By Ikechukwu Okaforadi
The Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC) has commended President Muhammadu Buhari for taking what it called ‘very wise political decision’ to shift forward by eighteen months the commencement date for the withdrawal of the Federal Government subsidy on petroleum products domestically consumed.
In a statement issued yesterday by the National Chairman of IPAC, Engr. Yabagi Yusuf Sani, the Council expressed concern over lack of concerted efforts by the Government at addressing the perennial issues of lack of Accountability, Transparency and good governance in the management of the Oil and Gas Sector of the Nigerian economy for decades.
It said there are issues of lack of credibility in the data and information from the oil sector due to unreliable and in most cases, non metering infrastructure at the critical nodes in the production and supply value chain in the Sector, resulting in huge revenue leakages of several billions of dollars annually.
The statement said “The earlier scheduled time of June, 2022 for the removal of subsidies was inauspicious in consideration of the prevailing economic, social and political currents in the country.
“At a time that citizens are grappling with the harsh backlash of economic downturn, the effects of an upswing in the cost of living resulting from a spike in the cost of the nation’s main source of energy, would have certainly aggravated an already difficult situation with all the likelihood, in fact, predictable and certain attendant unsavoury reactions.
“What, for example, with the threat by the various labour unions to respond with a nationwide protest and the patent tendency of such a scenario triggering widespread mass support from the rest of the citizenry?
“As a body with the core mandate of contributing to the project of nurturing and strengthening democracy, we are happy with the President’s decision to put the exercise on hold until well after the 2023 general election. This is borne out of the apprehension that the pervading insecurity in the country in addition to other fallouts of the withdrawal, may unleash a wave of developments with dire consequences on the quest for a peaceful, free, fair and credible elections in the next one year.
“Be that as it may however, IPAC is of the position that postponing the oil subsidy by whatever length of time, critically, is tantamount to postponing the doomsday. This is based on the logic that the nation will need about three trillion Naira, as we have been told by the NNPC, to subsidize petroleum products in the next one year.
“Since this sum has not been captured in the 2022 national budget, it translates to mean that the government will have to embark on another trip of borrowing which, in turn, implies additional pile on the nation’s already very heavy debt burden.
“As a way out of the quagmire, IPAC is suggesting, among other panacea, a declaration of a state of emergency in the nation’s oil sector aimed at waging a frontal war against the intricate web of corruption and rapacious theft of the nation’s oil, woven over the years by a tiny cabal of Nigerians in league with equally unscrupulous, crooked international cartels”.
IPAC also said according to an official report of the NNPC in 2019, Nigeria lost about 200, 000 barrels of crude daily to thieves, adding that the same agency said the figure dropped to 150, 000 barrels in its report on the subject for 2021.
To this end, the Council said going by very conservative estimates, each of the figures would each amount to over three trillion Naira that the country is annually losing to criminals in the oil sector.
“Of course, not a few observers of the industry believe that the actual figures of the stolen oil might be much higher than those officially given.
“Even then, certain perturbing and pertinent questions remain: What is the government doing to stop the horrendous perennial theft? Who are these saboteurs of the nation’s economy and, why has it been so difficult to bring the criminals to book all these years?
“To us in IPAC therefore, it is much more rewarding and worthwhile to stop the continuous theft and blocking all the gaping loopholes in the oil sector rather than embarking on the obfuscating shenanigans of retaining or removing the so-called petroleum subsidy.
“Whichever option the government adopts, we will find ourselves in a-catch-twenty-two scenario because, retention of subsidy literally means subsidizing perfidy and theft while removing or, postponing its removal is simply, postponing the doomsday.
“On a final note, IPAC wishes to remind President Muhammadu Buhari of his very apt description in 2015 of the petroleum subsidies as, “a scam”. If, for obvious political expediencies, the President could not do the needful with regards to the menace from his first term up till now, he has the remainder of his last lap at the helms of the nation’s affairs, to do what must be done.
