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Strictly Personal

Political full moon, season of werewolves and night of long knives by Magnus Onyibe

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The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC has kicked off the 2023 general elections season by releasing its timetable for the conduct of elections commencing from February which is just last month.
The first balloting exercise which will be carried out for the purpose of electing our next president would be according to INEC timetable held on 18 February 2023 and that is less than one year away from now.
As to be expected in a season of politics, all the gladiators are coming out with their long knives, reminiscent of the Night of Long Knives -a vicious event that took place in German political space to consolidate political power between April to June in 1934.
Wikipedia describes the event that drastically altered the course of history in Germany and indeed the world, this way:
“The Night of the Long Knives was a turning point for the German government. It established Hitler as the supreme administrator of justice of the German people, as he put it in his July 13 speech to the Reichstag.”
With respect to the allusion to the metaphor of werewolf which Nigerian politicians have been currently transformed into as they have literally started prosecuting their political wars , Encyclopedia Britannica holds the light to it this way: “werewolf, in European folklore, is a man who turns into a wolf at night and devours animals, people, or corpses but returns to human form by day.”
Dear readers, guided by the forgoing enlightenment about the Night of Long Knives in Germany and the description of the mythology of werewolf in Europe , you would agree with me that both experiences are being carbon copied or cloned in our clime in this peak period of politics .
The assertion above is underscored and validated by the intrinsic characteristics of the events now pervading the political atmosphere in Nigeria where stakeholders in politics are deploying their lethal arsenal in order to dominate the environment. One needs not be a rocket scientist to decipher the tendencies of the political actors bestriding the political space of our beloved country which are simply in tandem with the typical tendencies of werewolves as defined by encyclopedia Britannica.
Against the foregoing backdrop, in the next one year, political blood letting (literally speaking) is expected to, from this point in time to the next one year become the rule rather than the exception in our country.
By extension and in that regard ,Nigerians should standby to be regaled via hearing on television and reading in the newspapers, the most vile and crude attacks by politicians against each other with no holds barred.
And we have already had a foretaste of the salacious and vicious political games ahead via the crisis within the ruling party at the center , APC whereby the governors have literally ripped their party and each other apart; just as the verbal tirades traded between governors on the platform of the main opposition political party, the PDP is equally giving politics and politicians a bad name.
My essay last week titled “Is APC Made Up Of Yahoo-Yahoo Governors and Drug Dealing Gangs?” which was published widely in both traditional and online mass media platforms, dwelt elaborately on the abhorrent behavior of the governors from both the ruling and main opposition parties , stressing that they need to call themselves to order .
Although President Muhammadu Buhari has tried to quell the internecine war within the APC via what can best be described as a ‘riot act’ conveyed through a caustic statement released by his media aid,Garba Shehu, after which the gladiators seem to have sheathed their swords , l am willing to wager a bet that the seeming calm in the party can be equated to the peace of the graveyard that gets disturbed every time a new corpse needs to be buried or exhumed -as the case may be.
Crisis, especially of the hue of political scandal, obviously seems to be literally hugging the polity particularly from the political space as highlighted in a social media post that has been trending lately.
The referenced post highlighted a litany of existential challenges that are currently besetting Nigerians , such as university lecturers being on strike due to unsettled salaries and related issues with the authorities, police officers allegedly planning to go on strike owing to poor condition of service , nationwide public electricity blackout due to unpaid N1.6 trillion debt owed DISCOS and collapse of the national grid, airlines about to shut down operations arising from lack of aviation fuel , recent nationwide petrol scarcity resulting in untold hardship to the masses (which has thankfully abated now) and foreign exchange scarcity and devaluation of the Naira currently exchanging with the UK pounds at N788/£1 etc.
The most striking aspect of the post detailing the horrendous level of anomie and misery in our society, is how the author catalogued and classified the political brickbats that have recently dominated the political space which sometimes border on the absurd and even have comical attributes.
Although all the identified demons afflicting the critical mass of Nigerians are on point, what takes the cake is how the anonymous author characterized the verbal war between politicians who have gone so low to the gutter level of adopting the language of touts to settle political scores.
The political wars between governors that have so far dominated media headlines and generated public opprobrium are outlined below:
Buni Vs Bello(APC); Wike Vs Obaseki (PDP); Rauf Vs Tinubu (APC); Adeleke Vs Oyinlola (PDP); Umahi Vs Wike (APC/PDP); Hope Vs Okorocha (APC).
By now , l believe most Nigerians are well aware of the details of the incidents whereby present governors have like kindergarten kids excoriated each other with vicious barbs. To spare descent readers the agony of being assailed with the venomous utterances, the despicable display of indecorous behavior do not merit being repeated here.
Apparently, from the array of the cases itemized in what l would like to term The Rage of The Governors catalogued above, pugilism is one aspect of ‘governance’ that both the ruling party APC and main opposition party , PDP have been displaying , in equal proportions to the displeasure of the electorate.
As if the women folk did not want to be left out of the melee of outrageous behaviors by the men folk in positions of leadership as governors in the respective states of our beloved country stretching from north to south, to the extent that our country has become a theatre of the absurd akin to the television comedy show titled ‘Fuji House Of Commotion’ ; the occasion of swearing into office as governor of Anambra state , Chukwuma Soludo on March 17, 2022 was seized to exhibit the female version of the demon of insanity that seem to have possessed Nigerian political actors.
Hence in the full glare of local and global audience , as the klieg lights were on and cameras rolling , the wife of the embattled immediate past governor of Anambra state , Willie Obiano, (now in EFCC custody for alleged N42b fraud) Ebelechukwu Obiano allegedly launched an attack on Bianca , the widow of the revered late Biafran leader , Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu.
Since most Nigerians have seen the trending video footage online featuring the two women engaged in fisticuffs, and which thankfully did not degenerate to the level of stripping each other naked , (which could have satiated the wildest imagination of Nigerians) l would like readers to draw their own conclusions.
As a recap , in the month of March politicians have called each other Yahoo-Yahoo governors, drug dealing gangsters, blood sucking cult members, amongst many other invectives deployed like missiles, and one of their wives has topped it up with a physical brawl captured on live television after publicly labeling her victim who is a widow, ‘asewo’.(prostitute)
In my reckoning , apart from the songster , Tiwa Savage’s stunning sex tape that went viral and generated massive comments recently , nothing more vile has attracted the attention of Nigerians and generated more comments both in pubs, places of worship , schools and offices and comedy skits in the social media platforms than the Ebelechukwu Obiano versus Bianca Ojukwu rumble in Awka. It reminded me of the famous rumble in the jungle boxing tournament between Mohamed Ali and George Forman on October 30, 1974 in Arusha, Tanzania .
Off course , the exception is that the catfight between both women was not a positive event like the professional boxing bout between the pugilists, Ali and Forman. But a monumental disgrace, not only to womanhood, also to the political class in Nigeria.
Contrast the goring of each other by our present crop of political leaders as highlighted earlier with the sense that is intrinsic in the comments and concerns about the future of our country made by our leaders of yore who hail from all the three main geopolitical zones of our nation.
Was it not Sir Ahmadu Bello that wrote in 1948 : “Since 1914 the British government has been trying to make Nigeria into one country ; but the Nigerian people themselves are historically different in their backgrounds,in their religious beliefs and customs and do not show themselves any signs of willingness to unite …
Nigeria is only British invention .”
Did Chief Obafemi Awolowo not make the forgoing statement in 1947 :”Nigeria is not a nation. It is a mere geographical expression. There are no ‘Nigerians’ in the same sense as there are English, Welsh, or ‘French’. The word ‘Nigerian’ is merely a distinctive appellation to distinguish those who live within the boundaries of Nigeria and those who do not.”
And was the statement below not attributed to Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe in 1964: “lt is better for us and many admirers abroad that we should disintegrate in peace not in pieces. Should politicians fail to heed the warnings , then l will venture the prediction that the experience of the Democratic Republic of Congo will be a child’s play if ever it comes to our turn to play such a tragic role.”
I urge readers to pay more attention to the composition and patriotic fervor in the speeches and not the goal which is a reflection of their resistance to the imposition of the British via the amalgamation of northern and southern protectorates into Nigeria by fiat.
In more recent history ,when Godwin Dabo and Joseph Tarka, both of whom were politicians of Benue state origin had an altercation , here is a snippet of what they said to each other: ‘lf you Tarka me, l will Dabo you.’
It was such a memorable quotable quote that it became part of our lexicon in Nigeria and a metaphor for ‘if you attack me , l destroy you.’ What a display of wit even in animosity.
It would be very remiss of me not to recall that Azikiwe once described Chuba Okadigbo’s diatribe against him as “the ranting of an ant” which was a more descent way of counter attacking than the show of shame currently on display by some of our present crop of politicians who would be remembered for tagging their party as a platform for yahoo-yahoo , drug dealing gang and bureau de change governors.
It is disappointing that the new fangled politicians in Nigeria do not come with the erudition, and lack the candor that made our past political leaders colorful and famous .
One can still recall with nostalgia how Kingsley Ozumba Mbadiwe, the grandmaster of grandiloquence, reputed for his creative use of English language, invented the words : timber and caliber , iroko and obeche.
The later two words are names of species of wood that have no relationship with the earlier two words than the fact they sounded alike and rhymed.
Don’t we miss the good old days when politicians and politicking were elevated to an art?
That is in stark contrast with the present times, when basic instincts and raw bran , rather than brain and finesse are the overarching driver of our politicians who have become so colorless , and disappointingly bereft of philosophical grounding or ideological underpinnings , that it hurts.
Since the APC convention is holding on the 26th of this month ,(March) the month of April may also throw up some political dramas as the aftermaths of the anticipated event may spill into the next month.
So, although things seem to have simmered after president Buhari’s stern warning to his party leaders to desist from heating up the polity by bridling their mouths which was running as if they were suffering from verbal diarrhea, and the recent favorable court judgments that authorizes the deletion of the contentious clause 84(12) from electoral act 2022 in addition to the vacation of the case instituted by an aggrieved APC member against holding the convention on the scheduled date; the fingers of most Nigerians are crossed as they await with baited breath another series of sleaze with the imminent unfurling of political full moon, season of werewolves and night of long knives that has come upon us.
As for the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, which is the main opposition party , the month of May would be the peak period for electioneering activities that could also degenerate into internal crisis that could, as it were, put the party asunder simply because that is the month scheduled for all the primaries- from house of Assembly , house of representatives, senate , governorship as well as the presidency, to be held .
Remarkably, the party has already successfully held its national convention where the officials charged with managing the party’s affairs in the next four(4) years emerged.
And the choice of candidates to fill the positions was largely based on consensus except on the decision about deputy national chairman south -west, of which two candidates that rejected pleas by leaders for them to yield ground to each other, had to slug it out through voting, based on indirect primaries system which is conducted via votes cast by delegates.
By all indications, the ruling party, APC appear set to also adopt the consensus option applied by the PDP during its successful and rancor free convention .
That implies that the consensus system is more appealing to politicians than the Direct and Indirect primaries processes.
Which is perhaps owed to the belief that election via consensus is more about horse-trading than the vigorous contest of the popularity between the candidates which direct and indirect primaries entail. It could also be due to the fact that the consensus option is less expensive. That is because in the case of indirect primaries , the candidates who are party executives and political appointees have to woo the delegates who are specific in number and therefore manageable. With direct primaries which involves all the registered party members voting in the state and ward congresses , (for instance 4.8m people are registered APC members in Lagos state ) it is more unwieldy and a rather more expensive process.
That is the main reason it was rejected as the sole method of producing candidates by political parties in the electoral bill that president Buhari vetoed.
Also, the preference for election via a consensus pathway by both the PDP and APC underscores the belief that godfathers still occupy pre-eminent positions in Nigerian politics.
And since they are the funders who also broker the deals , they are not going into extinction soon as some pundits are wont to believe . More so because they constitute an integral part of politics everywhere in the world.
By and large , in choosing the consensus option, the battle is lost and won before the D -Day which is the convention day since the positions, posts or seats would have been allotted amongst the contending power blocks. In that case, what happens during the convention is the coronation of the ‘annointed’ candidates.
It is worthy to point out that consensus option is not just less expensive, but also definitely less rancorous. It usually makes the convention a less acrimonious event as the fight is done before the D-Day.
That explains why the APC has been in turmoil in the run up to its convention due to be held on 26 March, 2022.
Depending on if the APC puts its house in order before the D-Day, it may not be such a moment of truth for them as being speculated.
But already, sundry power blocks within the party are controverting the position of the leader of the party , president Buhari who has reportedly tapped certain candidates for the respective party executive posts .
Obviously, other party stakeholders do not fancy the idea of electing party executives to be as easy as appointing cabinet ministers by Mr. President.
So, although the resistance is still in the realms of shadow boxing ,some stakeholders in the ruling party that are contesting for the presidency in 2023 and contending against their leader in order to have their loyalists planted in strategic positions within the party hierarchy, may come out of the shadows to become openly rebellious.
Let us not make any mistake about it, divergence of opinion and interests are always potential trigger for conflict during conventions.
That is underscored by the fact that it is when the leader of the party sees dissenters as antagonists as opposed to partners in progress , or vice versa, that a fight that could be fractious ensues with Long Knives being readily deployed to assail opponents, even as werewolves are also unleashed to suck the blood of the traducers that need to be eliminated.
It may be recalled that president Buhari recently stated in a television interview that he was keeping to his chest the identity of the person that he would like to succeed him, so that the person would not be eliminated.
My guess is that Mr. President was talking about protecting his preferred candidate from being politically eliminated or cancelled out as opposed to physical elimination.
While the identity of president Buhari’s preferred presidential candidate in 2023 is still shrouded in secrecy , we are aware that his choice for the chairmanship position for the ruling party is Adamu Abdullahi-ex Nasarawa State Governor. That much is in the public domain even as about seven (7) of the chairmanship aspirants have reportedly already dolled out a whopping sum of twenty (20) million Naira each for the purchase of the nomination forms.
But whether it is a fait accompli that Adamu Abdullahi would become the chairman of the APC is not easy to determine right now.
That is basically because the process of choosing APC national working committee members would not be a walk in the park.
More so because President Buhari is currently in his lame duck period when the words of outgoing leaders are no longer worth their weight.
As things stand , political parties often have two monumental hurdles to scale before it achieves cohesion .
The first is a national convention to choose party executives and the second is national congress/primaries to nominate presidential candidates.
The PDP has already held its convention , so it has crossed one bridge and has one more to go. Three of the northerners eyeing the PDP presidential ticket-Aminu Tambuwal , Bala Mohamed and Bukola Saraki are angling for the adoption of the consensus option in the presidential primaries. Hopefully, the frontliner, Abubakar Atiku would buy into the proposal.
It’s mystifying to me that although the powerful southern governors forum have decreed that the next president must come from the south , unlike their northern counterparts, no significant effort is being made by any southern governor for the presidency. Is there a conspiracy behind their silence ?
For the APC , it still has two hurdles to scale since it is yet to hold both its convention and presidential congress.
So the odds are stacked more against the ruling party at the centre, APC.
In 2019, lfeanyi Okowa, Governor of delta state successfully led the team that organized the presidential primaries for the PDP that was held in Port Harcourt , Rivers state capital.
Against all permutations by pundits about the event being a potential trigger for the breakup of PDP as very formidable presidential hopefuls locked horns, Governor Okowa and his team are on record to have dexterously managed the highly volatile situation such that after the contest, there was no victor , no vanquished attitude exhibited by the contenders.
In fact , the rare display of party machismo was taken to a higher level when the immediate past senate president, Bukola Saraki who was a serious contender in the presidential primaries, graciously accepted to become the Director General of Atiku Abubakar’s presidential campaign organization, 2019.
Whether the same scenario would play out during the primaries for the presidency in 2023 remains a matter of conjecture as more of the ‘usual suspects’ -Atiku Abubakar, Aminu Tambuwal, Bukola Saraki that contested against each other in 2019 are once again mounting the rostrum and signifying their intention to throw their hats into the ring.
With a hefty sum of N40m as the cost of procuring the forms for PDP presidential primaries , a high bar seems to have been set by the main opposition party to weed out the motley crowd of those without deep pockets such as my good friend, Dele Momodu, Sam Ohabunwa and to a lesser degree Anyim Pius Anyim who have signified intention to contest for the office of the president in 2023.
Except serving governors, ministers and a handful of senators who have access to public treasury, most potential candidates would struggle to raise such a huge amount just to purchase forms.
But that is the unique way in which political parties in Nigeria raise funds.
In a country where godfathers are typically the main sources of political funds, as opposed to the situation in the Western world where funding is mainly sourced from contributions from party members and corporate sponsors , the less financially endowed candidates on the PDP platform are being (sort of) cancelled out.That is because more or less , the purchase of nomination forms is being weaponized via the astronomical cost aimed at presumably prohibiting non wealthy potential candidates from contesting for the presidency. That is not to say that l do not recognize that costly nomination forms is a means of raising money for the party that would need it to prosecute its campaigns.
Hence it is a question of the chicken or the egg, which comes first?
While being cognizant of the reality above , the prohibitive cost of nomination forms amounts to creating uneven playing tuft which in my view is unfair as some potential candidates would be excluded from entering the presidential orbit on account of not being financially buoyant, and not for lack of supporters or manifesto that resonates with the masses.
Since there is not much that the aggrieved could do to remedy the situation, let us hope that the pending PDP presidential primaries would be as smooth as their convention and also comparable to their 2019 presidential primaries election experience.
That said , for now, all eyes are on the ruling party, APC whose much awaited convention comes up in a matter of days.
According to a popular aphorism “Oft a little morning rain foretells a pleasant day”
Plainly speaking, that means that events in the morning can indicate what might happen later in the day.
That is the reason , fingers are crossed and hearts are beating very fast in apprehension , regarding whether or not their very tenuous 26 march , 2022 convention would hold successfully.
As we approach the 2023 terminal life span of the incumbent government, the leadership and members alike recognize that the convention could make or mar the chances of the party retaing its preeminent position of holding power at the center beyond the eight (8) years span that ends in the current election circle beginning early next year.
Therefore, the fear of power slipping out of its grasp may be a good motivation for the leadership of the APC to be more circumspect in the way and manner the convention is organized, so that it would be rancor free on 26 March 2022.
So, as the race to 26 March gathers momentum, and as the clock ticks and days are reduced to hours and minutes , APC faithfuls are waiting nervously seating on the edge of their chairs, while the political actors perfect their strategies down to tactical details on how and when to pull out the long knives to stab one another in the back and deploy the werewolves to suck the blood of each other in order to outfox and outflank themselves in the competition.
To me , all the horse trading and brinksmanship associated with politics, politicking and ‘ politricks’ are welcome as long as they do not imperil or derail our hard earned democracy.
Onyibe, an entrepreneur, public policy analyst, author, development strategist, alumnus of Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, Massachusetts, USA, and a former commissioner in Delta State government, sent this piece from Lagos.

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Strictly Personal

In defence of fuel subsidy in Nigeria, By Chidi Chinedu

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This argument is for the people.

There is now a near-unanimous rejection of the petrol subsidy regime in Nigeria. This is now the popular position. I fear that with the deification of this position, some valid arguments in favour of petrol subsidy within Nigeria’s unique socio-economic context are being denied oxygen, with grave, even existential, threat to the people. To surrender the argument to a government uninterested in ending its imperial status— with all its attendant costs— and an egotistic liberal economic elite buoyed by affirmations within its intellectual bubble, and determined to test the furthest free market theories on the already pulverized masses, is a position I cannot accept.

There has been a growing socio-economic inattentional blindness among Nigeria’s ruling and liberal economic intellectual elite regarding the petrol subsidy issue. They have almost entirely embraced the Bretton Woods position on the petrol subsidy expenditure which isolates it as a drain on national resources, costing the country multiple other development opportunities. This position is flawed, I reckon. In Nigeria, isolating fuel subsidy as a purely wasteful consumption spend is an error. Within the context of Nigeria’s energy crisis, inflation surge, purchasing power squeeze, and general cost of production challenges, petrol subsidy cannot be so rightly isolated.

Caution and contemplation are key in this debate. Scholarly tentativeness and intellectual humility are paramount. One ideological strand in economics cannot be gospel. It cannot be unchallengeable. It cannot be treated as an absolute truth. Our pro-subsidy removal economists (who also champion free float of the currency and other free market reforms) must be realistic enough to recognize that economics is not an exact science. An economic proposal, more often than not, cannot solely determine its own destiny; it depends on some other variables. It is only this realization that will allow for expanded thinking and pragmatic, as against ideological, propositions. I reckon that what has become the subsidy conundrum has a hybrid solution, not an entirely free market solution, given the peculiarities of Context Nigeria.

The fuel subsidy regime does not exist in isolation. In Nigeria, it is simplistic, even inaccurate, to suggest that petrol subsidy is merely subsidizing consumption (not that it is entirely indefensible to argue for subsidy on consumption); it is subsidizing production as well. The Nigerian subsidy story is different. The Nigerian context strips some of the general oft-repeated theoretical principles against subsidy, like “don’t subsidize consumption”, “it is the rich that are being subsidized” and “government needs the money to drive development” of their force of truth; I will explain.

“In Nigeria, petrol subsidy is a purchasing power argument. It is a production argument. It is a local economy energizer argument. It is not merely a consumption argument”. 

Regarding production and energizing of local economies, petrol subsidy within the context of Nigeria’s energy crisis provides useful insights. According to the World Bank, 85 million Nigerians (43% of the population) do not have access to grid electricity, representing the largest energy access deficit globally.

To survive the grid energy exclusion, individuals, households and businesses resort to reliance on generators. According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), generators powered by petrol, diesel and gas provide 48.6 percent of the electricity consumed by power users across the country. Of this figure, petrol-powered generators account for the bulk of the share, at 22.6 percent.

Overall, an estimated 60 million people use generators to provide electricity for their homes and businesses. According to the International Renewable Energy Agency’s (IRENA), 84% of urban households use backup power supply systems such as fossil diesel/ gasoline generators, while 86% of the companies in Nigeria own or share a generator, making Nigeria the highest importer of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) and diesel generators in Africa as of 2022.

“Nigerian households and businesses spend an estimated $22 billion annually to fuel generators powering their homes and business”. 

The June 2022 report by Stears and Sterling, titled, “Nigeria’s State of Power: Electrifying the Nation’s Economy,” provides some useful insights. It reveals that:

“Over 40 per cent of Nigerian households own generators, and bear the associated costs. First, the cost of purchasing generators – an estimated $500m between 2015 and 2019, higher than the proposed capital expenditure in Nigeria’s 2022 budget.

“There is also the cost of powering these generators. Sources and estimates vary widely, but the African Development Bank estimated that Nigerians spend $14bn fuelling petrol or diesel powered generators.

“While PMS (Premium Motor Spirit) or petrol prices have been kept artificially low for the consumers through subsidies, variations in AGO (Automotive Gas Oil) or diesel prices can have a severe impact on households and businesses as Nigerians are currently experiencing.”

There is telling data from the report on how the largely stable price of petrol due to the subsidy regime helps small businesses survive. “These prices make the small petrol generators more attractive to households and MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises)”, the report stated.

“It is estimated that…In countries with low electricity reliability, the proportion of SMEs using a generator is higher, reaching 86 per cent in Nigeria.”

I have taken pains to show how inextricably linked access to electricity is to petrol subsidy because this point is hardly stated by anti-subsidy advocates. Only recently, the NNPC boss, Mele Kyari, in defending the removal of subsidy, said the country was mostly subsidizing the rich. He, like others, uses car-ownership status as one key measure of ‘the rich’. I’ve always found this argument puzzling. The number of small commercial vehicles relying on petrol belongs to the rich too? Millions of Nigerians relying on petrol-powered commercial vehicles because of the absence of public transportation are enjoying some subsidy luxury?

It is also curious that the argument about lack of capacity for local refining of petrol being largely responsible for the cost of subsidies is now being abandoned. The NNPC boss said the coming of Dangote refinery and eventual return of Nigeria’s refineries would not impact price of petrol significantly. So, what is being said is that the people will now be at the mercy of the markets, essentially having to deal with another heavy cost burden in the foreseeable future, within an already killing cost of living crisis. This is the new normal. An era of price hikes. The argument on how competition and market forces would swing price eventually to the consumer is a curious one too. Swing it to what range? If what has happened with the deregulated diesel and kerosene prices are anything to go by, the petrol price band will for the foreseeable future remain a menacing threat to the people’s standard of living.

The reliance of SMEs, especially, on petrol (as with owners and passengers of petrol-powered commercial vehicles) and petrol-powered generators is a counter to the argument that we are merely subsidizing consumption. SMEs within the formal and informal economies rely greatly on petrol. Removing the subsidy has just triggered an unprecedented price disruption with grave implications for these businesses and their consumers.

I have heard the argument about the unsustainability of petrol subsidy, given Nigeria’s revenue and debt crises. That’s a government argument, a convenient one. That’s not the fault of the people. If the government were serious about waste, prudence and efficiency, then a holistic reform proposal should be advanced. It must include, reining in the size of government, blocking leakages, cutting waste, fighting corruption, and ending subsidies for the actual rich.

“..the total waivers granted by the Nigerian government surpassed its total revenue by 71.3 per cent”

Speaking of subsidies for the actual rich, data from the nation’s Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper (MTEF/FSP) 2023-2025 show that Nigerian government granted waivers, incentives and exemptions worth N2.296 trillion in 2021 to different beneficiaries through the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) while Customs’ total revenue collection in 2021 was only N1.34 trillion. This implies that the total waivers granted by the Nigerian government surpassed its total revenue by 71.3 per cent.

The Federal Government’s introduction of import Duty Exemption Certificate (IDEC) through the Ministry of Finance exempting critical players from payment of import duties and other statutory Customs charges has been alleged to have cost the country a whopping N16 trillion in fraudulent manipulation of the system. Some companies, individuals and other entities were alleged to have abused the system and shortchanged the Federal Government of revenue by hiding under the waiver policy to evade duty on imported goods that are dutiable.

“Senate Committee on Finance had frowned at the N6 trillion tax and import duty waivers proposed by the Nigerian government in the 2023 budget, while pushing for wastages and leakages in the nation’s public sector to be blocked”.

It helps to remember that the Senate Committee on Finance had frowned at the N6 trillion tax and import duty waivers proposed by the Nigerian government in the 2023 budget while pushing for wastages and leakages in the nation’s public sector to be blocked.

I have seen calls for interventions to cushion the impact of the subsidy removal on the people. Things like provision of public transportation and minimum wage increase have been proposed. I believe these proposals underestimate the multiplier force of petrol subsidy in Nigeria. With its removal, the price of virtually every commodity has gone up significantly. Yemi Kale, former NBS boss, estimates that the removal will take inflation to 30 percent. This is at a time the people have been battling high prices of commodities. How can limited provision of public transportation or marginal increase in minimum wage mostly for federal workers stem this system-wide disruption? There are structural issues, like electricity deficit and other cost of production issues, which put these interventions in their proper context— a dangling reed in a deserted island.

And if increase in minimum wage triggers further inflation, what value of the increase would be left? Won’t this just amount to a circular price movement— akin to taking us on a deluded journey to escape a cost of living crisis and arriving at the same point of departure ?

“how can the government which has failed to manage a subsidy regime that has inherent capacity for inclusive reach, design and manage a benefits system entirely dependent on its managerial capacity and integrity?”

Some have argued that the savings from the subsidy would be channelled to proper development priorities. This is the argument of the government as well. They seem to be arguing that the subsidy spending is a waste, a drain on national resources. While I can relate with the corruption part of the subsidy regime, I vehemently reject the dismissal of the petrol subsidy as a waste. They appear to be saying that unless we subject public expenditure to some government programme that plans the disbursement of funds and decides winners and losers, the spending is of inferior value. I reject this. This stems from unreasonable faith in the capacity of government; how can the government which has failed to manage a subsidy regime that has inherent capacity for inclusive reach, design and manage a benefits system entirely dependent on its managerial capacity and integrity?

“I believe petrol subsidy is the most direct, inclusive, impactful and far-reaching government benefits distribution system within the Nigerian context”

Contrary to this position, I believe the petrol subsidy is the most direct, inclusive, impactful and far-reaching government benefits distribution system within the Nigerian context. We have seen failed attempts at palliative distribution. The social welfare system of the Buhari administration continues to suffer credibility issues as many believe it has been neither widespread, verifiable, or inclusive.

Some have even pointed to how many hard infrastructure projects could have been executed with the monies used for subsidy payments. It is as if they are saying hard infrastructure takes precedence over human development. This is a flawed argument. There is a reason why HDI is deemed an essential measure of a country’s development. Both can, and should, be prioritized.

“In the long run, we’re all dead”.

Finally, to the economists who ask the longsuffering Nigerian masses to exercise further patience, to have faith that the government’s reforms would yield lasting fruits, and that the free market would resolve the issues in their favour in the long run, may I kindly remind them of John Maynard Keynes’ famous quote that “In the long run, we’re all dead”.

In fact, I reproduce it in full:

“But this long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run, we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us, that when the storm is long past, the ocean is flat again.”

Chinedu Chidi, public commentator, writes from Abuja, Nigeria and can be reached via chlobe24.cc@gmail.com

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Strictly Personal

Uganda’s expiration pandemic: Expired courses, drugs, brains…By Joachim Buwembo

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I swear, Ugandans on Twitter will not go to Heaven! And it is not just on account of the cruel comments they make when a prominent personality dies. It is about their views on everything and anything. They closed the month of May by dismissing everything as expired.

It started with an inadvertently ambiguous statement from the National Council of Higher Education, NCHE, which categorised many courses offered at both public and private universities as “expired”.

It transpires that courses are supposed to be assessed and periodically reassessed, but this has not been done for many courses by the relevant universities with approval of NCHE.

The clarification came quickly but not quickly enough. Whoever drafted that notice started regretting the minute it hit public media, as it became a feast of mincemeat on Twitter.

One of the earliest tweets was of resignation, saying that it was all obvious as expired courses had produced expired health workers who administered expired contraceptives to women, which led to the birth of expired babies, who are now offering expired services to the public.

You can say that this cruel diagnosis is itself logically expired. Unfortunately, there seems to be evidence around that expiry is the real malaise dogging our steps, whichever direction we want to take. With apparently expired experts directing the economy (locally pronounced enkonome), full national recovery from Covid-19 and Ukraine seems to be taking rather long.

The public debt has grown beyond 50 percent of GDP and the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) is not collecting enough. But how can it conceivably collect enough when the biggest taxable sources are themselves expired?

One of URA’s cash cows is importation of old cars that expired long ago in the countries of origin. The terribly fuel-inefficient contraptions thus guzzle sinful quantities of fuel — which is heavily taxed.

The fuel itself is expired, the type that was long abandoned by developed countries, with lots of sulphur, poisoning the poor Ugandan bodies, as it gets pumped into the air around us.

The other tax cash cow is beer, which is an expiry accelerator that makes humans age faster and the drinker’s brain to expire rapidly.

But a tax source even bigger than petrol, old cars or beer is expired mobile phone services. Although these services are the in-thing in a poor country, they are still rudimentary, as the digital capabilities are underutilised.

Things like 5G are more talk than reality and buying the best phone on the world market will not give you the experience it should when you use it here. But we cannot say much because many expired journalists are scared of criticising mobile service providers because they are big advertisers who, if annoyed, can hurt the journalists’ employers, it is often said.

With such expired sources of tax revenue, the country has little option but to rely on expired loan arrangements to finance its budget. The loans are designed in expired format by expired minds of the lenders. The lenders operate with the expired philosophy that the borrower is not supposed to think smartly, hence the skewed terms that are the cry of poor nations all over the globe.

They had started running away from major Western lenders, citing being given embarrassing “conditionalities” for the loans. They ran to new lenders whose mentality turned out to be even more expired, leaning more towards the Shakespearean Shylock from Merchant of Venice, whose method of loan recovery was to slice a pound (half kilo) of flesh off the borrower’s chest.

Now the borrowers are running back to the older expired lenders, as the expired debt pendulum swings back and forth ceaselessly. The borrowers themselves are exhausted with expiration and are even rumoured to be going to commercial money lenders next.

But, not to worry much, the NHE has clarified by rendering the expiry term itself expired. NHE now calls the courses “un-reassessed.”

So, expiry itself has expired.

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