WEDNESDAY COLUMN BY USSIJU MEDANER
info@medaner.com, justme4justice@yahoo.com
It has been a full circle of 365 days; just like yesterday, when the Emilokan mantra materialised and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu became the elected president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on May 29th, 2023. It may be recalled that there were mixed feelings from the onset. While the opposition campaigned vehemently against the incumbent president and his party on the basis of what they perceived as incapacity to saddle the delicate ship of the nation Nigeria at a critical time as this, the President, however remained bold on his capacity to turn the ship around for the best. The president’s campaign then was literally based on his antecedents; if he has done it before and continues to show he can still do it via his strong and unmatched antecedents and his far reaching bridge-building capacity, then, certainly he can.
The question of performance is now the talk of the town, so to say. Nigerians as you may have observed are partitioned to stand on two sides of a divide; one is that the current Administration has performed to expectations in the last one year and the other side is that the Administration has failed to meet expectations of Nigerians. We are also partitioned along party lines and would judge the Administration based on party sentiments. Not unexpectedly, the next few days will be rocked with counter submissions and perceptions of the Bola Ahmed Tinubu performance as president of Nigeria since May 27, 2023. It is unsurpassing that apparently former president Obasanjo, as one of the foremost figures in the country, has been reported to have fired the first salvo of criticism against the current Administration with respect to several of its policies. Perhaps, done at a time to draw others to tow his line.
In this piece today, I make an attempt to dissect the last 365 days of the Administration by trying to be as objective as possible and without sentimental clingings. While this may appear to be a difficult task, what happened and is happening are events that can be objectively analysed, if only we will be neutral and unbiased. It is a series that I will expand over the next few weeks for clarity’s sake. More importantly, the lessons learnt and candidate solutions if any are what Nigerians, including myself and those in the opposition are to be proffering; and which aligns with democratic ethos.
The first element on the list of issues that form the basis for evaluating the one-year-old Administration was the decision to remove fuel subsidy on the very day of its inauguration. The one minute announcement has turned out in the interim to melt out enormous challenges on Nigerians, to the point that, most citizens and the opposition elements, see only the suffering imposed by the policy as the measure of measuring its overall impact on the national economy. It would be a contentious claim of the policy, giving the unmistakable effects on Nigerians and the economy as a whole, that the subsidy removal is a positive or perhaps, the best achievement of the Administration since assuming office in May 2023. One important thing however about this policy was that for the very first time, a Nigerian president took a critical decision for the interest of the nation which none of his predecessors could make.
Since the days of the Military governments, attempts to take off the petrol subsidy has recurrently been on the burner. The Abacha government created the Petroleum Trust Fund, PTF, as part measure to cushion the determined consequences of the proposed subsidy regime during his time as the military head of state of Nigeria when he increased the pump price from #3.25 to #11, which is about a 238 percent increase in 1994. The intervention to that effect, PTF, became fully active and many, if not most Nigerians would rate the PTF scheme headed by former president Buhari as satisfactory.
The Obasanjo administration at the outset of the Fourth Republic however raised the pump price from #20 to #30 and then to #26 in 2001 and again #40 in 2003. Before he left office in 2007, he raised the price again twice to #65 and finally #100, though the next administration of Musa Yaradua reverted the price back to #65. If you are to consider Obasanjo’s pump price of #100 or #65, that would be a 400 percent and 225 percent increase respectively. Some of the notable interventions of the government introduced after several pump price adjustments include giving each state #100 million as a counterpart funding to fund purchases of transport vehicles, increased funding of the National Directorate of Employment and the establishment of the National Poverty Eradication Programs.
The Jonathan administration came up with the SURE-P program to alleviate the immediate suffering that was expected to follow the then planned removal of the fuel subsidy and made several attempts to completely take off the subsidy but met with a brick wall in a strong opposition from the civil society and the citizens. Perhaps, the somewhat arbitrary pump price increase during the Obasanjo era might have driven the consciousness of Nigerians to resist vehemently the new price increase in such a manner as to prevent further arbitrary price increase.
It is apparent that the need to remove the fuel subsidy has been imperative on us for decades. Economic advice from within and without have always pointed to it as an imperative and imminently. Government after government had been unsuccessful in the attempt to remove it totally because they had no answer to the public and the expected backlash to the removal as seen from each and every time it was done. The concern conspicuously formed a major element of the 2023 presidential election campaign whereby all the major contestants agreed that subsidy must go. In the words of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu during the campaign, the subsidy has to go, and whether we like it or not he would remove it; which has been his long standing position on the matter. He is of the view that oil subsidy which was once beneficial has outlived its usefulness and if not removed, would harm the nation. No wonder, the previous administration made no budgetary provision for the 2023 fiscal year.
And for the first time, we have a president who was not only bold to enforce the final and full implementation of the project even in the midst of strong rejections and opposition to politicise the policy to the extreme and use the immediate hardship that trails it to score cheap political goals. The lead opposition, both Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi of PDP and the Labour party respectively, that equally made bold campaign promises to take off the non-profiting subsidy if and when elected suddenly became the lead vocal opposition against the policy once it was taken off.
Why should the fuel subsidy be removed? And why and how does removing it become a monumental achievement for the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu? As a nation blessed with crude oil and a petroleum producing nation, there are other things that are supposed to literally be part of our system. One, we are supposed to be a crude refining country, producing both for local consumption and for exports, at least within the West Africa sub region. But unfortunately, by some unexplainable circumstances, and you are permitted to say by machinations, we lost the capacity to refine our crudes, and from all indications, it appears to be intentional overtime, and the strong resolve to want to maintain the status quo. By grinding down the refineries, and resulting in subsidising imported refined products, the highest level of corruption crept into our national system.
Over the decades, we became a nation expending hugely on subsidising Fuel usage within the country; the subsidies were enormous, approximately USD 3.9 billion annually. This came with a great cost for the country, and the opportunity costs of such spending on other development objectives are large; the distribution of resources to the state governments became limited; the vast majority of the subsidies went to better off a few Nigerians; and cheaper petrol encouraged greater pollution, congestion and of climate change concern going by the global concern. Also to be noted was the incessant smuggling of fuel products to neighbouring countries.
Fuel subsidy regime, when it lasted, caused so much economic backwardness for Nigeria. It literally became a challenge to effective budgeting in the country, with a huge chunk of our national income going to maintain the subsidy regime. It also became the conduit pipe to siphon Nigeria’s resources. For example, an erstwhile Minister of Finance in Nigeria in August, 2020 said the federal government of Nigeria spends about N18.397 billion (Naira) on fuel subsidy daily. The record daily consumption as eventually established was far above the actual consumption quantity; we corruptly altered the figures, collected subsidy payments for fuels that are not consumed by Nigerians and enriched individual bank accounts on a daily basis.
We also got to the point that we imported the products into the country, made documentation and access subsidy payments for them, and then redirected the same products to neighbouring countries to sell them off. From these, the elements behind the corruption made double fold gains, and the country is left behind to continue suffering paucity of infrastructural development funding. Aptly, the president captured it so well by mincing no words, that fuel subsidy, though beneficial in the past, has outlived its usefulness.
It was a given from the onset that while removing the subsidy would save the country but equally impose in the immediate term, a serious burden on both the country and the citizens. The need to reallocate the resources to more productive areas of the national economy, to gradually wane off the burden is necessary and from all indications are being explored by the federation. It has not been easy for Nigerians, the bite has been huge, survival has been seriously threatened, but then, the option we had was to either maintain the dysfunctional system, or do the right thing for the country. It takes only a strong President like Bola Ahmed Tinubu to attempt taking the country through the rugged but needed path we are currently and gradually. If that does not qualify as a super achievement, what else could?
The president, no doubt, has shown a strong conviction in addressing long-term national challenges while equally managing and attending to the constituting political blocs in the country in equal measures. On the one hand, has been his rollout of interventions, including the N2billion of of N5billion to each state as palliative, infrastructural development across the country and the infrastructural funds made available to the states, agricultural intervention such the release of grains from the strategic grains reserves and commitments to cultivate rice and maize on a large scale. There is also the commitment to roll out CNG buses and to facilitate CNG adoption. Though, this has not yet been realised.
Given the unavoidable national sacrifice, the tough economic situation in the country, especially the high energy costs, it will be necessary for the presidency to give updates in that sector. The nation needs an update on the expected 3000 or so CNG buses and the overall CNG adoption and the need to begin educating and sensitising Nigerians on the expectations in earnest. Another way of keeping hopes alive is to give updates on the funds made available to the states, including for infrastructure as well as for other key federal agencies. If the national discourses were to centre around how to resolve the nation’s pressing challenges, and in proffering solutions, even though as simple as the aforementioned, which no doubt, the opposition is capable of, but rather dwell in distractions chasing relevance, the nation would probably not be this divided politically.
Our challenge, and a very disruptive one for the country, is that we deal with an opposition that has, by its recent actions, proven to be caustic opportunists without modest achievements, and that has managed to scale the height of national recognition via a pitbull partisanship and sentimental callings. Dealing with these brands of opposition in Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar and their very cliques, who have dishonestly departed from patriotism, and for their unbridled desire to grasp power, have taken the high point of misleading gullible Nigerians to a constant and unfounded attacks on the sitting government and public policies. This action from men who should have constituted a constructive opposition, has made it impossible for Nigerians to come to agreement in the evaluation of the present Administration; literally, we react only to our sentiments and biases and not to realities of policies, government actions and inactions.
