No going back on subsidy removal

The dispute over the removal of the subsidy on petrol entered its third day with the Federal Government and Labour refusing to shift ground.
Rising from an emergency meeting on Wednesday, the Federal Executive Council insisted that it would not budge on the deregulation of the downstream oil sector and the removal of subsidy.
The government spoke even as the outrage generated by the removal grew and more Nigerians took to the streets to protest government’s decisions. The protests started
on Monday, a day after government had increased the pump price of petrol from N65 to N141 per litre.
Briefing journalists after the emergency meeting of the FEC, in Abuja, Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran Maku, warned that reversing the decision would cripple the economy.
Maku said, “Having gone this far in the deregulation process, there is no going back. To roll back is to cripple the economy and cause greater discomfort. In no time, the prices will come down unlike in the past where marketers used to hoard fuel because government was subsidising, that would no longer be the case. I can assure you that fuel stations will soon be begging Nigerians to come and patronise them. The burden will disappear and customers will be kings.”
Maku was accompanied to the briefing by the Minister of Trade and Investment, Mr. Olusegun Aganga, and Minister of Transport, Senator Idris Umar.
The information minister explained that the emergency meeting was called because President Goodluck Jonathan was touched by the pains occasioned by the removal of the subsidy.
The minister said, “Mr. President is deeply touched also by the pains that citizens are going through because of the temporary jump in the prices of petroleum products as well as of transport in most parts of the country. Mr. President, therefore, called the emergency council meeting to expedite action on measures to alleviate these pains which citizens are going through.
“He made it very clear that as President of Nigeria, his role is to ensure that the welfare of Nigerians as well as the growth and development of this country becomes his major goals and that is exactly what he is pursuing.”
Maku added that the President informed the members of council that measures had been taken to ease the burden of the subsidy removal.
According to Maku, these measures include a programme to bring down the cost of transportation by investing massively in mass transit.
He said the government, by Monday, would have taken delivery of 1,600 buses which would be operated by private companies.
The minister said Jonathan had also directed that salaries of public servants be paid latest by January 20 as a way of cushioning the effect of the deregulation.
He added that the FAAC had been directed to fast-track its meeting so that federal allocation could be shared latest by January 15.
Another measure being taken by the government to alleviate people’s suffering, according to the minister, is a directive to all Ministries, Departments and Agencies of Federal Government to begin to fill the vacancies available with unemployed Nigerians as soon as possible.
Maku said, “We believe it would create greater harm for Nigerians for labour to insist on strike because it would further compound the sufferings of the people and this will be regrettable. There is an ongoing dialogue with labour. Government has set up the Justice Belgore committee.”
Aganga said that the mass transit scheme would be funded from a N10bn revolving loan granted the Urban Development Bank of Nigeria in 2009 and that the scheme would be expanded.
He said the loan would attract five percent interest rate and was payable over a period of five years.
He assured Nigerians that the Standards Organisation of Nigeria, the Weight and Measure Department of his ministry and the Consumer Protection Agency would collaborate to ensure that nobody took advantage of average Nigerians as a result of the deregulation.
On the timing of the subsidy removal, Aganga explained that since the 2012 Appropriation Bill submitted to the National Assembly did not make provision for subsidy, it ought to have been obvious that government would remove subsidy on January 1.
He said the government was allowed under the law to implement a certain percentage of the budget before approval once the bill had been submitted to the National Assembly.
Meanwhile, Labour and civil society groups, which said ongoing rallies were ‘dress rehearsals’, have fixed Monday, January 9 for the commencement of its mass action.
Speaking after a meeting of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Trade Union Congress and civil society groups, President of NLC, Abdulwaheed Umar, said the mass action would continue till the pump price was reversed.
Omar spoke alongside his counterpart in the TUC, Mr. Peter Esele, at the end of an emergency meeting of the National Executive Councils of the NLC and the TUC in Abuja on Wednesday.
Omar urged Nigerians to make elaborate preparations for the strike by stocking food items and water to cope with the period of the strike.
The labour leaders called on Nigerians to turn out en masse to participate in the “struggle against the removal of the fuel subsidy.”
They noted that the method of resistance against the subsidy removal would be non-violent.
The unions said that the Federal Government had not met the conditions reached with Labour in 2009 for the removal of the subsidy.
They listed the conditions to include “fixing of all the refineries and building new ones; regular power supply; and provision of other social infrastructure such as roads railways and repairs of roads as well as eliminating corruption associated with supply and distribution of petroleum products in the downstream sector of the oil industry.”
They condemned the killing of a protester in Ilorin, Kwara State, and the alleged harassment of Nigerians protesting against the fuel price increase in about 10 cities of Nigeria.
The labour leaders also urged the officers and men of the Armed Forces and security operatives to resist directives to shoot people involved in the protest.
“Labour calls on the police, armed forces and other security agencies to reject orders that they turn their weapons on fellow Nigerians. We warn that anybody who does so will be individually brought to justice.
“The primary objective of this patriotic call and movement is to revert PMS price to N65, restore normalcy and reclaim Nigeria for Nigerians.”
The Secretary General of the Joint Action Front, Mr. Abiodun Aremu; the National Convener of the United Action for Democracy, Mr. Jaiye Gaskia; representatives of the commercial motorcycle riders, students leaders and others attended the meeting.