In the last few weeks, Nigerians have been inundated with hue and cry over the hike in the price of premium potor spirit, PMS. Also, there has been hulabalo on the hike in the price of electricity.
The Nigerian Labour Congress, NLC, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and some civil rights groups have expressed concern over the development. For all intent and purposes, the arguments presented so far against the hike in price of PMS fell short of logical thinking.
There is an old saying that “Twenty children cannot play for twenty years.” Similarly, it is unthinkable, how long will a man who used twenty years to rehearse madness live to practice it.
The foregoing underscores the Nigerian dilemma in an effort to attain a sustainable, affordable and pocket-friendly tariff for consumers of premium motor spirit. The hike in the price of PMS is occasioned by government’s removal of subsidy on petroleum products.
For Nigeria’s petroleum industry, subsidy payments, more than anything else has constituted excess baggage that have denied successive governments, the needed funds for developmental purposes. This has resulted in huge infrastructural gaps because the funds that are supposed to be channeled into infrastructures building are used to subsidize petrol, whose benefits seldom reach ordinary people.
There has been consensus as to the undesirability of government subsidizing price of petrol. But the snag has always been, who will bell the cat. If President Muhammadu Buhari is courageous enough to withstand the untouchable cabals in the petroleum industry and remove subsidy, so that market forces can determine the price Nigerians pay for PMS, why is Labour, TUC and other throwing tantrums, as if there don’t have full grasp of issues in petroleum sector?
It may interest Nigerians to know that the full deregulation of the petroleum sector was atop agenda of the All Progressives Congress before it assumed office in 2015. But since then, President Buhari has resisted every pressure from his own party to fully deregulate the sector. But there is no better time to swallow the sour grape for tomorrow’s benefit than now.
Thank God that critical stakeholders in the Downstream Sector of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry, including the Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN), have lauded the President Buhari’s new policy to fully deregulate the product pricing.
The body that visited the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mr. Mele Kyari said the move would help to tackle the challenges in the downstream sector of the oil industry.
Sensibly, there is no regulated sector of any economy that will attract meaningful investments from both local and international companies or investors. It is important to set records straight. The idea of petroleum product price hike can be understood from the purview of government withdrawing from the involvement in fixing prices. By so doing, investors will be attracted to come and invest in building refineries, as they are double sure of fair returns on their investments because of zero government intervention, except policy making. The overall spiral benefit of this genuine action of President Muhammadu Buhari is cheap price of petrol because the internal refining capacity would have multiplied, thereby forcing down the price because of availability. More so, boosting the local refining capacity will automotically discourage importation.
One may agree with those that are genuinely concerned in their point of view, however, there can’t be gains, if they is no pain. The time to bite the bullet is now. This pain is only euphemeral as it will soon translate to power of choice for consumers.
It is an open secret what a mess the situation in the petroleum sector was before President Buhari assumed office in 2015. These were periods when Nigerians spent long night on queque at fuel stations. Travellers has to resort to carry extra jerrican of petrol in the trunk of their cars. Hundreds of souls were lost to these avoidable and painful death. With the magic wand of President Buhari, all that has become a thing of the past.
For the records, President Buhari bears no part in this whole electricity tarrif hike, as electricity management is entirely a private sector concern. The journey to the privatization of power sector started when General Babangida’s administration promulgated the Technical Committee on Privatization and Commercialization (TCPC) in 1988 that actually brought the matter to the front burner. Ten years later, the government of General Abdusalami Abubakar promulgated the Public Enterprises (Privatization and Commercialization) Decree of 1999 which listed NEPA, later PHCN for privatization. The privatization of PHCN was consummated on 1’1 November, 2013, when President Goodluck Jonathan handed over the subsidiary companies that made up PHCN to the new core investors.
Why is the NLC, the Opposition People’s Democratic Party, PDP, after giving a dog bad name in order to hang it? How is President Buhari to be blamed in the electricity tarrif hike? Was it not under the corrupt-infested PDP’s government the power sector was privatized? Agreed that the gullible PDP is spewing mischief in a clandestine attempt to rubbish the noble and strategic initiative of the Buhari led government to free Nigeria from Petroleum related complication, what of the NLC? A reputable organisation that is supposed to appaulde the president and give him all the needed support to achieve his core objective.
As earlier noted, twenty children cannot play for twenty years, because a twenty year-old is no longer a child. In the same connection, Nigeria has paid subsidy long enough to its own detriment and needed a change of tactics. Subsidy has existed in the Petroleum industry for as far back when the country started producing oil. Alas, what do we have from government’s noble intention of making petrol prices affordable? It is the same privilege class, who ride in convoy of twenty cars, with 30 more parked in their garages that are the net beneficiary of government subsidies in all sectors.
In the whole tarrif hike broughaha, the elites, who for selfish interests, or in a bid to fester their nest, mislead the people by deliberately distorting President Muhammadu Buhari’s genuine intention to fix the malignant cancer of corruption in the sectors.
I think the logical or commonsense point of view in the whole fuel price debate should be for government to stop subsidising protroleum and electricity products and invest the funds it would have expended for subsidy on education, healthcare, infrastructures upgrade and providing palliatives to the vulnerable. Sensibly, this is how a government can directly touch the lives of the people and not bottomless pit called subsidy.
The Nigerian Labour Congress, Trade Union Congress etc., should listen to the voice of reason. President Muhammadu Buhari has no personal agenda to fulfil rather than fixing the back to the path of its lost glory. He has overtime demonstrated the purity of motives in whatever he does in the service of our fatherland. All that is needed is unwavering support to enable him deliver on his campaign promises.
Gidado Ibrahim is the Director Communications and Strategic Planning of the Presidential Support Committee
