Protest: What exactly do Nigerians want? By Ismail Omipidan

In June 2024, specifically June 9, I bought a small basket of Irish potatoes for N20,000. However, by yesterday, I bought the same quantity for N6,000 at the Asokoro Extension Market. This contradicts the long-held notion that whatever goes up in Nigeria hardly comes down. The reason for this sudden economic twist, I reckon, is government intervention in the face of the free-fall of prices of goods. By implication, it means things will get better in Nigeria.

Can these things get better through protests? I don’t think so. If anything, protests would compound the situation and may even set us back several years. The significant economic loss that attended #EndSARS is a handy proof.

In 2012, I did not support the protest against fuel subsidy removal. Therefore, I would not lend my support to those who want fuel subsidy back. A majority of Nigerians berated former President Goodluck Jonathan for lacking the courage to pull it through at the time. I agree with that school of thought.

Interestingly, over the years, one thing that has been very clear about Nigeria and its leaders is the fact that we do not lack good ideas and initiatives, but what is lacking is the courage and political will to do the right thing at the right time. With the subsidy removal and other deliberate efforts by the current administration at stabilizing the country’s economy, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu appears to have shown the capacity, courage, and political will to confront this fuel subsidy issue headlong after the nation moved around in circles since 2003 or thereabouts over this same issue. Yet, we say we want protests. What for exactly?

I recall that in the 90s, even when the government pegged the price of PMS at N20 per litre, it was sold for between N70 and N150 across the country. Ironically, the same argument being advanced by those opposed to the removal of subsidy some 16 years ago is the same argument they are putting up today.

Unfortunately, the idea of using half of the country’s budget to subsidise for a vocal minority in our midst is no longer economically sustainable. Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, a former CBN Governor and incumbent Anambra Governor, lent credence to this in 2015, shortly after the presidential election, when he said fuel subsidy that was being funded with taxpayers’ money only benefited a negligible few. While describing it as a fraud, he urged the Buhari administration to remove it if it must make real progress.

Prof. Soludo may have made the suggestion because, in the buildup to the 2015 presidential election, former President Muhammadu Buhari, as the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), promised to sanitise the oil sector, which provides Nigeria with about 95 percent of its foreign exchange earnings and is the lifeline of the country’s economy.

While the former President tried his best with regard to reforming the oil sector, President Tinubu should be encouraged to carry on from where Buhari left off, rather than trying to blackmail his government into reinstating the already-removed fuel subsidy, which might invariably spell doom for the country in the long run.

Interestingly, before Prof. Soludo, another ex-CBN Governor and the 16th Fulani Emir of Kano, HRH Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, had been at the forefront of the advocacy for the removal of fuel subsidy.

He argued that “to continue borrowing trillions of Naira and subsidising current consumption is to ask our children to pay for our comfort today.”

He continued, “Stable economies are sick. There are dark clouds on the global horizon; it is easy to take unpalatable economic decisions today that may be politically appropriate to secure the future. The universities have roles to play in this debate. We have to face the fact that we simply cannot continue to live above our means. If we do not take that decision, our children are going to face a difficult situation that the future of our country will be involved in.”

In the buildup to the 2011 presidential election, March 2011 to be precise, I covered an event where HRH Sanusi, as CBN Governor, told an audience that included the then President Jonathan and his Vice President, Namadi Sambo, in Kaduna, that the economic policies of the Federal Government were killing Nigerians.

He told Jonathan and Sambo pointedly that they needed to decide whether to continue to empower a tiny few or empower the entire country.

At the Kaduna event, for instance, the Kano Emir argued, among other things, that once there were the right economic policies for a country, every part of the country would benefit, adding that “some of the states in the North are poorer than Niger, Chad, and Cameroon. I have always said that if you have the right economic policies for the nation, every part of the nation will benefit.”

He further noted that agriculture was 42 percent of Nigeria’s GDP and the bulk of the arable land in Nigeria and the bulk of agricultural products come from the North.

“So, why is there a higher incidence of poverty in the North, which accounts for 42 percent of GDP?” he asked.

In supplying the answer, he said, “It does not need a genius to know that we do not have the right agricultural policies, and the problem is that agriculture in the North remains production. It is a problem that is consistent in our economic programmes.”

Barely six months after the inauguration of then-President Jonathan, November to be precise, HRH Sanusi, still as CBN Governor, warned us of the dangers of retaining the fraudulent fuel subsidy, when he said, “It is a very difficult time in the world today and economically for policymakers. It is important for every Nigerian to remember that we don’t live on an island. We continue to have an economy that remains vulnerable to the movement of economic goods and prices. We therefore cannot ignore that. European countries are groaning under the weight of sovereign debts. Governments are falling like a pack of cards.

“The low bond sales of Germany, the strongest economy in Europe, sent a warning signal about the future of the Eurozone. India has been under inflation for about one year, and high rates have not brought it under control. Brazil is grappling with a huge deficit problem; the world faces a risk of double economic recession with the implication for the price of oil, government revenue with the implication for macroeconomic stability.

“It is important to call on the academic community to play a role in the extremely difficult and painful economic decisions that need to be taken now in order to avoid disaster in the future.”

For us to still be talking about fuel subsidy 13 years after this warning is an indication that we appear unprepared to progress as a country.

He went further to say, “It does not mean that government lacks sensitivity to the pain it will cause. But it is a recognition of the consequence of not taking the decision now, which will be a Greek-type economic situation in a few years’ time.”

That was HRH Sanusi 13 years ago. Must we continue to run away from our challenges and postpone the doomsday?

If, therefore, the current administration must make the desired impact, which we all want to feel, it must avoid the idea of going back and forth over policy decisions. To make the desired impact, the various states too must make an impact.

The truth is that, yes, there is hunger in the land. President Tinubu acknowledged that fact, and he has said repeatedly that measures are being taken to ensure that the issue is addressed, and we are already seeing results.

But as someone who believes strongly in true federalism, and as someone who has always advocated that the federal government has no land anywhere and that it is the states that have land and therefore resources should be devolved to the states to ensure that they are able to take care of the citizens, I believe the states should do more with regard to food production and security. Basically, all the governors, without exception, supported the removal of fuel subsidy so that they could have more money to develop their states. Are they developing their states?

As of April and May 2023, the highest the FAAC shared was about 780 billion naira. But by June, they shared 1.1 trillion naira, and the last one for that year, which was December, was also over a trillion naira, and that has remained the pattern ever since. So, the question should be, what have the states and the local governments done with the substantial amounts of money accruing to them since the removal of fuel subsidy? What tangible steps have they taken to provide palliatives for their people to cushion the effects of the ongoing pervasive hunger in the land?

The truth is, if these resources had been properly applied, some of the economic crises we are witnessing now would not have arisen. You are aware that in the history of this country, there is no government that has allocated palliatives in terms of rice to lawmakers and the state governors for onward transmission to the people the way the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has so far done. So, when we talk about bad governance, we must situate it. For me, I see sincerity of purpose, and it is on that premise that I will say to every Nigerian out there that after hardship comes relief. I believe very strongly that with some of the measures that have been taken so far, truly, relief will come.

Omipidan, a journalist, writes from Abuja.