Last month, on Tuesday, November 23 to be precise, the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, while speaking at an event in Abuja, announced the planned removal of fuel subsidy and the introduction of the payment of N5,000 monthly transportation stipends by the Federal Government. The hand-out would cover between 30 and 40 million people for a period of between six and 12 months.

Mrs Ahmed noted that the proposed fuel subsidy removal was informed by the need to reduce cost and would likely be implemented by the middle of next year. New Telegraph is happy at the show of concern by the Federal Government towards alleviating the hardship of the populace. No doubt, a lot of money is siphoned from the public treasury through the fuel subsidy regime thereby denying the country funds to spend on education, health and the like. However, it is worrisome that the Federal Government is tackling the concept of reduction in cost of governance in a haphazard manner.

Six years into the life of the current administration, it has failed to ensure the full functionality of the nation’s four refineries, which it promised to do while campaigning ahead of the 2015 election. We recall that Nigeria’s first oil refinery was established in 1965 in Eleme, Port Harcourt, Rivers State. It is commonly referred to as Eleme 1. Thirteen years later, the second refinery was constructed in Warri, Delta State.

A third oil refinery followed suit in 1980 in Kaduna, Kaduna State, a decision which has continued to make mockery of the country’s frankness towards the reduction of the cost of governance as pipelines had to be laid from the far-flung oil-rich Niger Delta Region and equally maintained at a huge public cost for the supply of crude oil to the Kaduna Refinery.

The fourth oil refinery was sited in 1989 also in Eleme and is commonly referred to as Eleme 2. We refuse to accept inadequate funds as a logical alibi for the failure to rehabilitate and make the four public refineries fully functional.

It should be acknowledged, instead, that the wobbling state of the refineries is an indication of poor prioritisation by the Federal Government. Their failure to work is the reason for the subsidy regime in the first place since petroleum products for consumption in the country are being imported. In view of the poor state of the economy, the proposed N5,000 palliative is clearly insufficient for the supposed vulnerable people as the cost of goods and services, including transportation, will go up arbitrarily once subsidy is removed.

The 160 million other Nigerians that have not been captured by the Federal Government as part of the vulnerable segment, would, over time, be eased into the vulnerable group as their financial capacity would become profoundly challenged. Salary earners in the public and private sectors as well as entrepreneurs will have their purchasing power severely depleted.

Some Nigerians are still not captured in the formal banking sector and still lack the National Identify Number (NIN). How will such individuals receive the N5,000 allowance that is already considered insufficient? There are already complaints of lopsidedness in the distribution of loans to farmers and entrepreneurs, the administration of cash transfers and COVID-19 palliatives to vulnerable people as well as the handling of the school feeding programme.

The mounting complaints that have so far trailed the referred development have helped make the relevance of the Federal Character Commission (FCC) and the provision of justice, equity and fairness in the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to be questioned. We strongly urge the Federal Government not to go on with its planned subsidy removal which is pitiably premised on suspect economic reasoning. Why should a sovereign nation like Nigeria be quick to implement the recommendations of foreign entities like the World Bank? It has been proven, to a large extent, that some foreign entities do not appear to have the interest of developing African nations at heart. The World Bank and other Bretton Woods institutions were primarily set-up to help revive the economies of countries of Europe and North America which were badly hit by the Second World War.

The focus of the Bretton Woods institutions has always been tailored towards ensuring an economically vibrant West, as represented by North America and Europe. This is why we are astonished at the haste with which Nigeria has latched on to the subsidy removal, which has long been on the wish-list of the World Bank.

The proposed subsidy removal will likely worsen the economic conditions of Nigerians and may unavoidably bring the Federal Government into a head-on collision with the people, as was the case in the country 32 years ago when the country embraced and implemented the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), a supposedly harmful pill from the World Bank and other Bretton Woods institutions. Life became conspicuously hellish in Nigeria. The country showed its disapproval of the situation through a nation-wide demonstration commonly referred to as the anti-SAP Riots of 1989 lead by the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS).

The looming time-bomb could be avoided through improved demonstrable creative leadership. While a nation may think globally, she should strive hard to act locally. The socio-economic conditions vary from one country to another. It will therefore be counterproductive to look up to foreign entities for solutions to socio-economic problems bedevilling a nation like Nigeria. Nigerians with the refining capacity within the country should be allowed to go ahead to refine crude oil into the different derivatives like petrol, gas, kerosene and diesel through their modular refineries. This will go a long way into bringing down the cost of petroleum products in the country. This we believe is a much better option than fuel subsidy removal.

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