NIGERIA AND POLITICS OF FUEL SUBSIDY REMOVAL

I can recall the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF), established in the aftermath of the 1993 fuel-price increase, when the price of petrol rose from about N3.50 to N8.50 per litre. The justification was that the additional revenue would be channelled into critical infrastructure and national development. Then came 2012.The Goodluck Jonathan administration introduced the Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P), again as part of the justification for reducing or removing fuel subsidy.

By the time SURE-P was introduced, the price of petrol had already increased many times over the N8.50 level of the earlier period. Yet Nigerians were once again being told that removing subsidy would free resources for development and improve the economy. The question therefore is not simply, should fuel subsidy be removed? The bigger question is: how many times will Nigerians pay the price of subsidy removal, and how many times will they be asked to wait for the promised benefits? Nigeria has been through several rounds of fuel-price reforms. NEITI’s review of the policy history identifies repeated attempts in 1993, 2012, 2016 and 2020, with governments adopting different mechanisms to reduce or eliminate subsidy. It also notes that the 1993 and 2012 reforms were accompanied by the PTF and SURE-P respectively, both intended to channel the proceeds into development and social interventions.

This raises a fundamental issue of public policy and accountability. If subsidy removal is supposed to create fiscal space, where is the transparent accounting of that space? What has been saved? What has been reinvested? What has reached the ordinary citizen?

For decades, the Nigerian public has been presented with different names, programmes and explanations: subsidy removal, subsidy reduction, deregulation, price modulation, reinvestment and now market-based pricing. But for the ordinary Nigerian, the experience is often much simpler: the price goes up, the cost of living rises, and another promise is made that things will eventually get better. Perhaps it is time to move beyond the politics of announcing subsidy removal and begin a serious conversation about the politics of accountability.

If subsidy is a burden on government finances, let the figures be made public.

If its removal is saving the government money, let Nigerians see the savings.

If the savings are being invested in infrastructure and social protection, let Nigerians see the projects and know exactly how much was spent. And if the policy is genuinely necessary, government must also explain why successive administrations have repeatedly used subsidy removal as both an economic solution and a political promise, while the fundamental problems of domestic refining, energy infrastructure, transportation and mass poverty remain. After more than three decades of subsidy debates, perhaps the real question is no longer when subsidy will be removed. The real question is: when will Nigerians finally hear the last excuse for removing it?

Bashir Bello, Kaduna State