If not halted now that there's still time, the consequences of the planned removal of fuel subsidy by the Goodluck Jonathan administration come January, 2012, may be too lethal to withstand for all parties. This administration had better not test the resolve of the people on this matter.
Already, average Nigerians are disenchanted by the way and manner those elected and selected into positions of authority in this administration are crying on as if Nigerians should not have any say on how they are governed. Obviously people are angry; many and jobless, majority of those who have jobs are merely living from hand to mouth even as...
the cost of living is gradually becoming unbearable in the midst of plenty. The Nigerian Labour Congress, NLC, have already warned that the signs that led to crises in the Arab world here emerging in the Nigerian state and that anything can happen.
At the moment, the disagreement between Government and Labour over the planned removal of subsidy has deepened as Labour insisted on mass action against the policy even as it advised President Goodluck Jonathan to resign from office if he cannot do what's right for the masses.
The NLC made the call for Jonathan’s resignation against the backdrop of government’s disclosure last week that it was in the process of instituting a body of eminent and trusted Nigerians to manage the funds that would accrue from the removal of subsidy.
Labour’s position is based on the premised that “once the Jonathan administration has openly admitted that it can not be trusted to effectively manage the funds that would accrue from the proceeds of the subsidy removal, the economy and government should be handed over to the [so called] eminent Nigerians”.
NLC acting General Secretary, Owei Lakemfa, who spoke on government's latest move to get 'managers' for the funds, said: “The position of the NLC is that government is not serious. If government is telling Nigerians that it cannot be trusted, that it can't effectively administer the funds when they are realized, then it had better hand over the reins of power to those eminent Nigerians.
“The NLC has not even said it is in agreement with such a proposal from government. Government’s position on the eminent Nigerians is premised on the assumption that we have agreed that the subsidy should be removed. I’m sorry, we have not agreed.
“What government is doing is not different from a farmer who is supposed to have the capacity to utilize his farm produce for production of a variety of foodstuffs but willfully sells all his farm produce and then goes to a five-star hotel to pay a five-star price for food and turns around to say the difference is subsidy.
“The first problem of this administration like the ones before it is that it sells 100% of our crude oil leaving nothing for local consumption and then it goes abroad to buy petroleum products at exorbitant prices; it then adds the cost of insurance and freight, adds the cost of discharging the products into smaller vessels as well as the cost of distributing the products to marketers and it calls that subsidy, when in fact if we refine crude oil in Nigeria, we stand to benefit much more because of the derivatives we would get”.
Lakemfa disclosed that there are about 114 additives that can be derived from the local refining of crude oil. He declared that Labour’s position is that so long as some of the conditions in the agreement reached between the Federal Government and Labour are not met, then there should be no subsidy removal.
“Government is talking about deregulation which is import-based; a deregulation that is anchored on finished petroleum products rather than one that encourages local refining. In any case, this issue of eminent Nigerians is not new and it is just a throw-back to military mentality... What President Jonathan plans to do is create that body which is not known to Nigeria’s constitution and saddle it with the responsibility of administering funds meant for the consolidated accounts. NLC is not falling for that! Our fear is that all the conditions that led to the crises in the Arab world are present here in Nigeria, so anything can happen”.
Labour has therefore urged Nigerians not to relent in their patriotic mobilization to resist this policy, which, according to its scribe, will further impoverish the citizenry.
Additional Reports by Sunday Vanguard.
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