By Dele Sobowale
As I came in, I saw the SURE book being distributed; we are withdrawing it. This is the old one. We developed this with the expectation that we are going to completely deregulate the downstream sector of the oil industry, the 100 per cent removal of the subsidy….. I don’t want this thing to be distributed; it will give a wrong impression”.

President Goodluck Jonathan, February 20, 2012, at the 58th National executive Committee of the PDP, in Abuja.

“At the inception of the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P), the Jonathan administration made a solemn commitment to the transparent and accountable implementation of the programme. In keeping with this pledge, here is the breakdown of the subsidy savings for January 2012 allocations to the federal, states and local governments”.

Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Coordinating Minister for the Economy, PUNCH, February 20, 2012, p 27).

President Jonathan reportedly admitted that that SURE-1 (because while the current SURE is being sent to the dustbin, it will be replaced by another SURE; that may be SURE-2) was hurriedly conceived to dampen the nationwide protests that were mounting up against subsidy removal.

That admission by the President, in effect, has resulted in several unintended consequences. The most obvious is monumental waste of our financial resources. Only the government knows how many copies of the SURE document were printed in December.

The glossy, high quality materials used do not come cheap. Millions of naira must have been paid for them. They are now headed for the dustbin once the President announced that “I don’t want this thing to be distributed”.

Jonathan’s statement, which came as no surprise to me, had raised several issues, none of which is flattering to at least two of his Ministers and the Governor of Central Bank – who attended the Town Hall meeting organized by the Nigerian Newspapers Proprietors Association of Nigeria, in December 2011, at the Muson Centre.

The withdrawal has at least vindicated those of us who called SURE a fraud because, even if the President got away with N141 fuel, there was not sufficient money recoverable to undertake all the projects listed in that document. I intend to keep my copy of SURE as a reminder that even a world-class Nigerian economist can succumb to the stupidities of power in Aso Rock.

First, the Minster of Finance, and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, had accused Nigerians of being very cynical about government pronouncements as the SURE (now SURE-1) documents were being distributed to the audience. In it Nigerians were told “total reinvestible funds per annum is N1.134 trillion”.

That was the former Managing Director of the World Bank talking and Nigerians expected someone who had reached such zenith in global finance to know what she was talking about. Her partner, the Minister for Petroleum Resources, lamented that Nigerians don’t trust us “and it is painful”.

Since it was her Ministry which provided the Presidency and Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala with the N1.134 trillion figure, she too should have verified them before passing them on. The Governor of the Central Bank, who must have had a copy of the SURE document, before that date, also supported the Ministers in foisting this, obviously now, bogus figure on Nigerians and the world.

Each and everyone of these public officials knows, or should know, that a total figure like N1.134 trillion has two basic variables – prices and quantities; meaning how much we paid for the fuel distributed to consumers and how much of it was eventually distributed. One looks in vain for these metrics in the SURE document.

Later, after the President had been misled to increase fuel price on New Year’s day and the country was almost paralysed by strikes, the National Assembly, mostly sleepwalkers, woke up from their slumber and started a probe; which among other things revealed the following:

1.    Nobody in government actually knew how much we were paying for fuel.

2.    Nobody also knew how much fuel we were importing and how much of it was actually reaching the Nigerian consumer.

The Minister of Petroleum, who should have known all these before the allegations about N1.134 trillion subsidy could not provide a clue.

It was the Chief Executive Officer of the PPPRA who later exposed the scandal and the scope of the corruption in the oil sector by disclosing that the nation was importing and paying for more petrol than we were consuming. That disclosure should really have brought to an end all the pretences of government officials that they were telling Nigerians the truth about oil imports.

That was not to be. The central Bank of Nigeria, whose governor sat while N1.134 trillion was being claimed as subsidy, then muddied up the waters when the CBN announced that it was still processing more claims by fuel importers and the total for the year 2011 might exceed N2 trillion.

In more disciplined societies, the discrepancy between N1.134 trillion widely publicized in the SURE document and the possible N2 trillion should have led to the resignation of at least one Honourable Minister. Nigeria, unfortunately, is still to have such officials.

On the face of it, we would assume that we have reaches a dead end; that we have no way of finding out how much fuel we actually consume and what price we pay for it. But, by divine intervention, we now have a clue. It was provided by the Minister for Finance and Coordinating Minister in the publication mentioned above; to which we shall refer extensively in part 2 of this series.

According to the Minister, the fuel subsidy at N97 per litre came to N16.3 billion in January of 2012. Annualized the total should be N195.6 billion. It should also be possible to know the volume of fuel used during the month.

Granted, there were seven days of protests and reduced movement; also allowing for the reduced demand following the price increase, it should be obvious that nether N1.134 trillion nor N2 trillion is realistic and honest estimate of the “subsidy” in 2011.

The matters arising start from there. And, the first query should go to the Minister of Finance, who was obviously duped into selling the bogus figure of N1.134 trillion to other stakeholders – particularly governors – who swallowed the drivel hook, line and sinker.

Are we to assume that the former Managing Director of the World Bank does not know that numbers are deadly and those charged with the responsibility of determining the fate of nations must verify the figures presented to them before signing on?

Nigeria lost close to a trillion to the strike; several lives were also lost on account of this ineptitude exhibited by her and her colleague. That leads to the second question. After this unfortunate episode does she really expect Nigerians to trust her and the team she leads?