AS humans, we cannot communicate, so the communication experts say in the popular Axioms of Communication. By that, they mean that human beings possess an innate ability to talk. Man is a talking animal, so says Holly Weeks, an adjunct lecturer in Public Policy and Leadership at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. In her paper, “Taking Stress out of Stressful Communication”, published in Harvard Business Review’s 10 Best Reads on Communication, Weeks contends that, notwithstanding that human activities are dotted with speech and talking, we more often than we like run into stressful communication—some sensitive exchanges that hurt or haunt us in no small ways. She also submits that, despite having to live by talking, humans cannot avoid stressful communication. For instance, because every human being can talk, you would want simply to take communication for granted. But speech does have problems, and communication problems are spread across every form of communicative activity—verbal and non-verbal.
Just as we have noted that stressful conversations are unavoidable, we must also note that the stress in the conversations could be intentional or inherent in the activity in which we are engaged. In a situation of public communication, whether political or organisational, stressful conversations would erupt willy-nilly. The case of the poke by the presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, on the subsidy removal policy of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is a case in point here. Yes, Atiku might just have set out to communicate what he tagged the Atiku Economic Recovery Plan (AERP) to Nigerians when he released the statement through his media aide, Phrank Shaibu, on 20 August; the fact that he challenged a core policy thrust of the incumbent administration made it a stressful conversation on the part of the recipients. The same night Atiku released what looked like the foundation of his economic policy for the 2027 campaign; the presidency highlighted the stress inherent, and it has become a contentious piece of conversation since then. It has also become a source of huge stress for political actors, media aides of the president and the ruling party, as well as other spokespersons, who believe that they can contribute to the ongoing national debate. It was a major talking point among presidential hopefuls at the conference of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, last week. The Presidential Villa has almost daily taken on Atiku, either accusing him of a volte-face on his earlier positions in years past or describing him as someone talking from an archaic economic point. The Atiku declaration has also provided content for most television talk shows, political actors, and others in their attempt to showcase their knowledge of the issue at hand.
Atiku, in a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, said that he would introduce a targeted subsidy regime that would accelerate domestic refining if elected in 2027—a statement the Presidency, in a quick reply by the Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Information and Strategy, Mr. Bayo Onanuga, tagged as a show of desperation for power. Onanuga also accused the former number two man of a volte-face.
According to Atiku, if elected in 2027, he would implement the Atiku Economic Recovery Plan (AERP), which he said would replace the nation’s import-subsidy architecture and imbue it with a targeted, capped, transparently budgeted and independently audited production subsidy, which he said would be designed to lower energy costs and accelerate domestic refining.
“My proposal is not to resurrect the old subsidy regime. We will move subsidy from importation to production, from middlemen to Nigerian refineries, and from unverifiable claims to verifiable barrels. The principle is simple: the subsidy will follow the barrel,” Atiku said, and added: “Under the AERP, qualifying public and private Nigerian refineries would receive domestic crude at a preferential price, subject to strict production, efficiency, transparency and domestic-supply conditions.”
The Presidency had immediately fired back at Atiku, accusing him of a volte-face. It also tagged the ADC presidential candidate “a man who least comprehends current national realities”, adding that he spoke, “like a man from [an] archaic past”.
Onanuga wrote: “Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, former Vice President and perennial candidate for the presidency of Nigeria, has finally revealed his economic plans to Nigerians, should he be elected as President by January next year.
“Against expectations that he would announce a more creative and ingenious alternative to the programme being executed by the Tinubu administration, Atiku Abubakar behaved like a man from an archaic past who least comprehends the present economic dynamics and suggested that he would restore the much-abused, wasteful, pillaged, corruption-ridden fuel subsidy regime, which the Petroleum Industry Act made illegal from the end of June 2023.”
After the initial attack on Atiku, the presidency has continued to top up its messages as it doubled down on the former Vice President, while the ADC presidential candidate has also continued to insist he would not back down on his proposal.
Without even going into the veracity of the claims on either side, we first have to give kudos to Atiku for coming out with this firestorm of an issue which immediately caught the attention of all in the 2027 electioneering campaign process. We need issue-based campaigns, and this is one example of such. Suddenly, the debate shifted from 31 governors and the threat of a one-party state or that the 2027 election was a fait accompli, and the complaints about rudderless opposition, and now it is about the fuel subsidy regime and what it means for all. This is an issue everyone has been papering over in the last three years.
President Bola Tinubu ignited the fire on 29 May 2023, when he suddenly announced, “subsidy is gone!” With that, petrol, which was selling at less than ₦200 per litre at the pumps, jumped to over ₦1,000 across the country. Right now, it is more than ₦1,200 in the South-West and an average of ₦1,300 in the far North, South-East and South-South. The president, in making the announcement, did not project a detailed policy around the pronouncement. After the announcement came the palliatives to the states and the CNG transportation initiative. By simply saying subsidy was gone, the president had put Nigerians at the mercy of the fuel suppliers, who could sometimes change their figures twice in a day. We saw a quick somersault of figures at the pumps, which compelled Nigerians to pay more. Added to that, the government implemented the massive devaluation of the naira, which came with some—if you like—window-dressed adjectival phrases. That one took the naira from around ₦600 to the US dollar to ₦1,600 at the first instance. It recently settled at around ₦1,350 to $1.
The combined effects of these two policies amounted to misery and financial strangulation for the working class, while those looking unto God for jobs were reduced to beggars or the proverbial living dead. On the contrary, the federal, state, and local governments have had their incomes quadrupled. So, as the citizens wallow in misery, the convoys of their governors grew longer with armoured versions of vehicles that are produced in faraway lands. A video recently surfaced online of the Katsina governor, in which the convoy was littered with armoured Escalades and all manner of treated SUVs. That is typical of many states.
If these are the realities Nigerians have associated with the “Subsidy is gone” pronouncement of President Tinubu, can we then blame Atiku for stoking the fire and igniting an argument even though on a campaign trail? Nigerians want cheaper fuel; whatever will make them pay less would be attractive.
The presidency stated that even though Atiku used to believe that the subsidy regime must be eliminated and canvassed the same point in the build-up to the 2023 election, “he has now opportunistically recanted the major plank of his economic doctrine and turned a renegade.”
“It is not difficult to explain why Atiku has latched onto the abandoned subsidy regime, five months to the election. Desperate for power, he needed to make a promise that he knew, if he were candid with our people, does not make fiscal sense, is retrogressive, and is against the genuine interest of the people. But before his suggestion hoodwinks the people, we must quickly subject the promise to a serious examination, especially in the context of Nigeria’s present economic and petroleum realities,” the statement by Onanuga read.
Incidentally, many of the defenders of the president have been busy attacking the person of Atiku. Some have said that he was igniting confusion, which was difficult to ignore. When they do that, they make the conversations more stressful. Atiku, as a citizen of Nigeria, is entitled to his opinion. The government is also entitled to its choices. Both parties must, however, defend their options and convince the people why the option they chose was the best for the people, whether in the short or the long run. The people would remain the ultimate deciders of what is right or wrong as they endorse or reject either idea with their votes. The government has likened the sufferings associated with the subsidy removal and naira devaluation (or is it undervaluation) to the pains of childbirth. Luckily, it has had three years to implement the programme. Everyone knows that no woman can last three years in the labour room. By that time, the first child should be ripe for a sibling. So, at this time, government communicators should be telling us the gains from the subsidy labour room. If the essence of their discussion remains that the president has been pushing more money to the states and local governments, that would amount to a self-defeating argument. The leadership recruitment process in the states in this Fourth Republic has shown that true and conscientious leaders may be hard to come by. A situation where it is either a cabal imposes a governorship candidate or a group of moneybags stakes their funds to install a governor can hardly produce a leader who would provide incisive governance. Little wonder, the fatter the FAAC allocations, the more astronomical the rise we see in the recurrent expenditure of the states and the local governments. In several instances, the governors simply pocket the funds belonging to the local governments and use that as “pocket money”.
Rather than attack Atiku for raising the debate on subsidy removal at this time, defenders of the status quo should show us the good things we have reaped from the removal of the subsidy. Maybe they should also explain why the government is still borrowing money, despite the subsidy removal and the devaluation of the currency. Both policies incidentally attack the purchasing power of the average worker. The least-paid public worker goes home with ₦70,000, barely enough to transport him to work, yet he has a family of four or more to feed, school fees to pay, and health challenges to attend to. He also has no assurance about how to raise the next rent. Discussions should therefore turn to public accountability, rather than name-calling, tagging, and what have you. How does the money the country makes work for the people? What benefits are Nigerians deriving from the oil God has given them, and how do we hold our leaders to account for the funds they oversee? For the government in power, the people need to hear what they are doing to fix the dilapidated infrastructure, the collapsed Ajaokuta Steel Company, the massive rail projects that should link the North to the South, the ongoing superhighways and plans to add others, including the Abuja–Lagos and Port Harcourt–Maiduguri superhighways, among others. They should also poke at Atiku’s subsidy plan. How will he do it differently, and how will he avoid the usual rent-seeking that followed the subsidy bazaar of the past?
