Was There Really A Consensus That Fuel Subsidy Should Go?

 By Jideofor Adibe

In my last week’s column (Beyond the PEPT’s Judgement), I argued, among other things, that the Western brand of liberal democracy we currently practise does not, and cannot work in our type of society where the basis of even statehood remains contested.

This is because the adversarial nature of our electoral competition aggravates the structures of conflicts in the society, deepening the fault lines necessarily mobilised as part of our identity politics and consequently undermining the nation-building process. I equally argued that largely because of these factors, many Nigerians feel alienated from the political process and consequently from the nation-state itself.

Nigeria: Remove The Absurdities Not The Subsidies

 By Ige Asemudara

Successive Nigerian governments have proven irresponsible and largely insensitive to the suffering of the people. In its few weeks of mounting the power rostrum, the Tinubu administration has not evinced any exceptional trait that can trigger a perception that there will be a difference. Its starting point of glibly pronouncing that “subsidy is gone” without any thorough ideological – especially social and economical – evaluation is the barest slap planted on the faces of suffering Nigerians in recent time. 

It beats one hollow to fathom that this administration would accept to implement a policy conceived by an economic novice as the Buhari regime which lacked the tact, faith, courage or conviction to remove subsidy in its eight years of woeful hold on the nation. It does sound like eating hemlock for another person’s suicide mission.

Can We Have A New Nigeria, Please?

 By Ayo Oyoze Baje

Former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, the beacon-bearer of Nigeria, nay Africa’s peaceful coexistence and the flag-flying patriot certainly deserves sincere apologies, eight years after he graciously and peacefully left the corridors of political power, at Aso Rock, Abuja.

And the apologies should in fact, come from the All Progressives Congress (APC) political party with its ‘Change’ mantra, which the millions of overtly naïve and gullible supporters swallowed line, hook and sinker. That played itself out of course, during its well-oiled, puerile propaganda-fuelled presidential campaigns back in the 2014/2015 season.

The World Ahead 2023: Whither Nigeria?

 By Marcel Okeke

The World Ahead 2023” is the 2022 end-of-year special publication of The Economist (of London) in which the journal reviewed the global economy in the outgoing year and made detailed projections about 2023, including what issues are most likely to dictate the trends in the coming year. It says: “After two years when the (COVID-19) pandemic shaped the immediate future, it is now the Ukraine war.”

The journal gave four things to think about for 2023, namely: (1) the impact of the conflict; (2) the struggle to control inflation; (3) chaos in energy markets; and (4) China’s uncertain post-pandemic path. Going granular in its analysis, the publication gave ten themes and trends for 2023—thus: all eyes are on Ukraine; recessions loom; climate silver lining; peak China; divided America; flashpoints to watch (India-China, Turkey-Greece); shifting alliances; revenge tourism; metaverse reality check; and New year, new jargon.

Fuel Price Hike: Buhari Must Apologise

By Ochereome Nnanna

 PRESIDENT  Muhammadu Buhari owes us apologies for the latest hike from N86.50k to N145 of the official pump price for Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) announced on Thursday last week by his Deputy Minister of Petroleum, Dr. Emmanuel Kachikwu.

First, he must apologise to Nigerians, on behalf of himself, his political party, the All Progressives Congress, APC, his foremost apologist, Professor Tam David-West, Labour and the hired “civil society” groups who truncated the deregulation of the downstream sector of the petroleum industry in January 2012. Second, he must also apologise to his predecessor, ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, who lost his post-electoral “honeymoon” period early in 2012 when he stuck out his neck in an attempt to lay to rest, once and for all, the bogey of fuel scarcity and its attendant high cost and human suffering which have trailed the nation for nearly thirty years.

After maligning the Otuoke-born lecturer, he went back to implement a policy that Jonathan would have carried out four years ago if not for irresponsible and unpatriotic opposition. Whenever the deregulation of this sector is contemplated, people always say the timing is wrong without telling us when the timing will ever be right. Certainly, the timing for this steep hike is wrong. It comes so soon after the equally steep hike in the cost of electricity tariffs which the Federal Government through its Power, Works and Housing Minister, Babatunde Fashola, openly approves of.

It comes at a time when thousands of people are losing their jobs and most employers cannot pay the salaries of their workers because of the parlous economic situation brought about by low oil prices, the crash in the value of the naira and the inability of the Buhari administration to tackle them. To top it all, Labour is priming for a new national minimum wage of between N56,000 to N90,000. Now that the official price of petrol has been nearly doubled, who knows the amount that Labour will now ask for? If ever there was a right time for the deregulation of the downstream sector, the year 2012 was it. We had just emerged unscathed from the worldwide economic meltdown of 2008/2009. By 2012 our Brent crude was selling for $114.26 per barrel, a trend that was generally sustained until toward the end of 2014 when the tide of transitional political was in full swing.

Unlike now when economic activities are low, poverty rate is higher than ever and most investors have fled, there was money in the system then. The economy was even becoming increasingly “dollarised” as a result of oil-fed liquidity in the system. In fact, it was shortly after this that a review of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product terms showed that Nigeria had emerged as the largest economy in Africa and the continent’s number one investors’ destination. Nigeria could have weathered the shock of deregulation much more easily than now. But the opposition would have none of it. Labour unions went on strike.