VIEW

Mr President, There Is Wahala

By Emma Okah

When Mr President presented the 2012 Appropriation Bill to the joint sitting of the National Assembly and cleverly made no provision for fuel subsidy in the budget, it became obvious to all doubting Thomases that the game is up and the last string of cushion for the ordinary Nigerian was evaporating. January 1, 2012 has hit the people hard and it will go down in the history of this country as the day the FGN murdered sleep.

In the days and times ahead, Nigerians will be groaning under the recurring effect of economic hardship occasioned by the increase in pump prices of petroleum products. The civil servant is crying; traders are wailing, transporters are weeping and nearly every Nigerian is worried one way or the other. Unfortunately, while many Nigerians are looking forward to the reversal of the pump price to the original N65/L, the FGN believes that the gathering storm and “noise by empty barrels” will blow over in days and the coast will be clear again for business as usual. As organized labour, aggrieved Nigerians and civil society activists are sharpening strategies to take the FGN head-on and, it is only to be expected that lives will be lost, businesses bruised and inconveniences suffered.

Nigerians are in pain because by this development, the FGN has washed its hands off subsidizing anything in the country for her people. No subsidy for electricity, security, education, health, petroleum products, housing, water, social security, etc. Nothing is subsidized. Nothing. So it is “to your tents o Nigerians”

Presently labour appears too weak to twist the arm of the FGN in a country where protesters can be shot at will and nothing will happen. We know that soon, all the “noise” will pass away but there is wahala for Jonathan.

The crucial issue today in Nigeria not fuel subsidy. It is Boko Haram and many observers believe that it is too dangerous for the FG to entangle itself in the subsidy issue at this crucial point in our life when the nation is in search of cohesion to fight the Boko Haram menace. Ironically, the FG however believes that the two wars can be fought concurrently. With all due respect to the FGN, Boko Haram alone is enough wahala.

We are against subsidizing petroleum products provided certain conditions are met and until those issues are resolved, any talk about removing subsidy will further drain a dying people. The issue of removal of fuel subsidy is not new in Nigeria but whether or not the present one will break or unite Nigerians will depend on the degree of trust the president can garner in the weeks ahead. However, the bottom line is that Nigerians don't trust the FGN. It is for that reason that this column a few weeks back highlighted this issue of honesty and trust in the social contract.

We wrote inter alia:

The FG has a fine point in saying that the cost of subsidising petroleum products in Nigeria has become alarmingly high that the only way to save the nation from imminent calamity and achieve the transformation targets of Mr President is to deregulate and reallocate the money hitherto pumped into subsidizing petroleum products. According to the FG, this removal of subsidy will free enormous funds which have been enslaved by the subsidy regime and channel same to develop infrastructure, tackle critical socio-political needs of the nation and make life livable for the average Nigerian. It is further argued that a deregulated sector will weaken and eliminate the cabal that has benefitted tremendously from the subsidy racketeering to the detriment of other Nigerians. And as is common with all free economies, there will be competition and this will force down market prices like we have today in the communications sector, they argue.

The foregoing represents in economic terms, the brilliant argument of the proponents of removal of petroleum subsidy in Nigeria. And as usual, different persons are now being rehabilitated and paid to make television and media appearances to push this line of thought. However, these efforts have not appealed to many Nigerians.

The anti deregulation campaigners are using the poor people as shield to defend their arguments. The trust of their position is that Nigerians are already traumatized and overstretched by the devastating effects of poor governance; corruption and declining global economy that they can ill afford to sustain any subsidy withdrawal. Many sane Nigerians cannot understand why Nigeria with all her hydro carbon deposits has continued to import refined petroleum products. Such an irresponsible economic behavior amounts to a nation shooting itself on the foot, they argue. While fuelling and promoting other countries' economy, Nigeria is draining its own blood to service the veins of the countries that sell refined products to her. We sell our crude oil raw and in return, we import refined products from countries that have efficient refining capacities, some of which do not even produce a drop of crude oil. The refineries in those countries employ persons, generate various economic activities especially in the industry and in return, earn fabulous foreign exchange for their export of finished products. These are hard facts that have lived with us for many years and yet successive governments preferred to go the easy way of importation of refined products, embracing corruption and shunning diversification of the economy while the local refineries remained comatose. So who has the blame, the government or the people?

Consequently, Nigerians are also being asked to bear the brunt of maladministration and government inefficiency through the removal of subsidy. All the nation's refineries are operating at very low capacity utilization levels and all efforts at Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) produced scandalous results as the refineries performed worse than they were before the so called TAM.

Poor Nigerians pay for everything. They provide their power, security, schools, hospitals, food, housing, transportation etc. The few rich Nigerians who are holding the majority in the jugular and distributing the collective wealth among themselves are unrepentant and so heartless that it will take the people's violent revolution to check their excesses. Therefore the only thing that the average poor Nigerian enjoys today in the downstream sector is the subsidy, and even at that, the money realized from the sale of the nation's crude oil is used to pacify the rich in the name of subsidy.

Every nation all over the world subsidises something no matter the name by which it is called. Even the worst of tyrants like Moummar Ghadaffi and Sadam Hussein were subsidizing so much for their people. What is the Nigerian nation subsidizing for her citizens apart from the oil? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

It remains to be mentioned that the Nigerians people have scanty trust for their leaders. They believe that all monkeys look and behave alike when they are in the forest. Therefore to draw a distinction is the missing link in the Jonathan government.  Removal of petroleum subsidy in Nigeria is not spiritual. It is sheer economics. A nation that wants to do away with subsidy will begin to address the issues that brought about the subsidy in the first place with a view to removing the additional costs that are avoidable. Nigeria's local consumption figure of petrol and kerosene for instance is inflated as some of these products labeled to be distributed and used in Nigeria disappear into some neighbouring African countries. The FG is aware of this and looks the other way.

Where are the refineries that will support local consumption through the refining of our own crude oil? None. Where are the law enforcement apparatus that will check trans border smuggling and sale of Nigeria's subsidized imported petroleum products? They are corrupt and accomplices to the crime.

Corruption is Nigeria's outstanding problem. Starting from the FG to the LGAs, as well as the private sector, corruption is king. Therefore the subsidy regime is also affected by the dictates of corruption and it cannot work. Nigeria holds a mismanagement trophy and even available resources which could have been used for development purposes find their way into private hands. Most governors and local government chairmen in Nigeria today are corrupt as well as some heads of Ministries, Agencies and parastatals. Civil service stinks, police, Armed Forces,  INEC, etc smell of corruption. They speak the same language and when this happens, the poor and the weak can hardly be protected.

The result is that there is palpable fear and mistrust even if the FG means well like Jonathan is doing today.Nigerians hear every day about EFCC and ICPC and yet nobody is fighting corruption. Those who are stealing the collective wealth are rather promoted and elevated in the polity, church, community etc and so nobody gets punished for taking from the public till. Nigerians do not trust the FG to the point that the money saved from the removal of subsidy will not go the way others have gone and nobody was sanctioned.

Therefore while we agree that the removal of subsidy is long overdue, the FG must ensure that there is a guarantee, not just an assurance that the poor will not continue to lose out.

Refineries must work in Nigeria as a starting point and power must be fixed so that the devastating effect of withdrawal of subsidy can be cushioned. Marginal rise in cost of fuel has unmitigated ripple effects on the industrial sector and key components of basic need indicators such as food, transportation, education, housing and health.  If the price of petrol goes to about N150 per liter in Nigeria, the effects on cost of goods and services will shock the nation and nobody can guarantee that the poor will view such development as ordinary. Anti poverty programmes and economic diversification options have not worked in Nigeria and if relevant palliatives are not in place, the removal of fuel subsidy may shake the peace of Nigeria.

The FG and Nigerians must be parallel on the removal of fuel subsidy. The breach of trust on the part of leadership can no longer be swept under the carpet. The social contract theory between leadership and the people is one based on trust that every side of the agreement will live up to the tenets of the bargain. However, when one side begins to live in breach as we see in Nigeria even long before Jonathan's presidency, it is only natural that the injured party must view his contracting partner as not trust worthy. This is, unfortunately, Jonathan's greatest undoing.###  

Jonathan: How Not To Practice Zoology

By Odimegwu Onwumere

The announcement of the withdrawal of the fuel subsidy is causing a lot of angry public discussion and disagreement. Nigerians have been caused to lose sleep and peace since the January 1st avoidable proclamation was made. No matter all the hallucination of benefits the proponents of this inane policy are watering down the throat of Nigerians, the fuel subsidy removal is a debauching New Year Gift from President Goodluck Jonathan-led government to Nigerians.

Why this decree came as an Olympian shock was that the Federal Government (FG) had told Nigerians in December 2011 that the fuel subsidy departure was due for April this year, while it was still consulting, and Nigerians looked up to that period. Against that backdrop, Jonathan didn't wait a minute before he struck like a terrorist, as if Nigerians were animals in the zoo. It is saddening when a man whom his followers believed so much in, cannot stand by his word. This type of behaviour is hoodwinking: just what Jonathan has exhibited.

Terrorists are known for causing deaths and destructions. The same way, Jonathan's unilateral decision on the fuel subsidy deletion may put Nigerians in a box throughout the remaining months of the year. Imagine where a people began the year with bickering and tinkering. In the traditional belief, it is a bad omen. The myth is that whatever one faces first in the morning goes a long way to show how the person's whole day was going to be. If at the opening of the door in the morning and one is greeted with fortune, the person smiles throughout the day. But if the person is greeted with misfortune, the day is already spoilt. Pray that the latter is not Jonathan's scheme to Nigerians!

What is the better way to define terrorism? More Nigerians are today wondering the future of the country than ever because of the militarism that trails the imposition of the fuel subsidy policy by the FG. This is terror to Nigerians and they are reacting, the same way the world peoples did when the news filtered in the air on September 11, 2001 that terrorist had attacked the New York City and Washington D.C. The way Nigerians are wailing today about their fate in Nigeria under Jonathan, was the same way the world cried, watching the Twin Towers in the USA on TV collapsing into images of flames. But somebody would ask: was it not 'just' on May 29, 2011 that Jonathan became an elected president?

As TV showed the unrelenting efforts of the survivors of that dastardly attacks on USA., Jonathan and his foot soldiers are rather showing arch-anger against Nigerians protesting his tormenting policy called fuel subsidy removal. Many protesters have been inimically arrested and many reportedly shot dead and wounded in different locations across the country. It is only a fool who sits down when terror struck. Nigerians are not fools. Just as war broke out in the wake of September 11, 2001 between the USA against terrorist, Jonathan-led government of Nigeria is attacking peace-loving Nigerians at the wake of their protest against his policy by any means necessary. This act is like beating and making hogwash of a child and at the same time telling the child not to cry from the ground the child was subjugated to. Is this not double punishment? Tormenting the protesting Nigerians with arrests and killings at the wake of the fuel subsidy removal is the worst of bait that any government can stake with its citizens.

Jonathan has behaved like he had altercating grudges against Nigerians by his gesture without minding the untold hardship he has subjected Nigerians to, as they return from the Christmas festivity and after. Can Jonathan ever agitate for peace in Nigeria again when he is not behaving like one who wants peace? What manner of peace was Jonathan preaching that Nigerians should always imbibe when he was even the first to clamour for revolution because of this fuel subsidy removal that has been characterized in many quarters as fraud? The deaths and gratuitous destruction of property by the unfriendly Boko Haram at Madalla in Niger State on Christmas day seemed something that Jonathan waved with the back of his left hand after his speech to Nigerians to see terrorism as something that has come to live with them and they should contain it? Have Nigerians not been killed enough through arsonists and government's pursuit of economic and political interests?

If a government as Jonathan's cannot blink and sit back into its thinking chair to re-consider the impacts the common Nigerian is about to suffer because of the fuel subsidy removal lucre, the government's kind of terrorism is spreading like wildfire. How could Jonathan go to work before thinking? He had promised Nigerians that 1, 600 buses were to be sent on the Nigerian roads to help alleviate the masses transportation burden. The buses have not even arrived than he struck. Even if  they had arrived, what significant could mere 1, 600 buses have/make in a country of over one hundred and fifty million people with a rate of 80% earning less than half a dollar a day? Jonathan should define the mother of terrorism if not fanaticism, hatred and poverty. These are being born in Nigeria because government's practice of injustice is on the increase against the common Nigerian. Nigerians have solely provided for themselves what in other civilized climes government would not want journalists to know that it was incapable to provide. But in Nigeria, government like Jonathan's boasts about its readiness to engage its citizens in a contest of revolution on the public outcry.

As a zoologist with a B.Sc. degree in Zoology in which he attained Second Class Honours, Upper Division, an M.Sc. degree in Hydrobiology and Fisheries biology, and a Ph.D. degree in Zoology from the University of Port Harcourt, Jonathan is merely rearing shadow like animals on fuel subsidy without first curbing the corruption bedeviling the petroleum sector. He reared Nigerians like animals by the fact that he didn't recognize that the issue of fuel subsidy was in the 2011 budget which was supposed to be exhausted by the end of March, when the 2012 budget will be operational. The National Assembly had not even given the policy a nod. Jonathan needs to be called to order that Nigerians are not animals that can be reared anyhow the herdsman likes. Even, animals in the developed world do they not have some incomparable rights?###

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