FUEL PRICE HIKE: YAR’ADUA’S DNA OF FAILURE
Most Nigerians would agree that is it high time we negotiate the release of our President, Alhaji Umaru Ya’Adua, who has displayed all attributes of a hostage, this time not in the hands of resource rights activists of the Niger Delta but by the President’s do- nothing style of governance.
Nobody in this country needs to be told that the president not only has zero-tolerance for corruption and disregard for the rule of law as he claims, but also zero kinetics in moving both the national economy and the lives of the people forward. With over eight months in power, the mystery of what he intends to do to better the lot of the Nigerian people has remained what it actually is - a mystery which is known only in his mind.
Since 27 May 2007 that he was sworn-in, the President cannot claim to have either successfully initiated and/or executed a single tangible project or workable policy/programme. Sorry, he has been displaying reversed dynamism in upturning whatever perceived wrong done by his predecessor, Chief Gen Obasanjo, and has remarkably failed to replace those Obasanjo’s wrong decisions with any of his.
Nigerians are fast loosing patience with what could rightly be described as a do nothing president. Fond of vaporous abstractions, the President sometimes looks more like the junior professor he once was than a political leader surrounded by very colourless ministers. So far, his government policies have turn out half-baked and most times outrightly uninformed especially on issues pertaining to the oil and gas subsector and even the entire energy sector.
Take for instance when he contemplated unbundling the NNPC by a mere executive directive rather than a legislative promulgation; in the downstream oil sector, he started by vowing that all the three existing refineries would come back full stream within sixty days only for his junior minister of Energy (Petroleum) to declare few days later the hopelessness of the refineries which may require God-knows when to come alive to acceptable production performance; the force majeure on power supply through building of new gas turbine stations across the country without a single thought of where the gas feedstock is going to come from; and now the ongoing ‘no-do-I-go-do’ scheming to jack-up the domestic prices of fuels on the excuse of erratic global energy market.
Interestingly, President Yar’Adua at different times since the beginning of the turbulence in the world energy market had made several pronouncements with most of them outrightly contradicting each other. “Fuel subsidy has become unbearable and government may not be able to continue with the policy; Government is determined to stem the effect of oil price hike on the domestic scene through subsidy; government is determined to find a way to check any social unrest that may trail the action (increase in existing fuel price regime).” So where is the President actually standing on this issue because he cannot stand everywhere at the same time?
Under the pretence of concern for the persisting turbulence in the global oil markets, the President reportedly ordered the ministers of Labour and Energy (Petroleum) to meet with organised Labour on how to “strike a balance between the global energy crisis and the well-being of Nigerians”. The mandate which was as vague as every other directive from the Yar’Adua Presidency can aptly be interpreted to indicate that the President wanted the two ministers to negotiate with Labour on appropriate pricing of petroleum products- in other words, a new price regime.
Though the NLC had insisted that “in view of the escalating poverty level and the desperate state of productive activities in the country, there is no basis for price increase,” the stage is perfectly set for the compulsory price hike and the only thing to be discussed now between the two ministers and Labour is the appropriate horizon to hang the price. This is the truth.
The surprising aspect in this entire fuel price hike is that the incumbent president who has not done a single thing to improve the lives of the people he is supposed to be ruling is even contemplating worsening the plights of the people. Why is fuel price increase a more important policy to be implemented now than helping the Power Holding Company to at least give Nigerians four hours of continuous electricity supply in an average day? Haba Mr President!
Agreed that the rising cost of crude oil in the international oil market would obviously affect the domestic price regime of petroleum products in Nigeria because almost 100 percent of products consumed locally are imported from countries that we are far better than in terms of all indices of economic ranking, who is to be blamed or rather who should bear the brunt for such abysmal failure of government policies- the already battered Nigerian populace or the government?
Since the latest round of oil windfall started coming into the federal government’s purse over year two years ago, what percentage of it has been used to re-awaken the nation’s dead refineries or established new ones? How many of the Nigerian private operators given local refining licenses have been assisted (empowered) to actualize the dream of building new plants? Since Yar’Adua took over power eight months ago, what portion of the excess oil revenue has he asked the National Assembly to approve for complete overhaul of existing refineries or for works on new plants? So what are we talking about?
Moreso, Nigerians were publicly deceived by the NNPC under the Obasanjo presidency to believe that with the ill-informed deregulation policy, competition among marketers would result in price -crash within few months of implementation. Rather than come down, prices of fuels have continued to sky-rocket and ever since, the NNPC and the DPR just sat down watching the two Obasanjo-created waste pipes, the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) and Petroleum Equalisation Fund (PEF) feast on the lives of Nigerian people.
What has this country achieved by the establishment and continued keeping of PPPRA and PEF? What are, in real terms, the specific functions of both agencies that were not and cannot be handled by existing structures in concerned strategic business units of the nation’s fuel distribution subsector? The PPPRA and PEF have done nothing except campaigning and helping create people-hostile scenarios simply to remain relevant in the already unbalanced fuel subsidy equation. How long can Nigerians continue to tolerate this show of outright insensitivity by our imposed rulers?
Facts and figures have been used to establish beyond doubt that the PPPRA and PEF contributed tangibly to the overhead costs of fuel in the country. So the question is: why are we still keeping these two agencies that so far had acted only as drain pipes to the national economy rather frugally administering fuel distribution and marketing business on behalf of the Federal Government.
Both the PPPRA and PEF get certain percentages (and a good one indeed) from the current theoretical N70 per litre of petrol to fund their agencies without contributing in any way to the efficiency of the distributing channels, rather the agencies even worsen the existing channels by fraudulently withholding and diverting funds meant to offset the transportation differential by both major and independent marketers.
Maybe the President needs to be informed, since he is now out of tune with the reality of the Nigerian fuel distribution and marketing situation, that there is no price uniformity in the country to warrant the existence and sustenance of PEF and PPPRA. Umauru, Umauru are you………?
By IFEANYI IZEZE,
iizeze@yahoo.com