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Fuel crisis: A change of strategy
IFECHUKWU C. UKWUEGBU
OIL became
a tool of international politics after the Arab-Israel War of 1973 (Yom Kippor
War). That was when the Arab world converted the free gift of nature which
they are endowed with to an instrument of war. The situation then, was a
frustrated Western world whose economy was oil-driven. The worst hit countries
then were Japan and Holland. The citizens of these countries along with other
affected countries started using bicycle and other non-fuel consuming
transport systems to drive their economy.
There were pictures in magazines then of
Japanese and Dutch Prime Ministers going to their office on bicycle. On a long
term solution, Western countries started the venture into non-oil energy
sources. OPEC became prominent and started determining the price of fuel. At the
same period quota of production for countries came into existence. Trusting the
power of the Western Countries, apart from looking into other sources of energy,
the need to lobby and control oil production countries became their goal. Today,
while the oil machinery is still where it was then, the control and manipulation
of the leaders are now in the hand of the Western nations.
The major oil producing countries, Saudi
Arabia, Iraq and recently Libya as well as the cartel, OPEC, are within the axis
of control of the oil consuming countries. The ones they could not get by
political manoeuvre, they use brute force to achieve.
The genesis of oil/petrol crisis in
Nigeria started with the regime of Babangida. That was the period of Structural
Adjustment Programme (SAP), when through the manipulation of the World Bank, our
government was asked to remove subsidy in the price of fuel and other public
utilities. Our government agreed and since then, the oil sector has not known
peace. Also, our government at the same time saw the oil refineries as sources
of personal enrichment. Huge sums of money were allocated for turn-around
maintenance of the refineries which were never used for the purpose. Allocation
of oil blocks was politicized and instead of giving them to technocrats in the
field, they are used to placate friends or favour interest groups in the name of
indigenisation.
Today, the common resource of the country
is discreetly used to meet individual greed through, turnaround maintenance fee
paid with no maintenance, allocation of oil blocks, allocation of crude oil to
individuals who sale them at the spot market etc. With all these, the common man
carries the burden through frequent increase in the cost of petroleum resources
for local consumption. The after effect of this, is the frequent call for strike
which seems to be the only known tool of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC).
The pattern has always been the same, the
Federal government increases fuel price, the Nigerian Labour Congress calls for
a strike, the populace willingly or unwillingly follow the NLC, a negotiation
begins and at the end of the Federal government and NLC agree a price higher
than where they started. A win-win situation according to marketing gurus. The
success or failure of each strike exercise has always been a subject of debate.
Should we continue the deceitful macabre round robbin dance of fuel
increase-strike-fuel increase. We need a different strategy and as solution to
this perennial crisis that continues to rear its head in our dear country and
inhibit the progress of individuals and the country. Immediately after the last
strike, government spokesmen came up with the fact that the only option
available for the country to progress is total deregulation which otherwise
implies increase in fuel price and the incessant strikes.
Deregulation and removal of subsidy have
been the catchwords of the present administration.
Deregulation, we are told by the
economist, means allowing the market forces to determine the price of product.
Proponents continue to make reference to the telecommunication industry, with
the regular availability of telephone lines (Land or Mobile) as its gain. The
cost of consumption and its personal effect on the individual budget
notwithstanding.
We are meant to believe that the Federal
government is subsidizing some of our consumptions hence removal of subsidy to
allow the government to transfer cost to the consumer. To the federal
government, subsidy is eroding the financial resources that would have been used
to provide more valuable social services to the general public and that the
benefits go only to the wealthy in the society. With subsidy, deregulation
becomes unrealistic, which makes private investment in the downstream sector of
the oil operation unattractive. What is not clear is whether the subsidy is to
meet the cost of operation or the service the high level corruption in the
government.
Personally, deregulation and removal of
subsidy are necessary, if the gains of the two economic factors will get to the
common man. But the problem in our country presently is the level of corruption,
and profligacy, which are endemic in government operation, and take the gains of
these laudable economic factors away from the ordinary Nigerian, hence the worry
of the majority of Nigerians and the Nigerian Labour Congress.
The level of corruption in governance is
so high that it is an international issue with monitoring agencies given our
dear country a negative result every time. The federal government goes about
paying only lip-service to the fight against it. Obvious levels of corruption
are there for every eye despite the due-process slogan of the Federal
government. The agents of government want the ordinary citizens to report what
is glaring everywhere. Whom do we report to when every person in government has
his own price. The story is told that the Customs Department only publicize the
catch of a smuggler whenever the under the table negotiation fails, otherwise
how come the camel continues to pass through the needle’s eye?
The Police PRO wants Nigerians to report
any act of extortion by the police to a higher police authority. What a fallacy.
A story is told of a citizen who went to a police station to report an act of
robbery, only to see the very robber at the counter in police uniform to receive
the report. Nobody told him to turn back and run for his dear life.
Take a trip along our major highways and
see how the police patrol teams on the roads have turned travelling into a
nightmare both to the commercial vehicles and private car owners. Maybe, as some
top police personnel used to say, it is a national malaise that need to be
nationally handled by the national leaders. But where are the leaders to do
that. We are waiting for the messiah. The recent clash between the police and
the air-force-men is a good omen for we bloody civilians. If the clash had been
with the civilians the police PRO would have gone free with his lies and the
effect on the civilians would have been devastating. Of course, there will be no
probe and the government will agree with the police.
The level of waste and profligacy are the
other problems that inhibit the positive development of the economy. The volume
of fuel being consumed daily in the country is just too high for the population.
The multifarious, and frivolous trips by government personnel are of prohibitive
cost to the government. The vious first ladies have turned their offices to
prolific source of jamboree, where the display of wealth is the order of the
day. Not quite long ago our prime first lady took a plane load of women to USA
to sing ‘O se o Jesu’ for her child’s graduation. A story is told of how a,
not-so-high employee of NNPC, who made a request for fuel from the Corporation
to run his generator during the fuel crisis for his mother’s burial, was given a
tanker load. We all know what that means, 33,000 litres of fuel free-of-charge
to run generator. May be a shipload of the fuel or crude oil will be given if
such request had come from the Group Managing Director or any of the Executive
Directors. At the end of the day, all these cost are transferred to the common
man in the street with the aphorism "removal of subsidy".
Today, the most lucrative, job is
political appointment, or government service, be it federal, state or local
government. The consequent adverse effect is the strangulation of personal
entrepreneur and professionalism. Until the reverse is realised, the whole
concept of needs will be an exercise in futility. Afterall, all the expected
gains of NEEDS anchor on private enterprise development. How will that
development come to be if everybody is aspiring to be a political appointee or
government employee, where within months you are endowed with exotic cars,
houses and grandiose life-style to the envy of the general public.
To wriggle out of the fuel crisis and its
ripple effects, the nation needs to adopt a new strategy alone the following
lines: Deregulation and removal of subsidy should be allowed for the economy to
grow. The point has been made that no government allows market forces to
determine consumption prices totally and that some levels of subsidy are always
necessary. The agriculture subsidy and the recent steel production subsidy in
USA are given as examples. If we review these subsidies-we shall realise they
are to improve production and not for consumption as the case of fuel subsidy is
in Nigeria.
The level of consumption, waste and
profligacy should be curtailed. The Federal Government and NLC should start a
campaign to reduce the level of consumption and waste in the economy. Many cars
are on our roads. One effect of this is the traffic jam, which consumes a lot of
fuel.
People should be advised to reduce the
high-level fuel consumption by minimal use of private cars. Employers of labour
should provide mass transit vehicles. They should encourage their workers to
make use of them rather than personal cars. The government at all levels should
be sincere in the development of mass transit transportation system. Not the
type of exercise that the Lagos State Government did on the Victoria Island
where 14-seater buses are called mass transit buses, but ironically used to
replace older 14-seater buses. The situation on the Victoria Island has returned
to the status quo no matter the colour of the buses, terrible traffic jam and
long wait of commuters.
Our level of endurance and avoidance
should increase such that if the price of a commodity is increased
unnecessarily, we should stop to buy to force it to come down. The practice of
buying and storing fuel at any price to be on the road will not help in any
struggle against fuel increase. The buying of phone recharge card at higher
price is uncalled for. Afterall, a few years ago all of us lived without the
phone. We should not rely on strikes to solve the problem whenever Adam
Oshiomhole and some civil rights advocates call on us for action. All of us
should participate, not by fighting but by refusing what we consider to be
outrageous and unjustifiable prices of petroleum products. General boycott is
necessary to make marketers realistic in their price fixing.
Nigeria is endowed with vast natural and
human resources. It is the envy of most other African nations. We should have
not come to the present level of decadence, if our leaders and the populace were
sincere. Despite our wealth potentials, we go about begging for debt
forgiveness. How did we incur the debt in the first instance, and why are we
still borrowing? We do not have functional Airline, Shipping line, Railway
system and our Government is doing nothing. The only concern is oil. God save
us.
•Ukwuegbu lives in Lagos.
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