…call for probe of subsidy regime 

By Ibrahim Hassan-Wuyo 

In Kaduna,150 Civil Society Organisations and Non Government Organizations  under the aegis of Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG), have expressed support to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu over the fuel subsidy removal.

“We urge the Tinubu administration to finally respond to longstanding demands to investigate the fuel market chain, and to hold accountable all those involved in smuggling, hoarding and subsidy scams’ regardless of rank or status,” the Groups said.

The groups claimed subsidy fund was enough to build railway across Nigeria and chided former President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration for” pursuing unpopular deregulation programmes while maintaining the ‘fraudulent subsidy regime’ and further plunging the nation into deeper crisis and mass suffering.”

They said $15.6billion spent annually on subsidy could build railway from Lagos to Kano, Port-Hercourt to Maiduguri and Lagos to Calabar combined.

While reading the communique issued at the end of a One-Day Townhall Meeting, Chairman Communique Drafting Committee and Spokesman of CNG, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman said, N2.91 trillion spent by the Federal Government on petrol subsidy between January and September 2022, was largely responsible for the country’s dwindling public finances.

According to him, available data that had “exposed the unforgivable level of disabling corruption perpetrated by the subsidy regime in favour of a few individuals at the expense of public projects that cost less than Nigeria’s $15.6bn annual subsidy.”

“The amount spent annually on subsidy is far more than what is required to build railway from Lagos to Kano, Port-Harcourt to Maiduguri and Wembley-like stadiums in each of the Nigeria’s six geo-political zones.”

“Successive governments in Nigeria have tried and failed to remove or cut the subsidy, which has greatly constrained Nigeria’s development goals, as the subsidies mostly only benefit a few wealthy households.”

“Concerned by the backlash from some quarters that followed the announcement of the withdrawal of the subsidies by the President, CNG convened a one-day stakeholder roundtable of all its 150 affiliates and other northern interest groups at the Arewa House, Kaduna today,June 6, 2023.”

”At the end of the Townhall discussions, the following inevitable observations were drawn: That generally, subsidy is an evil that subsequent previous governments groomed and fed fat all these years to the detriment of the masses. That all along, the oil subsidy has been a conduit pipe for siphoning public funds for the benefit of a very few members of a powerful cartel at the expense of the entire nation.”

“That since assumption of office, the former President Muhammadu Buhari had made several promises of rehabilitating the nation’s refineries, all of which he failed to fulfill. Instead, he pursued unpopular deregulation programmes while maintaining the fraudulent subsidy regime and further plunging the nation into deeper crisis and mass suffering.”

“That on emergence as Nigeria’s new President, Bola Tinubu disclosed that the current budget handed over to him by former President Buhari did not provide for the petrol subsidy and therefore it is gone, which did not go down well with the exploiter class that benefits from the subsidy budgets.”

”Since Tinubu’s announcement of the removal of the fuel subsidy, the cartel that has been reaping its benefits at the expense of the suffering masses, has waged a campaign about the fictitious knock-on effects that it will have on the daily lives of Nigerians,” Suleiman said.

The groups therefore called on the Nigerian masses to be less amenable to the damaging propaganda campaigns by the ‘merciless cartels’ that have been impoverishing the nation while pocketing the subsidy proceeds for their personal benefits and those of their immediate families.

It also called on the Federal Government that, as all countries, including Nigeria, are required to eventually remove all fossil fuel subsidies to meet their human rights obligations,  the removal of the subsidy should be accompanied by social cushioning and protection measures.

“Before a permanent solution is put in place which would hopefully bring down the prices of Petroleum to affordable limits, we plead with Mr President to dispassionately look into the current price of N540 per litre pegged by the NNPCL and bring it much lower down immediately,” the groups said.