Politics Of Fuel Subsidy

By Sunday John

ONCE  again, the issue of fuel subsidy has come to the crucible of socio-economic life of Nigerians. Politics of fuel subsidy withdrawal has been a recurring issue over the years, from the time of General Yakubu Gowon as head of state. No government has come without harassing and intimidating Nigerians with fuel pump price increase and/or complete removal of fuel subsidy, otherwise called deregulation. It appears to have become a pastime for our rulers especially when they want to make scapegoats for their corruption, failures and economic naivety.

All governance ineptitude by the political rulers are heaped on fuel subsidy. It is the reason for the country’s backwardness, abysmal infrastructure, debt burden, poverty, corruption, etc. That is the reason the populace is intermittently administered with some obsolete concoctions of the benefits of subsidy removal by every successive government. Buhari may not have engaged in this sophistry of the benefits of subsidy removal because of some want of oratory. Indeed, as long as fuel subsidy is concerned, Nigerians have gone through a lot of torture in the hands of various governments. We have been harassed, tormented and bamboozled.

 Protests against fuel pump price increase/subsidy removal have cost lives, wastage and destructions. The ruling class are, of course, not the victims. The victims are the commoners, on whom they unleash their mediocrity and sadism. Like the ancient Roman emperors, the governments of Nigeria revel in seeing their subjects fight with the beast of subsidy now and again in the amphitheater.

 It is entertainment for them to hear us cry, see us abandon our legitimate duties and spill to the streets in protest, and our children roam the streets because schools are shut. Otherwise, how can a president or the ruling class that say they understand our pains add to the same pains instead of ameliorating it? The government knows that petroleum products, especially the Premium Motor Spirit, PMS, is one thing that affects the lives of all Nigerians irrespective of their social status or age. All aspects of life is based on it, and that is why the people do not react happily to any tampering with its price. With a high currency exchange rate that has triggered inflation and put private businesses at risk, the removal of fuel subsidy at this time is nothing but rubbing salt in a putrefying sore.

 Yet they tell us they understand our pains, our suffering. That is political innuendo – killing us and at the same time patting us at the back. Ironically, some of the staunch opponents of the fuel subsidy withdrawal by Jonathan administration are the leaders of the party in power today and supporters of President Muhammadu Buhari, who has unleashed this latest torment on us. Bola Tinubu, a leader of APC, had on January 10, 2012, accused the Goodluck Jonathan’s presidency of shirking its social contract with the people by suddenly removing fuel subsidy. He went on to opine “if subsidy must be removed at all, it must never be at one fell swoop. Rather it must be on calibrated phrases, on which the promised gains are measured and confirmed before moving to the next phase of removal”.

Now, they did it in one fell swoop. Pastor Tunde Bakare, a friend and former presidential running mate to Buhari was the leader of Save Nigeria Group, the socio-political protest movement against fuel subsidy cut by the last administration. Pastor Bakare is not against total deregulation of fuel price but has some conditions upon which it can be acceptable. “Time has come for the citizens of this country to hold the government accountable and demand the prosecution of those bleeding our nation to death. Until this government downsizes, cuts down its profligacy and leads by example in modesty and moderation, the poor people of this country will not and must not subsidise the excesses of the oil sector fat cats and the immorality cum fiscal scandal of the self-centred and indulgent lifestyles of those in government”, he said to his congregation on January 15, 2012.

 If selective fight against corruption and a 26,000 British Pounds yearly college fee for a daughter are evidences of meeting those conditions, pastor Bakare should rejoice in self-adulation. In Bola Tinubu’s argument against subsidy removal in 2012, he said: “First government needs to clean up and throw away the salad of corruption in the NNPC, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation. Then, proceed to lay the foundation for a mass transit system in the railways and road network with long term bonds and,”he added, “fully develop the energy sector towards revitalising Nigeria’s economy and easing the burden any subsidy removal may have on the people.” One wonders whether these conditions have been met before the present government, in which he is a key player, decided to remove the subsidy. President Buhari himself had on October 2011, said: “if anybody says he is subsidising anything, he is a fraud”. Reacting to the statement made by the then president, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan while speaking at the 17th Nigerian Economic Summit (NSE) in Abuja in November 2011, Buhari was said to have “thrown his weight behind the anti-people measure called 'subsidy removal' which the then PDP government wanted to force down the throat of Nigerians”.

 If the president denied that there was subsidy, what then has he removed that pushed up the pump price of fuel to N145 per liter? What was anti-people measure then is now pro-people simply because Buhari is the president. The major concern in the whole politics of subsidy is not its removal but the insincerity, hypocrisy and dishonesty of the leaders (both past and present) towards it as demonstrated by Ahmed Tinubu, President Muhammedu Buhari and their colleagues. It is dubious for a leader to support what he had earlier condemned just because he is in power now. That is selfishness and opportunistic. If removal of fuel subsidy was allowed in 2012, Nigerians and the economy would have adjusted to it long ago. It wouldn’t have been as painful as it is today. The insincerity extends to all the homilies on the benefits of the removal of fuel subsidy to which the people have been awash over the years.

 I started following the politics of fuel price increase and subsidy removal from the regime of Gen. Ibrahim Babangida. He adjusted pump price five times during his eight year rule as head of state, each time inundating us with the fairytale of infrastructures the money saved from increase in pump price of fuel would build. Ernest Shonekan, even as short as his tenure as the Chairman, Interim National Government, was had his own experiment with pump price adjustment. General Sani Abacha played chess with it. First, he reduced it from N5 to N3.25 in 1993, pushed it up to N15 on October 2, 1994 and reduced it to N11 two days later. General Abdulsalam Abubakar tampered with it twice and Olusegun Obasanjo seven times. Despite all these, there are no visible benefits of these price adjustments on infrastructures in the country. Rather, the corrupt rulers have had deeper till to steal from. Nigerians have come to believe that reduction or removal of fuel subsidy is to make more money available for the ruling class to siphon. That is the simple reason the political class oppose it when outside government but accept it when inside. I am not against the removal of fuel subsidy. No, not because of any socio-economic jargon bandied about by self-centered and dishonest politicians, but for psychological reasons. I want to be free from incessant harassment, intimidation, torment and lies arising from the politics of fuel subsidy.

I want to hear new vocabularies from our half-baked leaders instead of the worn out subsidy. I want to see how smart they are by devising new conduit pipe of pilfering our commonwealth. Those who rule us have made us cowards – dying many times before our death – just because fuel subsidy. They have blackmailed us, they have maligned us, they have robbed us our joy, our peace, all because of fuel subsidy. Let us call their bluff this time around and refuse their temptation to push us to the streets for protest. Let us all decide to die to fuel subsidy and its deceptions. After all, the only difference between the past and what Buhari government has done is that while the governments of the past nibbled at the subsidy issue and offered the citizens euthanasia, Buhari has hit the nail on the head without fearing the reactions of the people.  Now, we need not react because it is the era of change. After all, we asked for it. Change is change, whether good or bad.

The last administration tried to do it but met the brick wall of protesting Nigerians. Even when the government succumbed to the wish of the common man, the then President Jonathan maintained at a Summit in Lagos that his administration would still remove fuel subsidy after due consultations with Nigerians. But he did not have the lever to do it. Now, President Buhari has all it takes to do it with the wild West behind him.  

*Sunday John is a social commentator and research fellow in Mass Communication at Amity University, India.