OBSERVATION: State Of The Nation

YAYA ADEMOLA

NO Nigerian is alien to the untold hardship in the land as a result of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu hasty and poorly informed removal of fuel subsidy the very day he was inaugurated the 16th President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. As a President of a country under a platform of a party that claims to be progressive, if fuel subsidy would be removed at all, some measures should have first been taken, with a timeline of when it would be eventually be removed, having understood all the preconditions and all the stakeholders engaged.

For instance, a progressive government would have asked itself and provided answers to these questions: why subsidy in the first instance? Why importation of fuel when we are a crude oil producing nation? Who and who are in charge of subsidy payment inflation? Why are our four refineries dysfunctional? Can they be repaired and put to use with optimal production or be disbanded and built new ones? Sincere address of these posers will make the people brace up and lay down a formidable shock absorber for subsidy removal.

Despite lip service to diversified economy by successive governments, our economy is monolithic and oil dependent. Hence, fuel (Petroleum Motor Spirit) is very central to our collective livelihood and any increase in its price and fluctuation in its availability will automatically trigger corresponding rise in the prices of all consumables and affect free movement of people for their day-to-day activities. This is a known fact to the most naïve Nigerian.

In three months, Tinubu led government has raked in almost N2trillion from the sweat and blood of the people as a result of subsidy removal which has made life more miserable and pulled more people into poverty index. While the government preaches perseverance and promises better future for the overburdened poor people, the people in government have continued to live flamboyantly. Government officials – elected and appointed – go about with retinue of aides and motorcade. Last month, for example, despite their humongous salaries and allowances, the Senators still shared N2m each for their recess enjoyment. This is the one we saw live on television; there would have been many behind the scenes, especially among the executives. It is getting clear that subsidy is removed from the people but kept for the power elite. The routine experience is that the ruling elite pillage and plunder our collective wealth and careless on suffering of the poor people, promising and failing them on ‘better tomorrow,’ as witnessed in the promise of “Everything For All by the Year 2000”.

Under the guise of handing out palliatives to the bled, Tinubu led government disbursed N185bn at N5bn to each State and Federal Capital Territory with trailers of rice. With the exemption of Governor Zulum of Borno and one or two other states, these Governors would mess up the so-called palliatives and convert, especially the money, for their personal emoluments as they do with regular resources of their states. It is golden truth in Nigeria that money collected through blood and sweat from the people and put in government coffers have never translated to better life for the same people robbed. The so-called palliatives are just another avenues to embezzle public fund. We have not forgotten what they did with palliatives meant for distribution as a result of lockdown during COVID-19 that the hungry and angry people they were meant for had to take the bull by the horn, looting warehouses where foodstuffs were stocked. Similar scenario has started playing out in Balyelsa State. Assuming without conceding that these Governors have become ‘born again’ and distributed these palliatives in an organized manner without favour, what becomes of the people whose small businesses have been literally killed by the subsidy removal? Is it rice that will pay their skyrocketing bills, including increased school fees of their children? Will these palliatives be regular till solution is found to epileptic power supply and local refinement of crude oil or simply once and for all token, while the fundamental cause of subsidy, woeful power supply, humongous cost of governance, corruption and looting of public treasury, dysfunctional education, etc go unattended?

All these palliatives are shadow chasing and an escape from the fundamental questions boggling down Nigeria, the most of which is the un-federal operating system of a Federal Republic. The practical solution is to make our refineries work optimally and quit importation. In a similar ‘promise and fail’ of the previous government, Tinubu led government has also promised that Port Harcourt refinery will become operational by December this year, considering the “progress” of rehabilitation work in the plant. We shall wait and see but we have not forgotten that same Port Harcourt Refinery was promised to begin production by December 2021 when the last government injected $1.5billion into it in 2021. Having failed to deliver, December 2022 delivery was made. It failed again and first quarter of 2023 was promised. You and I know the situation today. Same people who have failed us severally are the ones selling dummy to President Tinubu that this December would not fail! Meanwhile, this old refinery has capacity to refine 60,000 barrels of crude oil per day and the new one has 150,000 bpd.

If the ruling elite will listen and act, milking people via fuel subsidy removal, killing small and medium scale businesses and making life miserable for majority of the people will only prosper people in government as resources generated will be redistributed via looting while socio-economy remains in comatose. What is needed is creation of conducive environment that can make people to be productive. How can this be attained? Revert to subsidy of fuel, stop making subsidy a crime, rigorously implement the subsidy and punish any corruption in it until it will be ended without adverse consequences to citizens productivity and wellbeing; declare state of emergency on our four refineries and electricity with a timeline on when they will be functional; complete Ajaokuta Still Industry and genuinely fight corruption.

Once these few ones are attained, living and working condition will improve, government will be by taxation on the goods and services of the people while resources generated from the sales of crude oil and other resources should be channeled to building human and physical infrastructures. This is the living route a progressive party should ply and not lazy but destructive path that makes very infinitesimal proportion of the populace to be extremely rich while majority of people cannot breathe as poverty and misery in the midst of plenty have become their portion.