By Chido Onumah
If you are confused about the assurance by President Jonathan during his recent media chat that “Subsidy stays in 2013”, you are not alone. A few days before the presidential media chat, the frightening headline had been “Total fuel subsidy removal is a must”. That headline was attributed to President Jonathan.
If you are confused about the assurance by President Jonathan during his recent media chat that “Subsidy stays in 2013”, you are not alone. A few days before the presidential media chat, the frightening headline had been “Total fuel subsidy removal is a must”. That headline was attributed to President Jonathan.
The story is that on Thursday, November
15, 2012, while receiving the report of the graduating participants of the
Senior Executive Course 34, 2012, of the National Institute of Policy and
Strategic Studies, Kuru, Jos, President Jonathan told his audience: “only the
total removal of subsidy on petroleum products would attract investors to the
oil sector and put an end to the importation of petroleum products as it is
currently being done”.
Waxing rhetorical, the president asked,
“Why is it that people are not building refineries in Nigeria despite that it
is a big business?” His answer: “It is because of the policy of subsidy, and
that is why we want to get out of it.”
Just as the president and his team did
last year before the increase (from N65 to N141 and later to N97) in the price
of petrol on January 1, 2012, an action that precipitated days of massive
nation-wide protests under the aegis of Occupy Nigeria, the president sought to
allay our fears by “rubbing metholatum” on our severely frayed nerves,
noting “while the total removal of subsidy could be painful to Nigerians, they
would be happier at the end if they could bear the initial pains”.
Assuming the position of
surgeon-in-chief, the president went a step further to clarify his position for
the benefit of millions of unintelligent Nigerians. “To change a nation is like
surgery”, he averred. “If you have a young daughter of five years who has a
boil at a very strategic part of the face, you either as a parent leave that
boil because the young girl will cry or you take the girl to the surgeon. So
you have the option of just rubbing metholatum on the face until the
boil will burst and disfigure her face or you take that child to the surgeon.
On the sighting of a scalpel of the surgeon alone, the child will start crying.
But if she bears the pain and does the incision and treats it, after some days
or weeks, the child will grow up to be a beautiful lady. There are certain
decisions that government must take that may be painful at the beginning and
people must be properly informed so that they will be ready to bear the pain.”
For good measure, the president added that
Canada has 16 functional refineries and Nigeria has four that are struggling to
refine at 30 per cent of installed capacity because all the refineries in
Canada are privately-owned.
Some people have joked about the
president being a quack; that before a doctor performs surgery, the patient
would have to be given anesthetics to ease the pain. With Doctor Jonathan, all
the patient requires is to be “properly informed so that they will be ready to
bear the pain”. This joke would have been amusing if not that our situation is
really tragic. First, there is something troubling about the president’s “young
girl with boil analogy”. The problem with the oil and gas sector, and indeed
the country, can’t be likened to a boil. It is more like cancer that has
metastasized.
A few days later, when the president had
the chance to make a categorical statement, including what concrete steps he
had taken to deal with those involved in the subsidy scam, he decided to
obfuscate. “If
we are going to remove subsidy from January, as you are afraid we will do in
January, we couldn’t have made provisions for it in the 2013 budget. We have
made provisions from January till December,” the president said during his
media chat.
There is really nothing reassuring by
the president’s doublespeak. You could read more from what he didn’t say than
from what he said. The president’s assurance that subsidy stays in 2013 and his
silence on a possible increase in the pump price of petrol says a lot. And it
is this obfuscation that has led to speculation and the long queues at petrol
stations across the country. The artificial shortage has led to increases in
price of petrol ranging from N100 to N150 per litre. And the president’s
response? “This situation can manifest in different areas, some people may have
the product and decide to manipulate the system so that they can get more
money. I am asking Nigerians to bear with us.”
Expectedly, Nigerians are heeding the
president’s advice. We are gradually getting used to the situation. The government’s
strategy this time, it appears, is to increase the price of petrol without
linking it to subsidy, which in the president’s reasoning makes his argument
about keeping subsidy 2013 valid. What the president fails to realize is that
there can’t be any justification for an increase in the price of petrol. Certainly
not with the insight Nigerians have about the rot in the oil and gas sector and
those responsible.
Going by his
antecedents, President Jonathan’s attempt to repudiate his earlier comments
about the removal of so-called oil subsidy leaves a bad taste in our mouths. Clearly,
the price of petrol will go up and it is just a matter of time. It’s almost a
year since that insensate action that saw the price of petrol rise from N65 to
N97 per litre with its attendant mass suffering.
We all know
that the president had vowed during the last discussion on subsidy that he
would consult widely and would not take a decision without the input of
Nigerians. Even though Nigerians vehemently opposed the planned increase, the
president still went ahead to effect the increase on New Year’s Day. That
coldhearted decision caught Nigerians unawares, and left millions who had gone
on holiday stranded. The president also promised then that Nigerians
would benefit from the proceeds accruing from the increase; that our refineries
would start working again; and that he would rein in those involved in the subsidy
scam.
None of these has happened. Rather, the
president confirmed last week that his friends in the oil industry are holding
the rest of the country hostage and that he is helpless. “I got the report from
the (Aig) Imokhuede committee on Friday, an advance copy of the report. The argument
by the marketers is that it is government that is owing them. (But) the
preliminary report we have indicates that they owe the government,” the
president told a not-too-surprised nation.
“They (oil marketers) are businessmen;
they could decide to manipulate the system to get more money. I got a copy of
the report. We will look into it. Experts are being brought in to do forensic
audit. The human element is there, and we have our own challenges. I believe
that by the time we finish sanitizing the oil sector, the issue of fuel queue
will be put behind us for good.”
How reassuring! On whose side really is President Jonathan? Certainly, not on the side of the working and toiling people of Nigeria.
To be continued
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