For the past few days, I have been researching the fraud and scam called ”fuel subsidy” in Nigeria. It is very pathetic that Nigerians including Omoyele Sowore continue to believe that there is a fuel subsidy in Nigeria. Unless we remove this facade of lies and strip the notion of ”fuel subsidy” naked, Nigerians will never understand that they have been scammed on the notion of ”fuel subsidy” for the past 24 years.
During the electioneering campaign, Tinubu said he was going to remove ”fuel subsidy” but Tinubu did not say he would increase the price of petrol to N500 per litre. The word ”subsidy” was a technical jargon deployed to hide the true intention of Tinubu, Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar who all promised to remove subsidies. What they actually meant by ”subsidy” removal is the astronomical increase in fuel price.
It is important to address this fraud called ”fuel subsidy” and unmask the lies behind it. Before the Obsanjo regime, most of our fuel was produced by the local refineries and the production always satisfied local consumption. It was during the Obsanjo regime that local refineries gradually stopped working and fuel importation was introduced to Nigerians. It was at that period that the word ”subsidy” was introduced into national discourses. Now, let’s look at this issue this way. More than 80 percent of fuel consumption in Nigeria is now imported. The question here is that: would foreign refineries accept naira to export fuel to Nigeria? The answer is no. The foreign refineries will require dollars or Euro as the case may be. Where is that dollar going to come from? It is from the sale of Nigerian crude oil abroad by the NNPC and other oil multinationals. So if we deduct Nigeria’s oil receipt (made in dollars) from fuel import (made also in dollars), the difference shows that there is nothing like fuel subsidy.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, Nigeria accrued $45.6 billion as oil revenue in 2022. In 2022, NNPC claimed to have spent $9.7 billion on oil ”subsidy”. The subsidy in this parlance means the cost of freight, shipping and other landing charges. This means that Nigeria still has a surplus of $36.9 billion. Can anybody now point out where the ”subsidy” is in this surplus? Bearing in mind that NNPC (now NNPCL) has been the sole importer of fuel into the country since 2016. The same NNPC together with Multinational oil companies are also in charge of selling crude oil abroad.
The invention of ”subsidy” was orchestrated as part of the conditionalities for more loans and debt forgiveness by the World Bank and IMF in 2000/2001. The scam around ”subsidy” was concocted to deceive Nigerians and ensure that Nigerians are buying fuel at the international market rate as recommended by the IMF/World Bank. This policy was first initiated by the Obasanjo regime and supported by Ngozi Nkonjo-Iweala, Charles Soludo and other bankrupt and pseudo-economists that we have around. The push back by the Nigerians especially Labour unions and Civil society over the years have prevented the implementation of these policies. Tinubu’ regime and his hordes of half-baked economists are even more IMF than IMF/World Bank in thinking.
These residues of hopeless and worthless Tinubu’s economists are of the opinion that IMF policies are not radical enough, and they are determined to go beyond IMF/World Bank medicine in foisting more hardship on the country.
However, one thing that is very sure is that peoples’ resistance to Tinubu regime’s attacks on their livelihood is not a matter of ”if” but ”when.
