In the middle of 2021, the Federal Government served notice that it would, as from June 2022, end petrol subsidy in line with the new Petroleum Industry Act, PIA, which has commercialised the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC.

However, as the new year unfolded, Organised Labour started making ready for a warning strike.

It finally dawned on the Muhammadu Buhari regime that subsidy withdrawal any time during his tenure could produce consequences that could threaten our democracy and derail the All Progressives Congress, APC’s, ability to win the next general election.

The government decided to shift the implementation to 18 months when Buhari would have left office.Buhari has thus effectively abdicated his responsibility to solve this knotty problem to a future regime. This raises the question: what did Buhari achieve with his post as a two-term Petroleum Minister? His government could neither revive the refineries nor build new ones. Instead, we have continued to depend on imported petroleum products.

There is no way that the withdrawal of subsidy can be possible for as long as we continue to depend on imports. Even when some ongoing indigenous refineries such as the mammoth Dangote Refinery come on stream, Nigerians lack the purchasing power to buy at international prices.

What is required to end the crippling subsidy regime is not just the establishment of more indigenous refineries but also injection of subsidies into local production to enable Nigerians buy.

The state must be ready to offer a quota of crude oil to local refiners at subsidised prices for local consumption. It is only on this ground that Nigerians will accept subsidy removal.

Having postponed the removal of subsidy, it behoves the Buhari administration to start taking the steps that will enable the next regime to dispense with petrol subsidy as early as possible to prevent further catastrophe.

The truth is that in the next two years, the cost of fuel and also the accompanying cost of subsidy will be so high that neither withdrawal nor continuation of subsidy will work. Neither government nor the masses can pay. No one will be able to escape the crises that will spring from those double flash points.

January 2012 was the ideal time to have ended the subsidy regime, scrap the refineries, build new ones and create a thriving environment for new investments in local refining.

By now, the petroleum products crisis should have been a thing of the past. But, that effort was thwarted by Labour and groups sponsored by the political parties that became the APC. Since they came to power, they have shown cluelessness in solving this problem.

The bottom line, for any regime aiming to end the petrol subsidy, is that the masses must first be protected by ensuring that the products are available and affordable.Anything short of that will not work. 

Vanguard News Nigeria