I insist, fuel subsidy is scam
By Ikenna Emewu
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Last week, I just said how I feel about the endless vicious circle called fuel subsidy that never gets totally removed at any point in time. I say and maintain that ‘subsidy’ is just the other name for increase in fuel pump price.
But what really annoys me is that a nation that has been managed from a big daddy at Abuja who centrally distributes stipends to sustain his kids like a mother bird to the newly-hatched chicks in 51 years has never thought of an alternative means of managing the economy.
Oil subsidy extra payment flows from the pocket of the impoverished man in the street to that of the over-bloated money pool of the powerful man in power. While we scratch the earth to eke out a living, a set or heartless citizens who hold power for their personal gains, are out to make sure after stripping us of all clothing on our back, we bleed to keep them going.
Many Nigerians and I brew so much angst over the matter because it is one injustice with which, the masses of this nation have been visited over the ages by heartless rulers, otherwise, they would have encouraged the development of other sectors to complement the oil revenue.
Funny enough, one of my esteemed readers sent me a text from Nsukka last week clarifying that there is everything good about subsidy as it is the poor that is favoured. He says the rich pays tax via the extra payment on every litre of oil bought. I liked his argument although I disagree. But totally I say no to his allusion that: It is the rich the policy targets because, according to him, ‘does the poor own a car.’ It is funny to think that only the person who owns a car and buys fuel at non-subsidy rate that is affected by this plan. I don’t know where the poor man who has no car but a motorbike, keke NAPEP and even bicycle buys his fuel for other uses or how he would not feel the pinch in fare hike, and simply put in the price of all food items and other goods conveyed by vehicles of the ‘rich’ fuelled by non-subsidy petrol or diesel. By my reader’s comment, possibly, a Nigerian that has a bus, the type called danfo in Lagos is
automatically a rich person and should rightly be taxed further via fuel subsidy? Indeed, I have not know that Nigerian poor man – just because he owns no car that never boards a public transport vehicle or never affected by what affects the rich car owner when it is about hike in fuel price.
If my reader were a Lagos resident, he would have known that many of those things he calls cars owned by the ‘rich’ actually leave the wharf on tow, and later dumped in one junk yard or automobile cemetery for good without being used for a single day. Some of them that limp out of the wharf end up breaking down severally between the port and the destination, which sometimes is not more than 30km. If you ask around, you will find that many Nigerians have had experiences where the vehicles they took out of the ports never got to their place but broke down irretrievably on the road.
These are the cars owned by the rich by my friend’s explanation and there is nothing bad in taxing them more via subsidy removal. The things we call cars in Nigeria are in the real sense of it about 90 per cent second and third hand vehicles. Up to 60 per cent of the so-called cars on Nigerian roads are undoubtedly 15 years and above. In Lagos as an instance, up to 97 per cent of the car sales spots deal in used stuffs. And from even the police and Road Safety data, in a place like Lagos, the new cars make up between 5 and 7 per cent of the entire automobile holding in the city. Because of the preponderance of big companies that buy new cars in Lagos, there is every truth that in some other cities, this margin of new cars is far less. It is this set of beleaguered persons who manage rather than drive cars that are lumped among the rich. I disagree, I dare say. They are worlds away from what is known as riches or wealth, and should not be impoverished
further.
I listened to an argument on this issue on TV last week and heard the host of the programme asking the discussant why Labour is not agitating for more refineries. He said he borrowed the argument from Governor Chibuike Amaechi of Rivers State. I laughed at such campaign and asked what Amaechi himself is doing since he is the chairman of the Governors’ Forum and knows the right cause to champion. Or does he intend to tell us that it’s only when labour says it that government would listen? The voice of a super governor and that of a common labourer, which one is louder and closer to the ear of the big man in Aso Rock?
Viewed the other way, does Amaechi imply that government does what the labour and masses ask for? Then when did they ask for the subsidy removal that government is implementing?
If it is true there is fuel subsidy in existence and the nation feels it has a duty to do away with it because, according to them, they spend about N1.2tr on that alone, a figure that is really about N240b and upped by government underhand game to the ridiculous figure they tout, what is damaging in allowing the masses have that as the only benefit from their government?
On the day the UN House in Abuja was blown up by evil men, nine of the victims were flown to South African hospitals. That was the greatest indictment of a government whose officials fly overseas to get the right treatment for malaria. Nigerian citizens have lived without healthcare from the government, and not even an encouragement to the private healthcare investor in all her history. In the past 25 years, the education sector has collapsed at all levels. There has been no meaningful remedy or alternative for the poor. That same poor citizen who battles to keep his kids in school would be given the extra burden of paying more for everything because fuel price increase will affect all of them.
In the past two years, the energy sector through its two thirds dead, one third alive PHCN has jerked up energy tariff about four times, air fare has increased in multiples, transport fare on land keeps going higher without any person to check it. Housing for the masses does not exist in Nigeria. There are no more roads in Nigeria today. For some years, the Benin-Lagos road has been a forgotten issue on when last it was in a passable state. About 40 years ago, that road was built to replace the old one. That means we outgrew the former then, but in the days of Obasanjo, we went backwards to where we were 40 years ago.
How come in a nation where there is no money to run government offices until the extra from fuel subsidy is released to government that every office holder is a millionaire? A situation where businessmen sell their fathers’ inheritance worth millions, civil servants, academics, corporate players, including MDs of very big firms resign to contest to be in the state House of Assembly, what does that tell you? There is more money in this investment than you can imagine. We know the citizens knew their economic status while toiling like every other Nigerian and how things changed overnight just because they were appointed advisers to the senior special assistant to the commissioner. Yet, there is no money anywhere to run government. Subsidy only means more money for government to share, more electoral violence and desperation in the next elections because with ‘subsidy removal,’ there will more money to steal.
It is absurd for government to only think of means of making more money and not checking the leakage. From President Jonathan to the labourer in the street, all Nigerians know that the reason Nigeria’s economy will never function is not because government earns little from oil, but because the available one is stolen by criminals who parade as leaders. What is Jonathan doing to stop the extra he plans to get from us ending up in the same old pockets of criminals?
By Ikenna Emewu
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Last week, I just said how I feel about the endless vicious circle called fuel subsidy that never gets totally removed at any point in time. I say and maintain that ‘subsidy’ is just the other name for increase in fuel pump price.
But what really annoys me is that a nation that has been managed from a big daddy at Abuja who centrally distributes stipends to sustain his kids like a mother bird to the newly-hatched chicks in 51 years has never thought of an alternative means of managing the economy.
Oil subsidy extra payment flows from the pocket of the impoverished man in the street to that of the over-bloated money pool of the powerful man in power. While we scratch the earth to eke out a living, a set or heartless citizens who hold power for their personal gains, are out to make sure after stripping us of all clothing on our back, we bleed to keep them going.
Many Nigerians and I brew so much angst over the matter because it is one injustice with which, the masses of this nation have been visited over the ages by heartless rulers, otherwise, they would have encouraged the development of other sectors to complement the oil revenue.
Funny enough, one of my esteemed readers sent me a text from Nsukka last week clarifying that there is everything good about subsidy as it is the poor that is favoured. He says the rich pays tax via the extra payment on every litre of oil bought. I liked his argument although I disagree. But totally I say no to his allusion that: It is the rich the policy targets because, according to him, ‘does the poor own a car.’ It is funny to think that only the person who owns a car and buys fuel at non-subsidy rate that is affected by this plan. I don’t know where the poor man who has no car but a motorbike, keke NAPEP and even bicycle buys his fuel for other uses or how he would not feel the pinch in fare hike, and simply put in the price of all food items and other goods conveyed by vehicles of the ‘rich’ fuelled by non-subsidy petrol or diesel. By my reader’s comment, possibly, a Nigerian that has a bus, the type called danfo in Lagos is
automatically a rich person and should rightly be taxed further via fuel subsidy? Indeed, I have not know that Nigerian poor man – just because he owns no car that never boards a public transport vehicle or never affected by what affects the rich car owner when it is about hike in fuel price.
If my reader were a Lagos resident, he would have known that many of those things he calls cars owned by the ‘rich’ actually leave the wharf on tow, and later dumped in one junk yard or automobile cemetery for good without being used for a single day. Some of them that limp out of the wharf end up breaking down severally between the port and the destination, which sometimes is not more than 30km. If you ask around, you will find that many Nigerians have had experiences where the vehicles they took out of the ports never got to their place but broke down irretrievably on the road.
These are the cars owned by the rich by my friend’s explanation and there is nothing bad in taxing them more via subsidy removal. The things we call cars in Nigeria are in the real sense of it about 90 per cent second and third hand vehicles. Up to 60 per cent of the so-called cars on Nigerian roads are undoubtedly 15 years and above. In Lagos as an instance, up to 97 per cent of the car sales spots deal in used stuffs. And from even the police and Road Safety data, in a place like Lagos, the new cars make up between 5 and 7 per cent of the entire automobile holding in the city. Because of the preponderance of big companies that buy new cars in Lagos, there is every truth that in some other cities, this margin of new cars is far less. It is this set of beleaguered persons who manage rather than drive cars that are lumped among the rich. I disagree, I dare say. They are worlds away from what is known as riches or wealth, and should not be impoverished
further.
I listened to an argument on this issue on TV last week and heard the host of the programme asking the discussant why Labour is not agitating for more refineries. He said he borrowed the argument from Governor Chibuike Amaechi of Rivers State. I laughed at such campaign and asked what Amaechi himself is doing since he is the chairman of the Governors’ Forum and knows the right cause to champion. Or does he intend to tell us that it’s only when labour says it that government would listen? The voice of a super governor and that of a common labourer, which one is louder and closer to the ear of the big man in Aso Rock?
Viewed the other way, does Amaechi imply that government does what the labour and masses ask for? Then when did they ask for the subsidy removal that government is implementing?
If it is true there is fuel subsidy in existence and the nation feels it has a duty to do away with it because, according to them, they spend about N1.2tr on that alone, a figure that is really about N240b and upped by government underhand game to the ridiculous figure they tout, what is damaging in allowing the masses have that as the only benefit from their government?
On the day the UN House in Abuja was blown up by evil men, nine of the victims were flown to South African hospitals. That was the greatest indictment of a government whose officials fly overseas to get the right treatment for malaria. Nigerian citizens have lived without healthcare from the government, and not even an encouragement to the private healthcare investor in all her history. In the past 25 years, the education sector has collapsed at all levels. There has been no meaningful remedy or alternative for the poor. That same poor citizen who battles to keep his kids in school would be given the extra burden of paying more for everything because fuel price increase will affect all of them.
In the past two years, the energy sector through its two thirds dead, one third alive PHCN has jerked up energy tariff about four times, air fare has increased in multiples, transport fare on land keeps going higher without any person to check it. Housing for the masses does not exist in Nigeria. There are no more roads in Nigeria today. For some years, the Benin-Lagos road has been a forgotten issue on when last it was in a passable state. About 40 years ago, that road was built to replace the old one. That means we outgrew the former then, but in the days of Obasanjo, we went backwards to where we were 40 years ago.
How come in a nation where there is no money to run government offices until the extra from fuel subsidy is released to government that every office holder is a millionaire? A situation where businessmen sell their fathers’ inheritance worth millions, civil servants, academics, corporate players, including MDs of very big firms resign to contest to be in the state House of Assembly, what does that tell you? There is more money in this investment than you can imagine. We know the citizens knew their economic status while toiling like every other Nigerian and how things changed overnight just because they were appointed advisers to the senior special assistant to the commissioner. Yet, there is no money anywhere to run government. Subsidy only means more money for government to share, more electoral violence and desperation in the next elections because with ‘subsidy removal,’ there will more money to steal.
It is absurd for government to only think of means of making more money and not checking the leakage. From President Jonathan to the labourer in the street, all Nigerians know that the reason Nigeria’s economy will never function is not because government earns little from oil, but because the available one is stolen by criminals who parade as leaders. What is Jonathan doing to stop the extra he plans to get from us ending up in the same old pockets of criminals?
No comments:
Post a Comment