MY take on the removal of oil subsidy is that it should not elicit industrial action from organised labour. This is not because I do not see and appreciate the position of the majority of Nigerians who are already groaning under the deadweight of the subsidy removal.

Oil subsidy, even with due deference to the informed and multifarious voices endlessly denying its existence, have repeatedly been removed in this country with dire consequences. But the subsidies got removed nonetheless, with the resultant reenactment of the suffering of the underdogs associated with the exercise. Putting this into consideration, it is difficult to see how strikes will reverse the latest subsidy removal.

What I propose is only an option, which is why I have mentioned in the title of this piece that it is just a way forward. There are other ways, of course. But let us tackle the ancillary matters first. Our love for each other is legendary.

That explains why bus operators whose vehicles use diesel, a product that was unaffected by the subsidy removal, also hiked their fares. That was why many of the petrol stations simply shut down operations even though they had fuel in store previously supplied to them at subsidised prices. That explains why those of the stations open for business decided to sell at pump prices way above the N141 a litre dictated by the new arrangement.

Our love for each other is legendary. That is why I must now move to my panacea for our current oil-related difficulties. As far as I am concerned, Nigeria’s principal problem on oil is epic corruption. If this corruption is not extirpated, the benefits currently being touted to issue from the removed subsidy will remain a mirage, to be pursued but forever unattained.

Mr. Reginald Stanley, the Executive Secretary of the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory agency (PPPRA), told a House of Representatives hearing on December 2, 2011 that the country had spent a colossal N3.65 trillion in fuel subsidies since 2006.

More than a third of this gargantuan sum was blown in the first nine months of 2011 alone! That meant that from January to September 2011, Nigeria spent thrice more in fuel subsides what it spent during 2010. The figure stood at N500 billion in 2010. But it executed a hop-step-and-jump to N1.5 trillion in the first nine months of 2011.

For the thoughtful, the question to ask is simple: What led to the geometric escalation of subsidy expenditure during 2011? If this puzzle is not identified and solved, all talk of a better life for Nigerians on account of the new price regime for oil will amount to bunkum.

It was not that the number of vehicles in the country doubled. They did not. It was not that new industries mushroomed across the land. They did not. It was not really down to price fluctuations in international oil prices because lower prices never resulted in reduced pump prices in Nigeria.

Corruption is largely to blame.

At the Town hall meeting held in Lagos late last year on the oil subsidy issue, Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State stated before a distinguished audience and on live television some of the devious ways in which kleptocratic carnivores connected with the oil industry have remorselessly left Nigeria high and dry and hemorrhaging.

Even before a shipload of refined oil sets sail for Nigeria from, say, Singapore, said the Governor, demurrage charges are already in computation at the Apapa ports! Oftentimes, ships berth at our ports and go through all the formalities without discharging even a pint of oil.

Subsequently, the ships leave the ports and cruise the high seas for a few days, after which they resurface at our ports marked as carrying fresh oil supplies. A ship that does this five times costs the nation five times the cost of a shipload of fuel.

Governor Oshiomhole moaned that all the Nigerian accounting firms, without exception, charged with the responsibility of ascertaining the quantum of fuel brought into the country have been sucked into the vortex of corruption.

He added that when a special committee of which he was a member suggested that reputable foreign accounting firms be engaged to do the job which corruption prevented their Nigerian counterparts from doing, their committee got unceremoniously disbanded.

To the honest and informed, the Edo State Governor was not saying anything new. What is ardently hoped is that the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan will undertake to do something new. The easy and countless billions daily issuing to the cartel in control of oil business in Nigeria should be of concern to all and sundry. It is the kind of dubious money that is ploughed into fomenting endless national crises by unpatriotic and filthily wealthy individuals.

It is the kind of money that probably accounts for Nigerians having bought up half of the houses in Dubai! It is the kind of money used for sponsoring charlatans into high political offices to the ruin of all our lives. It is the kind of money that easily succumbs to the temptation of being used to finance terrorism. It is the kind of money that corrupts everything it comes in contact with, shattering the head of justice and turning truth on its head.

However, I do not agree with those muttering at the Town Hall meeting that any government that tackles this corruption head on could end up in its belly. President Jonathan should combat this corruption head on and hands on!

The removal of oil subsidy could mean a farewell to demurrage paid through the bleeding hearts of Nigerians because independent marketers, not ad-hoc contractors importing on behalf of government, will now do their business, being in position to halt demurrage that they will settle from their pockets if that ever occurs.

But oil subsidy removal will not halt the falsification of figures relating to the amount of fuel imported into the country and the cost at which the commodity is brought in. Oil subsidy removal will not halt all the thieving going on in the oil industry to the lamentable detriment of ordinary Nigerians.

In addition to all the measures already outlined for reducing the sufferings resulting from subsidy removal, the government should consider immediately replacing corrupt accounting firms with foreign alternatives that will be in a position to state at all times whether Nigeria imported only a barrel of premium motor spirit or a trillion barrels.

Barrister Femi Falana mentioned at the Town Hall meeting that Nigeria’s neighbours are amenable to the idea of NNPC mega stations being set up in their own countries as a means of checking smuggling. The government should buy the idea.

Season in and season out, there is kerosene scarcity in Nigeria, which the Petroleum Minister blamed on the smuggling of the commodity to other countries. But Nigerians know that the smuggling in question is not of the brand done in jerry cans.

Shiploads of kerosene meant for Nigeria get diverted to other countries. That is the brand of smuggling that leaves hungry housewives and other Nigerians endlessly at petrol stations that have no kerosene to sell!

The government should in fact institute a high-powered judicial panel to probe the entire oil industry. For instance, how much did they pay in taxes, who collected a whopping N1.5 trillion of our national patrimony over nine months? If President Jonathan gets it right, his action of removing the oil subsidy will be like the pains of labour which a woman forgets at the instant of successful delivery.

*Mr. Chuks Iloegbunam, a former Commissioner  for Information  in Anambra  State,  wrote from Lagos.