By Adekunle Adekoya

THE word, scam, is generally understood here, what with an army of people, mostly youths, whose business is scamming fellow citizens. As Nigerians, we all have heard and read about the word, subsidy, too many times. It is a regularly recurring word when petroleum products and their supply is being discussed. With no credentials in lexicography, I have simply joined the two words to arrive at SCAMSIDY, in the unshakeable belief that subsidy and its administration is a scam.

Back in 1978-79, I was a young secondary school leaver that had secured employment as an auxilliary teacher at Egba-Owode Grammar School, Owode, headquarters of Obafemi-Owode Local Government Area in Ogun State. One day, in Owode, a magician was holding a show on the playgrounds of one of the town’s primary schools. He called himself Seven-Seven, claiming to have trained under Twins Seven-Seven much earlier. That day, Seven-Seven was on the stage mounted on the school playfield.

One of his first conjurations that I saw was cutting an old newspaper page into pieces. He put them in an envelope, which he threw into the crowd. He later descended the stage, went into the crowd, slapped a young man in the chest and chanted something that started with Jantu!-Jantu!-Musu!-Musa!-the more you look!-the less you see!! and retrieved the envelope from him. Opening it, the pieces of old newspaper had become crisp Naira notes. The crowd roared in ecstasy and bewilderment.  

The more we hear about subsidy, the less we understand, if you agree. There are questions that have agitated my mind for long. Is there really subsidy? Or a scam? Or scamsidy as I think? Earlier in the week, Emma Ugboaja, General Secretary of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, claimed in a chat with this newspaper that: “It is an open thing that the government that is about to leave in 2016 told Nigerians they had removed the subsidy. Despite the NLC’s position that there was no subsidy to remove and that what people were harping on was a price hike. They had told us that they removed the subsidy in 2016, so what subsidy are they removing or are we discussing now?”

Ugboaja may be right. Then Minister of State, Petroleum Resources/ Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, on Monday December 14, 2015 disclosed that the Federal Government has concluded plans to remove subsidy on fuel.

Kachukwu told the Senate/House of Reps joint committee on the Medium Term Expenditure Framework, MTEF, that the subsidy bill was “on the high side”.

According to Kachikwu: “The total subsidy figure for 2015 when taken along with the NNPC will be in excess of N1 trillion. We can get this specifics but the point is largely that it does not involve NNPC because the agency takes its off-cuff.

“We will work towards taking those figures off our budget in 2016. They are critical issues. The current pricing work we are doing had shown that there shouldn’t really be subsidy. The government doesn’t need to subsidise.”

The Federal Government continued budgeting for subsidy till this year’s budget. Since the Buhari administration assumed office, NNPC has been the sole importer of refined products, while government dictated the pump price. Does this mean the Federal Government has been subsidising NNPC or the NNPC subsidising the Federal Government? Between 2015 and now, there have been several instances of fuel scarcity, with fellow compatriots forced to buy the product at many times over the stipulated pump price. The current wave of petrol scarcity started last November and has lasted about six months now. Between then and now, Nigerians have bought petrol at the pumps for prices ranging from the official N165 to as much as N550. As I write, very few service stations sell petrol at the same price. Is a price of N300 per litre still being subsidised? What will then be the price when subsidy goes?

It gets curiouser and curiouser. Two days ago, the Federal Government announced at the end of the weekly Federal Executive Council meeting that a World Bank grant of $800 million has been secured and is already available and will be used to fund palliatives to cushion the pains of subsidy removal. This is where the magic comes in: The money, according to the Finance Minister, Hajiya Zainab Ahmed, will be disbursed to 10 million households or 50 million Nigerians. She also claimed that government already has a register of the 10 million households. How were the 10 million households selected? Using what parameters? Did my household qualify? Or yours? If not, why? Is this not magic? Or as they say on Tik-tok and Instagram: No be juju be dat?

It is very hard to convince me that there is a subsidy in the first place. All we’ve had so far has been Jantu!-Jantu!-Musu!-Musa!-the more you look!-the less you see!! about subsidy. The more we hear, the less we understand. Best thing from me: Let the incoming administration handle this matter wholly. It should be allowed to do its own audit of the fuel importation and distribution process and take its own decision. For now, I stand with the NLC. Let there be local refining and no price hike in the name of subsidy removal.