The word subsidy may be the word of the past month after Tinubu in Nigeria, and for good reasons. The economy is, at bottom, the overriding question in governance. Even though security competes with it in priority, we know that many Nigerians cannot close their eyes at night because those who come for them see murder and rapine as their bread of life.

But while it is praiseworthy to save the money, should we also save the thieves from the penalty of the law?

Former speaker of the House of Representatives Yakubu Dogara’s outcry of a counsel that they should be exposed and made to face the law has gained support from many, including this newspaper. The people responsible for this are Nigerians who work with some foreign persons to twist the books for their own enrichment.

“We stand by him on the subsidy removal but he must be courageous to pursue the subsidy cabals and recover all the stolen monies from them and prosecute them accordingly,” he said.

There are subsidy thieves of different hues. We have those who work with the ships that declare empty vessels are full and soar to pay days. We have those who, in the government circles, collude with them from the port to the Ministry of Petroleum Resources to make their deals sacred. We also have a tribe of smugglers who funnel the oil to neighbours as well as even farther countries on the sub-continent. Some tales have shown that our fuel has gone as far as Sudan now embroiled in fratricidal bloodbath.

These people are not mere criminals. They are a racket of never-do-wells. They are not patriots. Rather they are gangsters in suits and damasks, and are cynical about the common folks. It will not be an easy task to name them, sue them and humble them before the rule of law. But it is a step worth taking.

They are men who are entrenched in the system, and have enjoyed privilege and criminal immunity for a long time, and may feel so entitled that they are likely to mount enormous resistance by deploying money, influence, intimidation and other systemic manipulations to avoid retributive justice.

Since this republic began, this peacock class has survived subsidy-removal measures that were half-hearted and defeatist, and they have come to see their privileges as unassailable and eternal. They know those who keep them because they also keep them in return. It is mutual comfort at the expense of the rest of us. To break such cabal requires legal stealth and determination.

The cooks are still lurking. They are the well-feathered criminals in our midst who have just become jobless. And to add to it a possible jail time will be the most significant episode of justice in a generation. It will be the same with the oil thieves in the Niger Delta.

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