Fuel subsidy removal has become a recurring argument by successive Nigerian governments as avenue to raise pump prices of petroleum products.
By Emeka Alex Duru
(08054103327, nwaukpala@yahoo.com)
The maxim is that the primary function of government is protection of life and property of the citizens. It is not so, in Nigeria. Here, the government is the nemesis. Rather than standing for the people and protecting them against odds, government in Nigeria derives joy in inflicting pains on the citizens.
This is a country where the people provide for themselves nearly everything that the government should render to them, ranging from security, power, employment, roads and other infrastructural facilities. In return, the leaders pay them with deceit and insincerity.
If you analyse the running inconsistencies among government officials over fuel subsidy removal, you will understand why democracy as practiced in Nigeria, does not fit into the definition of a government for the people by the people. It is rather a contraption, wired to serve the leadership class. We may need to run through the ding-dong in the last few days to appreciate the duplicity in the drama.
On Tuesday, January 25, the Federal Government announced that it had shelved the planned removal of subsidy on petroleum products till further notice. The removal was scheduled to commence from July1. That would have seen the pump price of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), known as Petrol, jumping from its present N162-165 regime to N302 per litre.
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Minister of Finance, Budget and Economic Planning, Zainab Ahmed, who announced the postponement, said that the Federal Government planned the action to take effect by the time the subsidy provision in the 2022 budget would have been exhausted.
She, added however, that in view of the timing which is “problematic”, government decided to suspend its plan to go ahead with the removal in July, in view of consultations with relevant bodies and individuals.
Shortly after the disclosure by the Minister, her counterpart in the Ministry of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, announced the new date for the action, stressing that the Government was proposing to extend the period for the implementation of the removal of the subsidy by 18 months.
The efforts by the ministers to sell the impression that the government is taking the action because of its feelings for the people, actually began to take shape last year, when the Minister of Finance hinted at a subsidy removal in 2022 and a suggestion of replacing the programme with a N5,000 cash handout for the poorest Nigerians.
The argument regularly thrown up in support of the subsidy removal has been that it has remained a drain on the finances of the nation and has prevented the government from carrying out its development projects. For effect, certain amount is always stated as the expenses incurred in sustaining the programme. In September 2021, the government claimed to have spent N864.0bn to keep the price of petrol fixed, adding that doing so continues to create holes in its finances. Releasing such statistics did not start now.
Since the 1985-1993 military regime of Ibrahim Babangida, when petroleum subsidy removal became the major strategy to minimise government expenditure, the same line of argument has been bandied by succeeding administrations. No sustainable efforts have also been made by the leaders to look elsewhere to shore up the revenue base.
Rather, it has always been argued that the reluctance to implement deregulation makes it largely unprofitable for significant oil marketers to import PMS by sourcing foreign exchange in the parallel market.
The follow-up has also been that the prevailing price cap does not allow marketers to recover their initial costs, hence it discourages market players from engaging in wholesaler activity and relying on the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to import PMS, meaning all other marketers earn retailers’ margins.
A particular line in the argument is that the subsidy removal is aimed at rescuing the national economy and checking the sleaze in the industry. Pushed further, it requires Nigerians to show gratitude to the government for saving them from imminent danger.
There is no shorter route for subverting democracy. The reasoned submission by Harvard University political scientists, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt in “How Democracies Die”, about how elected leaders can gradually subvert the democratic process to increase their power, captures the situation brilliantly.
According to them, government’s moves to subvert democracy often enjoy the veneer of legitimacy, with approval by relevant institutions, including the parliament. Many of these steps are adopted under the guise of pursuing some legitimate – even laudable public objective such as combating corruption or enhancing national security. This is what is at play in the campaign on the subsidy removal.
It does not demand much effort to look at the reasons thrown up by successive governments for hiking the fuel price on the guise of subsidy removal and how the measures have impacted on Nigerians, to expose the charade in the explanations. Between what the Nigerian leaders tell the people and the reality on ground, is a huge gap. Bob Marley, the legendary reggae artist was right that ‘you can fool some people some time but you cannot fool all the people all the time’. Nigerians know the truth, when they encounter it. They know that on the fuel subsidy removal issue, the government is not telling them the truth. There is a huge cloud of lie, somewhere.
There is for instance, no precise figure on what actually constitutes the subsidy regime and how much has been removed from it all this while. Nigerians also do not know what remains of it. There is trust deficit in the communication between the government and the people on this as in other engagements by the government.
For a leadership class that has regularly hiked the prices of petroleum products on the pretext of gradual removal of subsidy, the expectation is that Nigerians should have been acquainted with what has been achieved with the deductions so far. On the contrary, with each removal, Nigerians sink deeper in poverty.
The present situation will not be different. I cannot hazard a bet that the government has suspended its intention to effect price hike on the petroleum products, despite the pronouncements by the ministers. In fact, it would not come as surprise in the next few days or weeks, for Nigerians to be confronted with artificial fuel scarcity, so that they would be the ones clamouring for any price the products would be sold, as long as they would be available. That is our style, here!
Transparency in government and inter-personal relationship is about laying the cards on the table to enable the other party make informed decisions. This is a critical factor that is lacking in relations between the Nigerian government and its citizens.
In 2015 when Nigerians rallied behind Muhammadu Buhari in his fourth attempt for the presidency, it was on the assumption that with his vaunted integrity profile, that transparency gap would be closed. But seven years down the line, the gulf has widened more. Nigerians rather being fed on cocktail of propaganda on government’s touted activities and corresponding accomplishments.
To be sure, Nigerians do not look up to the government for daily bread. They need conducive environment to ply their trades and conduct their businesses. They need functional infrastructure and good governance. When the infrastructures are in place and the refineries are working in full stream, the government can come up with the subsidy removal debate, assuming there is still any remaining. For now, the leaders should spare the citizens the agony of another avoidable stress.