Subsidy Removal Again? We Must Seize This Moment! – By Chinedu Ekeke

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Last week, President Goodluck Jonathan gave his approval for the total removal of fuel subsidy. That might as well be the last
approval that’ll sink his government. And we won’t mind.
Recall that it was exactly this time last year that they began nursing the plans for an increase in fuel price. We advanced every reasonable argument against such anti-people move, and advised them to fix the corruption that has eaten up the oil industry. It wasn’t considered a good advice by the government, as it turned out that they forced the increment down our throats. It was easier to punish the ninety nine per cent of the population with imposed fuel tax than to clean up an industry ridden with sleaze and inefficiency. The ultimate goal was to protect corruption and the corrupt.
Arguments in support of building additional refineries before full deregulation were ignored. What we saw was an administration that was out to hurt the citizens just push through an unreasonable policy. Their argument, so expired and easily regurgitated, was that investors – whether foreign or local – needed to be sure the prices of petroleum products would be high enough to sustain their investments in refineries and ultimately yield profit. The argument appeared attractive to many people. If we sell it costly now, private investors will see an incentive to want to invest in refineries. Then with time many of them – in search of huge profit margins – will invest in refineries, and then it’ll engender competition. Further, the competition amongst them would force price reduction, and then Nigerians will be glad subsidy was removed. That was too simplistic an argument coming from a government of which many key members are PhD holders. They were always excited singing the private investors tune without taking time to even understand how refineries operate.
In a properly researched article captioned Investors Are Coming, Feyi Fawehinmi showed readers why it is not necessarily true that investors will come in with deregulation. He showed that governments are the ones that still invest hugely in refineries in many countries.
Hear Feyi: “What is happening in the refining business is that because of the breakneck speed with which the Chinese are building them to meet local demand (they are targeting 12m bpd by 2015) with the Arabs trying to move away from just pumping crude out of the ground, the world is approaching ‘over-capacity’ in refining”
Before then, he had earlier written: “In March this year, Shell managed to sell the Stanlow refinery (270,000bpd) to Essar of India for $1.3bn. When announcing the deal, Shell was happy to report that it had ‘reduced its exposure to the global refining business by 1.6m bpd since 2002. Again, this year alone, Sinopec of China has bought 50% of two refineries in UK (Grangemouth) and France (Lavere).”
In countries where presidential aides know their jobs, that article was supposed to be forwarded to the president. But what we have in Aso Rock as aides is a retinue of sycophants whose only definition of patriotism is agreeing with everything their principal says.
While Mr Jonathan and his team could not read the article then, there is still an opportunity to read it now and avoid a major threat to his administration. In summary, the article is saying our government should invest in refineries and manage them well.
Is anybody citing corruption as an excuse for government to shy away from its responsibilities? That will be ridiculous, because the job of the government in the first place is to enforce law and order, and punishing the corrupt is part of the enforcement.
We watched the government create artificial scarcity in preparation for price hike. Nobody could explain why there has been no fuel for over two months. And we are not worth anything before the government to warrant their explanations. Their plan must be to place Nigerians at the position where they will naturally accept the increment without objection. But that won’t stand.
It is tempting for Mr Jonathan and his team to assume January 2012 will be repeating itself this time, with the ultimate outcome being a sell-out by labour leaders. It’s understandable. For a government that believes everybody is for sale, their plans will certainly centre around whom to compromise at a stage in the life of a possible protest. The only mistake they are making in their sinister calculations is their failure to appreciate that the protest this time will not be led by labour. It’ll be led by Nigerian youths who are tired of being used as tools by labour leaders to bargain for cash and committee appointments.
Between January when we took to the streets to protest the unreasonable subsidy removal and now, a lot has happened to confirm the assertion by many Nigerians that Jonathan is out to bankrupt the country through his many corrupt friends and associates.
The House of Representatives, in a bid to unearth the depth of rot in the subsidy regime, began a probe that indicted big names in the sector. We haven’t seen any convincing prosecution of the indicted people from Mr Jonathan’s government. What we saw was a determined effort to rubbish the report of the House committee that handled the probe. It was the president’s friend himself, Femi Otedola, who carried out the operation, bribing the chairman of the committee, and then being bold enough to inform the world about it. As we talk, Femi still walks free, and is even blowing hot air, suing those to sue and threatening those to threaten.
The government doesn’t seem to ever run out of stock in their many diversionary tactics. We have seen committees set up to review the work of committees. We have seen task forces set up to vet the reports of duly constituted task forces. The most recent, and most shameful, was the Ribadu-headed task force which the government rubbished as soon as they set it up with the mischievous appointment of two of its members into the board of the NNPC, one of the key players in the industry the same task force was to audit.
For a government that is clearly shameless and unreasonable, it will be a total waste of time engaging them on their second – and potent – journey to self-destruction.
Mr Jonathan’s government has lost the right to be discussed with or reasoned with. The government is clearly anti-people, anti-development and pro-corruption.
How do we tame them? Nobody should waste one minute arguing with them again. Our eyes should be set on their destination. They are travelling the path of subsidy removal. We should be mobilizing to meet them there. The meetings amongst civil society groups should commence immediately. Superior strategies on how to ground the nation for months should begin. Arrangements on feeding, tents, water, medical equipment and all that will be required to keep people on the streets should commence in full swing.
Last January, allowing labour leaders to mess with our resolve was a costly mistake. This time will be different. We must seize the moment.
ekekeee