By Clara Nwachukwu
As said by Honourable Farouk Lawan, the Chairman of the Committee set up by the House of Representatives to investigate the reason for the high level of subsidy payments in 2011, a few issues are still hanging.

The proceedings of the public hearing have shown that more than a few issues are hanging, as indeed, a legion of issues have been raised, with so many unanswered questions such that the task itself has become daunting.

And the question uppermost in the minds of Nigerians is: will the findings beyond naming and shaming the culprits of the subsidy scam actually lead to sanctions against them irrespective of rank or status?

If all that will come out from the probe do not go beyond the rhetoric and expressions of intent as opposed to taking decisive actions to institute transparency, probity and accountability in Nigeria’s golden oil and gas sector, then the whole exercise will be a waste.

But the economy can no longer afford such frivolities and wastes. Suddenly, the petroleum industry is awash with probes; and already, about N364million has been approved for a fresh audit of revenues from the extractive industry, EI, from 2009 to 2011.

Interestingly, the recommendations of the KPMG Report on the forensic audit of the NNPC, which was submitted a couple of months ago is yet to be executed. Also, the discrepancies cited by the Nigerian Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative, NEITI, in the various audits of the EI from 2005 to 2009, resulting in hundreds of billions of dollars unaccounted for. Even though some civil society groups have traced some of the monies, government has not said anything about them.

Governments at all levels must realise that Nigerians are no longer as docile as they would want them to remain, and are therefore, not only challenging the status quo but are also demanding, as is their right, for good governance.

In the case of the subsidy, the straw that broke the camel’s back, it has become evident Nigerians have been taken for granted for too long and have been made to not only pay for services not rendered, but also suffer on account of them due to government’s inefficiencies.

The January 1 removal of subsidy was a big punch in the bellies of the ordinary Nigerians who do not enjoy any sort of patronage from government, and the realisation that the blow was actually planned for the first quarter of last year and the revelations from the public hearing might well be too much to swallow.

All the ways and means in which acts of illegality have been entrenched in the petroleum industry have been revealed, and the fact that government overtly encouraged the sleaze through its inaction is unforgivable.

It is now crystal clear that Nigeria’s four refineries have been deliberately crippled in order for the very few to feed fat on the rest of the 160 million people, and as the NEITI Chairman, Prof. Assisi Asobie, noted during his submission to the committee, “subsidy or no subsidy, the refineries will never work for as long as Nigeria continues to import.”

Without any gainsaying, the refineries are on the verge of suffering the same fate, if not already done so, as the electricity sector, which will remain epileptic because of generating sets importers; just like the railways and pipelines will not work because of truck importers

But it is also apparent that the House committee is not satisfied with the corruption that trailed subsidy payments in Nigeria in the recent times, and even less with the cover ups, which made members demand for specific and detailed answers to some critical questions:

Who authorised NNPC’s subsidy deductions at source?

Who verifies that payments correspond with volumes imported?

How are import licences awarded and criteria for their awards?

Who determines which company imports what and at what quantity?

How much petrol and kerosene came from the local refineries with what quantity of the dedicated crude?

Why do the figures from the various concerned agencies not tally?

At what forum and by whom was it agreed to remove subsidy on January 1?

And the questions go on and on, just as the committee chairman found it intriguing that the N245billion budgeted for subsidy in 2011, was just for two months.

Lawan noted, “If the subsidy budget was just for two months, it means that subsidy was meant to be removed in March 2011. But I tell you that there is no government anywhere in the world that would take such a drastic decision not just in an election year, but a month to the general elections. I am a member of the ruling PDP, and I am aware that such an issue was never discussed in any of the meetings.”

In the western world, the protagonists of the agencies involved would have resigned voluntarily, or in the least, stepped aside for exhaustive investigations. Strangely, the sit-tight attitude of Nigerian leaders will not permit this.

Stranger still is the fact that, even the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, the arrow head of the entrenched corruption is also engaged in self-probe. Who is fooling who? Nigerians wonder.

The issues raised are enormous and cannot be swept under the carpet as usual. President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration must now walk the talk on his anti-graft stand, and prove to the world that he means well for Nigerians. No sacred cows allowed.