“Subsidy serves the rich”—meaning that the poor do not enjoy subsidy—has been the fattest lie I have ever heard in the past six decades of my life in Nigeria.
It is told by a group of elites who will never suffer deprivation due to the privileges accorded them by decades of corruption. The most annoying thing is that they have told this lie time and again without blinking an eye whenever the Nigerian government, at the behest of our masters—the IMF, World Bank and international banking institutions—wants to withdraw a service it offers the generality of its citizens.
What will they lose by telling this lie? Nothing. They have homes in world capitals, billions in their accounts, families living overseas and spending holidays there. Their perception of reality and sense of danger is completely different from those of 99% of our citizens who are always living on the brink of poverty and insecurity.
Incapable of good governance and afraid of what it will deprive them of their privileges, they advise every leader to take a short cut: remove the subsidy. Then they hurriedly coverup their treachery with another fat lie: because it is impossible to fight corruption. How can they allow any leader fight corruption since they are its direct beneficiaries?
In the end, the subsidy will be removed and the leeches are all happy because they are allowed the opportunity to further suck the blood of our citizens through the criminal profits they will be making on essential commodities. The resultant voice of suffering does not move them one bit.
Two examples here would suffice. Fertilizer and fuel.
Fertilizer
The last administration was the first to adamantly remove every subsidy on fertilizer in 2016 under the pretext that it benefits the middlemen. Many of us argued then that it was the responsibility of government to protect its citizens from the activities of such middlemen, be they civil servants or businessmen. Abdicating that responsibility and punishing the citizens instead by removing the subsidy completely negates the trust given the government by the electorate.
The tragic side of it was that the people were clapping for the government, which they gave a blank cheque to do as it liked. 2016 became a year of hunger. Today, the high cost of fertilizer has crippled the productivity of most farmers and if it were not for the ban on importation of rice and some other items, nothing would have been left.
The price of food is unbearable to most families and consumers are crying “open the borders”, as I can see from a survey on my Facebook page. When I asked if the ban on importation of food can be lifted regardless of whether farmers and agriculture would be killed, the majority rhetorically asked, “How many times have we died in the hands of the farmers?”
Fuel
I know the new government which I side with on other matters has taken a final decision on the matter of fuel subsidy. Unfortunately, the amiable leadership style of the President has blinded the common man from seeing the evidently unbearable difficulties associated with the decision, as usual. But the evidence is here. Each of us can see it, touch it.
Movement—the conveyor of life and the economy—has been impeded so severely that crucial activities like education have for the first time been threatened. States are reducing working days, including schooling days, to just three a week, in a country where e-learning is yet to pick up in majority of families that patronize public schools. Streets and highways are half empty. It is like another pandemic.
If it is true that the poor do not benefit from subsidy, why would they be so constrained by the new price of petrol which is now one of the highest in the world despite our low per capita income? And very soon prices of food and other essential commodities will respond and life for even the civil servant that may be lucky to negotiate a 25% increase on his present miserable salary will become unbearable.
Economists consistently promise that with time things will get better for the citizens if we just allow government to remove one subsidy or another. But nothing ever got better. Prices have never dropped in the long run. Diesel, we were told, had no subsidy at N260 per litre. What made it reach N880 for over a year and now sells N685? The Dollar? Then how are we sure that the Naira will not lose its value further in the near future when a common dollar exchange rate of say N635/dollar is fixed and what will the price of petrol be then—N800/litre? I am tired of these lies that have been ramming my ears since 1986.
To sum up the effects of these fat lies is the increasing number of the poor among us: 130million Nigerians now live below the poverty line if we are to believe our last President. How can this vectors of poverty continue to be so apathetic?
Solution
I do not believe that there is anyone stronger than government. I still believe that every government has the primary responsibility of protecting its citizens from leeches and subsidizing life for them. We form governments and submit to them precisely for this reason. Continuous abdication of this responsibility is not an argument I can buy.
I, therefore, suggest that our new President tightens his belt and ride rough with those who have been stealing our commonwealth in various sectors. This is what we hoped and missed in every President since 1999. Our indefatigable Femi Falana has recently published a list of 22 cogent areas where billions of Dollars are bunkered into the pockets of thieves.
Go after them, Mr. President. It is not that difficult today as it was in 1984 when we had no institutions on ground to do the job and no computers or Internet applications to track records and retrieve them from databases with the speed of light. Those billions of Dollars to be recovered and saved from the exercise are enough to permit a downward review of the current fuel price and fund infrastructural development as well. I am 100% with Femi Falana on this.
Fighting corruption is an inescapable duty of any responsible government. Corruption is the clog in the wheel of good governance, not subsidy—the purpose of governance. The new government must reject the fattest and the most dangerous lie often told in this country. Fighting corruption is possible. Fuel subsidy in a regime of a responsible government is also possible.
