This Deregulation occurs to me
by
The English language is en-dangered in these parts. When Nigerians speak, they, most of the time, mean another thing altogether. It is not about those who do not know whether they are telling lies or speaking the truth. Even the truth, where Nigerians are concerned, could be a matter for debate.
I learnt only three weeks ago, to my delight, that deregulation does not mean price increase. Dr. Patrick Utomi said so at the Vanguard Editors’ Annual Conference. He illustrated the fact with the point that the competitive telecommunication system in the United States has sustained a low price with some of the companies giving some customers generous discounts to retain them.
He had a personal example during his sabbatical in the United States, when a telecommunication company called him and offered a reduction on his tariff, since he was a regular user of its international trunk services. That, he said, is what deregulation is about.
On hearing that, I said this deregulation occurs to me. In Warri patois, if you want to say you like this car, for example, you say, this car 'occurs' to me. Knowing what folks in Warri are like, you would not get any encouragement in that direction. To dissuade you, they will tell you to 'lack interest'.
Nowhere has this penchant for mixing things up had such a devastating impact as in the debate about how much Nigerians should pay for petroleum products. The Federal Government wants to have the last word on this. It began with "deregulation" before it discovered that did not immediately mean increase in prices.
Months after, and millions of Naira down the drain, through the works of its committee, the Federal Government has discarded that report that grossly indicted the government. One of its main points is that the figures that the Government parades about consumption of those products are not certain. Interestingly, Dr. Utomi served in the former committee, he was not re-appointed.
The only certainty in the petroleum sector is the determination of the Federal Government to increase the prices of the products, in its belief that the products are cheap. The Government cannot sustain the un-proven annual "subsidy" of N200 billion. These figures have a way of getting attention. Though it has set up a Petroleum Products & Price Regulatory Committee, the President will not wait for the committee to finish its work. He preaches a truculent message about the inevitability of the increase in the prices of the products. He approximates "price regulation" to "price increase".
Government is unwilling to define what is subsidy. This approach is not new. I have gone through the report of the "old" committee. One of its members was Engineer Funso Kupolokun, who was an Executive Director in NNPC, at a time we were told that at N5 per litre, the problems with supply of petroleum products would be over. Today, Engineer Kupolokun is the President’s Senior Special Adviser on Petroleum. We are doing N22 already and the speculations are that the President and his advisers want N40 per litre.
The President does not know who the real consumers of the products are. He lost touch long ago with Nigerians and his utterances show this. Some of the annoying arguments have placed the price of fuel beside that of soft drinks and the conclusion is that Nigerians need to pay more. Such triviality augments the belief that we have lost our President, if we ever had him.
If our President were in touch, he would know that many Nigerians considered soft drinks too expensive. They substitute with zobo, a Nigerian local drink, pure water, one of the most impure inventions of the last century, palm wine, also produced abundantly in the President farm and other local substitutes. What are the substitutes for petroleum products? Is someone suggesting that Nigerians should trek to their destinations?
The comparisons with other countries do not make sense at all. Some of those countries have efficient telecommunications and public transportation. In those places personal transportation can be rated a luxury. In Nigeria it is a necessity. Does the IMF, which ranks highest in the President’s constituency, know this?
One minister was the first to say that the protests against increase of prices of petroleum products come from those who own three cars or one. On the contrary, those fellows cannot complain. No Nigerian who can afford three cars would fail to find the means to put them on the road.
The major protests are from the peasants, the ordinary urban dwellers, those whose poverty this Government at first promised to alleviate, then eradicate. It has done neither.
Farmers in the villages will be unable to move their products to the cities. They strain to pay the current transport fares, a burden that is heaped on them by other things, the increasing poor state of our roads. The President will say he is a farmer - no I am not talking about farmers like him, who have access to bank loans and still contribute minimally to the country’s food production.
I suggest that he asks the very erudite Professor Ango Abudullahi, former Vice Chancellor of the Ahmadu Bello University, a food expert, who serves the President as Special Adviser on Food Security, how new prices for petroleum product will enhance food security.
Energy costs for industries, with NEPA’s notorious reputation, will shoot up, aiding the raging inflation. The Federal Government is mute about refineries that cost millions of dollars to maintain and when they produce at 20 per cent of their capacity, a celebration is supposed to follow. What has Government done about the recommendations that private companies be allowed to import and market their petroleum products, run private refineries, as steps to liberalisation of the industry?
Does the inefficiency, corruption, brazen stealing that goes on in the NNPC worry the Government? When Government wants to talk about these "extra costs" of petroleum products, its calls them "leakage", as if it is referring to some pipelines somewhere. Until the Government is willing to tackle the corruption in the NNPC, it is wrong for it to preach to us.
Most activities of the NNPC suffer from a mass dosage of corruption, often occasioned by the monopoly that it enjoys. The secret bids for the supply of the products, the refusal to repair damaged facilities, bunkering, tankers that smuggle products across the borders are some of the costs that are passed on to the Nigerian public. The others are inflated costs of demurrage, neglect of the refineries and dubious charges at the loading terminals. The NNPC pays at least ten times the market price of most things, from medical services to catering.
Nigerians also pay for the hundreds of pilgrims that the NNPC, like NEPA, sponsors annually. Millions of Naira leak out of the system that way, in addition to other millions that go into sundry activities like book publishing (for causes that have no relation to its function).
President Obasanjo is right to say that Nigerians are already paying higher than the official prices for these products. He is however wrong to say that they are doing so willingly. They have no choice. This is no soft drink situation where there are substitutes.
The social impact of this decision is capable of hurting this fragile democracy. The President is not looking for a solution to this problem, but an elixir, as one of my teachers once suggest: cutting the head to cure a headache.
He should lack interest, as they say in Warri.