation in the world and one of the happiest places on earth.

For many years now, the economy has been battered and expert fingered the controversial fuel subsidy as part of the problem. The origin of subsidy in Nigeria can be traced to the 1970s following the promulgation of Price Control Act which also affected petrol pricing. The negative aspect of it and the unsustainability of petroleum product subsidy surfaced a decade after its introduction. It climaxed during the administration of former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan who tried unsuccessfully to remove it. Nigerians are well familiar with the most important declaration of the current President in his inaugural address on the 29th of May 2023 despite being a major critic of subsidy removal under Jonathan. The hasty removal immediately triggered unprecedented hardship for Nigerians of all class and status. In fact, many small businesses are yet to recover from it.

PMS pump price jumped from N168 per litre to between N568 and N630 per litre in Lagos depending on the fuel station and even slightly more outside Lagos State. Nigeria has never had it so hard and so bad in my view, in fact the last yuletide and New Year celebrations clearly painted the ideal picture of the state of the Nigerian economy and the level of gloom in the country. To climax the mood, some market women in Lagos greeted President Bola Tinubu’s convoy with the dirge “Tinubu Ebimpawa o” which means Tinubu we are starving. Yet, analysts won’t let us rest on the supposed rationale behind government repeated denial of the suspected return of fuel subsidy. This reminds me of a Sunny Nneji’s song titled Dem go Talk. That famous track says that there is nothing one will do that people will not have one thing or another to say about it.

Many commentators has been challenging the position of NNPC and government on the true state of petrol subsidy in the country in the face of the free fall of the Naira coupled with the high cost of petroleum product in the international market. While it may seem logically correct to query the justification of the current price stability in a deregulated regime based on the stated facts, it will however be practically incorrect to continue to push for a semblance of full deregulated pricing in the face of the current harsh economic realities in the country.

We live in a clime that is bedeviled by high rate corruption; we see wastages and other manifestation of corruption around us every day. Sadly, we are yet to see a meaningful development of a workable template of deploying the money saved from the removal into effective cushioning of the downsides of the removal. Many state governors have so far failed to justify the increment they receive from the saving from the excess crude oil account occasioned by the subsidy removal. To insist on a reflective subsidy removal pricing at this point is to push Nigerian beyond their endurance limit and push what is left of Nigerian economy to the abyss. I wonder why anyone may choose to pick quarrel with a move that appears sympathetic to the plight of the people.

Each time I hear Nigerians especially the media raise the issue of whether or not subsidy subsists, the tenacity at which the question is asked and the persistence at which a response is often desired make me cringe in my seat in fear. I am currently enduring the hardship and menace of estimated electricity billing averaging crazy monthly bill of N96,000, yet the light is hardly ever available, leaving me with the only option of fueling my generator mostly when I am at home at a huge cost. Nowadays, my car tank is hardly half full likewise my generator set despite committing a sizeable chunk of my hard earned income into fuel purchase. I often ask myself, who the hullaballoo over the issue of return or otherwise of fuel subsidy seeks to benefit. NNPC is expected to think outside the box by coming up with ways of providing palliatives to cushion the cost of PMS and other petroleum product under its corporate social responsibility. The fact that deregulation was hastily announced without proper modalities put in place occasioned serious shock on the economy and as such any sensible person will expect a responsible government to work back on the policy implementation to a more feasible and realistic model of deregulation and desubsidisation which is what I believe the government and NNPC is currently trying to achieve. Clearly, an economic policy devoid of welfarism and social security safeguards is manifestly of no value to the people. The Port Harcourt Refinery nearing full completion and resuscitation is a commendable development even though I still maintain that priority ought to have been given to the more modern and bigger moribund refinery.

It makes a huge social, economic and political sense to maintain price status quo until the refurbished refinery as well as the newly built Dangote Refinery fully becomes operational. Priorities must also be given to the two other moribund refineries to ensure that they are resuscitated. Government must also allow more private refineries especially in the area of modular refinery in the sector as this will also help in reducing the problem of persistent crude oil theft and vandalisation. It will in turn help in developing capacity in renewable energy and the conversion of flares to gas.

Don’t get me wrong, I support fuel subsidy removal but I equally support any form of palliative in petroleum product supply at this period in time no matter the nomenclature government may choose to call it. We have since moved from the happiest to the angriest people on earth according to a 2021 article published by Business Day written by Zebulon Agomuo. Nigerians are now sober; they are no longer smiling in their suffering as Fela once taunted them. Some even describe Nigerian’s level of endurance and perseverance to be more of a curse than blessing. Any attempt to aggravate the peoples suffering further may be worse than suicidal.