“Impunity is widespread at all levels of government.”
-US State Department Report on Nigeria, 2012

We’ve been working on some subsidy litigation recently. Legal problems have arisen from the government’s sudden reduction of the subsidy on petrol in 2012, and the corresponding increase in the pump price of petrol. In 2011, the pump price -i.e. how much it cost to fuel your car at a gas station- for petrol was N65. The government removed the fuel subsidy in January 2012 (a month before I got a car…what manner of foolishness…?!) and petrol prices shot up. The mass chaos that resulted from that sole, unconsented decision of the government prompted them to reduce the pump price to N97; a painful compromise on both sides.

At the time of the brouhaha, I didn’t really understand the subsidy debate. I had a vague idea but the meaning of the terms Marketers, Cabal, Farm Tanks and so on, got lost in the insults hurled at the government from protesters around the nation. I remember at the time my friend and I wanted to go out to join the protests to #OccupyNigeria, but her mum wouldn’t let us leave the house. Apparently, “…some are called to protest. Others are called to pray; go and pray.” I don’t think there comes an age where a true Nigerian woman actively disobeys her mother with no fear of definitive repercussion…suffice to say, we got on our knees.

Anyways so when the team at work shared research responsibilities for the subsidy litigation, I quickly volunteered to handle the initial research on subsidy. I knew my knowledge was lacking and I hate being ignorant on topical issues. I mean I’m no expert still, but at least I now have a vague idea of what the debate was about. A year later. Lol. I had to share what I found because unfortunately for me, the more I dug, the sadder I became.

A subsidy is a direct financial aid provided by a government to a private industrial undertaking, a charity organization, or the like. Nigeria has operated a system of petroleum subsidy since 2006 meaning that petrol has been sold for less than its actual price since 2006. Petrol is subsidisied because the government recognised its inability to provide functional refineries to process the crude oil gotten in Nigeria.

Currently, all our refineries are dead from mismanagement and corruption. Nigerian crude oil is exported, refined abroad and imported back to its owners (Nigerians), at an expensive cost. The government recognised its fault in this and in a bid to help us out subsidises the cost we pay on petroleum products. So in essence, when we fuel our cars we only pay less than half of what it costs to bring in this petrol, and the government covers the rest. The government pays oil importers called Marketers, the outstanding sum to cover the cost of importing the refined petrol. Subsidy payment is computed as the difference between the Expected Pump Price for PMS (petrol) and the actual cost of refining and importing fuel.

Long story short, the Nigerian government has undertaken the role of providing a buffer to mitigate the deleterious effects of expensive, exported crude products within Nigeria. We pay N65 and the government pays the outstanding N70+ balance to each Marketer (importer). In other words, the amount we pay is an artificial creation of the government and not determined by the economic laws of demand and supply. The government in its many speeches on subsidy removal often says that we are not paying the “real cost” for petrol. I have to wonder though, what real cost?

The real cost of petrol in Nigeria should be measured against the cost of petrol in gas pumps in other oil-producing nations not in the world at large because by virtue of being an oil producing country, Nigerians expect to enjoy certain benefits accruing to us by virtue of the resources we own. In oil-producing Venezuela and Saudi Arabia for instance, petrol in gas stations is very cheap. Granted oil is extracted and refined within the country…because their refineries are better managed by their governments. In countries like Germany where there is no oil, the pump price of petrol is very high understandably. Why should I compare what I pay in petrol price to what Helga in Germany is paying when her country doesn’t produce oil at home? Why doesn’t the government compare me to Margarita in Venezuela filling her tank for $0.02 per litre? The ‘real cost’ of petrol should really only be suffered by those nations with no petroleum resources. If your mother is a farmer with many blooming crops on her plantation, how do you die of hunger? If my country produces crude oil, I fully expect to enjoy petrol at a price far cheaper than my non-producing neighbours.

Anyways, in true Naija style, we didn’t ask questions. The government told us to be happy we were paying less and we happily conceded. Now they’ve reduced the subsidy (transferring the load to us again), and are threatening to remove it altogether so we can feel the ‘real cost’. No wahala, the government has said that subsidy payments costs the nation an average of 1.39 trillion annually (particularly in the last two years), and these payments account for 30% of the federal budget. Now, that’s a lot of money going each year into subsidy payments. Do you realize that a trillion is after a billion… which is after the millions?! Forgive me, but as I earn in the hundreds of thousands monthly (much smaller than even the millions!), you can’t imagine what a trillion sounds like to me!

Let’s play along and say it is indeed true that we use 30% of the federal Budget for subsidy…there’s still 70% of the budget left. What is it used for? The government does only one thing well; talk. “New roads!, New schools! Railway lines! New housing projects! Better hospitals!” It is forever touting one messianic year or another. “Better roads in 2015! Full electricity generation by 2020! Free education for all by 20xx!” Guvna, what is your plan?! Do you hope we all die before these miracle years so you have no one to answer to? I feel like I am living in Orwell’s 1984. Do these politicians simply have no shame to consistently talk and never keep to their word? Or do they just think Nigerians won’t even care or hold them accountable? Now the government wants that 30% subsidy fund to be used for “other projects”…WHAT ABOUT THE 70% OF THE FEDERAL BUDGET THOUGH? I need to see 5 (five), only 5 mega projects that have been completed in any sector of the economy in the last decade. Come on son! Lol. What do you need the 30% for if not for more governmental “peppersouping and big-Stouting?” It must be said, our government is a gigantic leech! It consistently bleeds the nation of its life’s blood.

I stand for the maintenance of subsidy solely because this is the only part of the federal budget that has been felt tangibly by the Nigerian nation as a whole. Good roads, electricity, water, security, schools, jobs, we do not have. I do not know that if we release the 1.39 trillion funding into the government’s hands, it will be used for anything more useful than feeding their collective insincerity and encouraging even more fervent corruption. What have you done with the 70% GUVNA! Use that to do your ‘mega projects’, don’t come here with those Tales by Moonlight style stories.

The other main argument of the government against subsidy is that the money gotten from subsidizing petroleum is only enjoyed by a tiny percentage of people at the top who claim to be Marketers. Papers are forged and many are bribed so that the undeserving receive subsidy payments even when they have neither imported nor supplied any petroleum projects. How does this happen? I think the government can tell us. The number of importers increased from an initial figure of 6 Marketers in 2006 to 36 in 2007 then 49 in 2009, and a rabid 140 in 2011!!! Where did all these marketers come from? Can one establish within the period of a year, a capital-intensive, technical business like a petroleum importing company with the requisite government-regulated licenses and documentation? I don’t think so. But permits were given to almost 100 new Marketers in the course of one year. How?

Well, the chairman of the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Authority (PPPRA)in that time stated that the board under his knowledgeable leadership, decided to flood the market with petroleum products in a bid to break the monopoly of the few Marketers present at the time in order to prevent artificial scarcity and to stop the practice of hoarding products. This flooding was of course, in true Nigerian governmental style, undertaken with no singular target, structure or real understanding of the market. Predictably, chaos ensued. I understand now that our government LOVES chaos and confusion! Why? It provides ample opportunity for corruption to rage unchecked. Too many Marketers led to an excess of petrol in the market and it is based on that excess volume that the projections for the subsequent years were made. It was agreed by the knowledgeable committee that more Makerters were needed. The PPRA thre open its doors.
This seems so simple to understand, yet our government did not apparently. Story. Like most of their decisions, the government knew it was bad for the nation as a whole but great for their pockets as individuals. Society v. Individial; Individual wins EVERY. DAMN.TIME.

To show the extent of the ridiculousness in the oil sector, the government’s own representative in this area, Nigeria’s own Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation led the rape of our national funds. Individuals within the NNPC, not only consistently engaged in paying themselves frightening sums of money, they were shameless in their stealing. I mean, I read some of NNPC’s actions and I felt so vulnerable. If this is what our own representative, not the foreign oil companies are doing with our resources, what hope is there for Nigeria? NNPC, in 2011, processed payment of N310.4 Billion as 2009 – 2011 arrears of subsidy on Kerosene despite the fact that a Presidential Directive had since removed subsidy on Kerosene in 2009. (NO ONE IN REALISED THAT N310.4 BILLION WAS MISSING?). NNPC also processed for itself, direct deduction of subsidy payment from amounts it received from other operations such as joint ventures before paying the balance to the Federation Account, thereby depleting the shares of States and Local Governments resources. Worse still, the direct deduction in 2011 alone, which amounted to N847.942 Billion, was effected without any provision in the Appropriation Act. The NNPC was running a completely independent nation! Lol. Like, no laws, just doing as it pleased. And someone wants to tell me no one knew about this! Honey please!

The names of all these people in government at the time of these heinous offences are known. They still roam around free, they are respected and idolized because in Nigeria, we will trade our lives; our futures, our dreams and hopes, for money. Money is our god and we will sacrifice all that we own to her, no matter the cost.
The problem with our nation is that we are educated but not enlightened. Our women care about weaves and designer bags, our men care about cars and women with weaves and designer bags. It is a vicious cycle. This rabid hunger for more, the unrelenting avarice in the nation must one day cause Nigeria to collapse on itself because we have eaten ourselves from the inside out. It is this same greed, the economic fermentation that is the basis of every single conflict in the nation today, leave the talk about religious divides and tribal politics, when it comes to money we are all green.

What our government does to us is much more than a mere destruction of our nation. It is the desecration of the very core of our beings as humans. It is pure, unadulterated rape of our nation, and a violent robbery of the Nigerian child’s future.

In our nation, an armed robber steals 3,000 with a basic village gun and gets hanged. In this same Nigeria, people embezzle billions and receive suspended sentences or minimum fines. The morale of the story is this, only engage in white collar crimes.