SUBSIDY AND THE QUESTIONS SELDOM ASKED. By Ayo Osipitan

 SUBSIDY AND THE QUESTIONS SELDOM ASKED.

By Ayo Osipitan

On the advice to remove fuel subsidy, it is interesting to know that America subsidise some categories of farmer and IMF or world bank never advised them to stop it, same way some other country do subsidise other items as they deem them important to their citizens.

 In fact, Until Gaddafi was killed, Libya subsidises almost every amenity from electricity to housing and fuel, Libyan economy didn't collapse, because the political leadership made deliberate effort at making life easy for the people.

If well managed and the process devoid of  the massive manipulation by officials of NNPC and the political class, Nigeria have enough resources to subsidise petrol which is the most important fluid that runs the Nigerian economy engine.

It appears there is a deliberate plan by Nigerian political class to ensure Nigerian refineries don't function and thus making people who clamour for new refineries or renovation of existing ones sound like a broken record, outside oil block, fuel subsidy manipulation is about the biggest dollars harvesting machine it the oil industry because officials and politicians have found in it an easy pipe through which billions evaporates unnoticed.

Fuel subsidy is not affecting Nigeria's economy as much as they want us to believe, it is the monstrous amount daily stolen under the guise of subsidy that makes the amount spent on it increase almost daily while amount of fuel decreases, and that system is the same irrespective of the party in government.

PDP in 16 years couldn't add one to Nigeria's refineries and APC in 4 years couldn't make the existing ones function to capacity simply because there is a simple way of making money for government officials and politicians via subsidy coupled with a population of layback citizens who can not force the government to build new refineries or make existing ones function to help in producing local petrol consumption. How much exactly and long does it take a serious country to build refineries that Nigeria can't afford in the 16 years of PDP or four years of APC?, the political class blame themselves in the open for the problem while they connive and agree on benefiting from the same problem behind and life goes on.

I was against the removal of subsidy in 2012 by GEJ and I am still against the removal of subsidy by PMB before and the one coming because I strongly believe we shouldn't do it until we have enough refining capacity to provide for our local petrol consumption which we can if there is political will to do.

Each and anytime petrol price goes up, only the poor masses suffers the pain as it affects virtually the price of everything needed for daily living while many of the decision makers lives on "free everything" while they still get more for causing the the hardship.

So, the question goes....

Do we in Nigeria have the financial muscle to sustain fuel subsidy?, does it take eternity to build new refineries and or repair existing ones?, what social economic palliative measures is government putting in place to soften the effect of subsidy removal on the lives of Nigerians?.

These are questions that has not been seriously asked of our government because politics controls most of our line of thinking and behavior as politics determines what we support or oppose.

15th April 2019