SUBSIDY REMOVAL SMELLS…LIKE FRESH AIR

Beware people accused of being ‘weak’! In their desperate attempt to break that attributed complex, such people might go ways where, ordinarily, even people seen as ‘strong’ may fear treading. In order to belie that fact of so-called weakness, this Administration is intent on inflicting on us a collective suffering perhaps never seen in the […]

Beware people accused of being ‘weak’! In their desperate attempt to break that attributed complex, such people might go ways where, ordinarily, even people seen as ‘strong’ may fear treading. In order to belie that fact of so-called weakness, this Administration is intent on inflicting on us a collective suffering perhaps never seen in the history of this nation.

But let us face reality: removal of fuel subsidy is almost definitely going to happen. And, in a country such as ours riddled with sharpened ethnic and religious sensitivities, perhaps after the initial strikes and protests, we shall all resign ourselves to the inevitable fact of living with no subsidy at all, and the so-called cartel now enjoying our N1.1 trillion exchanged for another, ostensibly PDP, cartel. After all, this is the same country down which throat IMF Conditionalities were forced by a military dictator back in the mid-1980s, and he survived for many years more.

Fuel subsidy removal is unacceptable. And it should never be supported. Better that cartel continues to enjoy its largesse than Nigerians to be freshened with the latest air of suffering, after the twin sufferings of lack of security and lack of electricity. But we should be rationale enough to know that, with PDP in power, suffering will continue to be our lot. Therefore, we should start discussing post-fuel subsidy removal because these people want to show us that they are not weak; in fact, it is the 167 million of us that are.

Now, for the sake of argument, let us assume subsidy is removed, as it may well be. After all, this elastic PDP government has been inflicting pain on all of us, and we have been ‘returning’ them to power. So, if they remove it, where would you want your One Point One Trillion Naira to go? Would you want it in the hands of the Federal Government or your state governments or your local governments? No, I hear you say.

OK then. To be the Devil’s Advocate, what is the Best Thing that can happen to Nigeria in the New Year? That fuel subsidy is NOT removed. But supposed it is removed, what should be the Second Best thing that can happen? That the subsidy so removed does not fall into the hands of cartels worse than the ones now enjoying it. And how can it not fall into such? We can start by asking the National Assembly to amend the Constitution so that these monies do NOT go into the Federation Account and, from there, into the hands of the three tiers of Government. And that the totality of these funds be given to people we can trust to manage them.

So, what parties did the PDP ‘defeat’ in the presidential elections this year? And who were their candidates? The top three ‘losers’ last April, in descending order, were the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) represented by General Muhammmadu Buhari; the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) represented by Mallam Nuhu Ribadu; and the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP) represented by Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau. Without being too parochial in our judgement, these three people can be said to be people of proven relative integrity, compared to what we have in the political arena today.

So without prejudice to the forthcoming Supreme Court judgement between the PDP and CPC (though most people have their expectations), let the current president, if he succeeds in removing the subsidy, not take a kobo out of it, and let him beg and cajole these three former presidential candidates to form the core of his new PTF-like outfit to manage it. We then go to other non-political spaces to get other relatively honest people to make the Board.

Recently, the Government published and distributed widely a document it calls

Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme, SURE. Yes, sure! It documents the good things it wants to do with the ‘saved’ monies. Beautiful. Only snag is, the same Government has been saying it would do the same since it came to power back in 1999. And they have not done so and, if these monies get into their hands again, bye bye. After all, someone sent me this text: “Do not steal; the Government does not like competition.”

And now, SALARY HARAM. A few paragraphs earlier in this piece, we mentioned ‘sharpened ethnic and religious sensitivities.’ And what sharpens these sensitivities is the insensitivity in some quarters. You may recall that, on Saturday November 5, in a piece titled ‘Barka da Sallah’ on this page, we had said: “Since they say ‘justice delayed is justice denied’, they must allow me to say ‘salary delayed is Sallah denied’. I tell you, many Nigerians, especially Muslims, are angry, very angry, for the inexplicable delay in the payment of October salaries. Therefore, if government pays anyone any salary BEFORE the 25th of December, we ARE going to make noise about it. A lot of really serious noise. Because, after all, ‘one man’s ram is another man’s hamper’. Kawai!”

Now it has come to pass that not only have December salaries been paid almost all over the Nigerian nation, even hampers are changing hands in government circles. Now, this column is SCREAMING AT THE TOP OF ITS VOICE that this is unfair, inequitable, unjust. We do not accept this and we will not accept it. Government MUST recall all the December salaries paid and the hampers shared, or else the nation’s citizens who were denied Sallah Rams must be doubly compensated and apologised to. Anything short of this is unacceptable. At all.

Further, but for fear of ‘overheating the polity’, we will say as follows: For the first time in the history of Christmas anywhere in the world, for the purpose of enjoying a long holiday, Nigeria has named Monday 26 December as ‘Christmas Day’, and Tuesday December 27 as ‘Boxing Day’. While we congratulate our Christian compatriots for this longish holiday, there must be equity next time because, if we remember correctly, anytime Sallah is celebrated on a weekend, only ONE day is given as Public Holiday.

Now, therefore, we must ask for our rights here. While both communities continue sharing May 29 and October 1 as National Holidays, let us propose 2012 holidays: Christians will have as holidays New Year (one working day, since my Islamic New Year is still not recognised nationally), Easter (two working days) and Christmas (two working days). Therefore Muslims will ask for Eid el Maulud (one working day, even if weekend), Eid el Fitr (two working days, even if observed on a weekend) and Eid el Kabir (ditto). That’s equity, that’s fairness. On those holidays I stand. They smell like fresh air.