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VENO NEWS:WHEN ARE WE ARRESTING THE SUBSIDY THEIVES?
Date: 20-07-23

By Sama Orijemiyi III

We all agreed fuel subsidy should be removed because the bulk of the monies expended on it was benefitting more a few persons than the greater number of common Nigerians, not because the idea of subsidizing energy was actually bad. Contrary to the Yoruba proverb, what we have done appears like beheading a man in an effort to cure him of headache. And when a shoe does not fit quite well, methinks it is a foul logic to cut off the foot in order to accommodate the shoe.

Granted that available data have shown that there were so much shady deals going on with the subsidy regime, a reasonable question is to ask whether government is not capable of bringing the persons culpable of the organized frauds to book that it had to adopt the option of transmitting the burden onto the Nigerian masses.

Having removed subsidy and leaving Nigerians with its accompanying hardship that is now becoming increasingly defiant, the government has chosen to keep persuading every common man to sacrifice for better days. Does it mean that those who plunged the country into this mess have been pardoned? Is it not wicked to say the Nigerian masses should bear the burden of crimes committed by a few privileged persons who constituted themselves into a team of saboteurs and held our economy by the jugular?

I am of the opinion that the best palliative for us as Nigerians would be to first launch a deep probe into the activities of the cartel that have caused Nigerians these unimaginable agonies while channeling the savings that accrue to governmentâ€™s coffers into raising salaries, supporting agriculture and public transport, and more importantly, building local refineries so as to ensure that we permanently bring down the landing cost of fuel.

Government should conduct engineering assessment on our four refineries and take a decision on whether to renovate or sell them off, for I believe the equipments used to build the Warri, Kaduna and Port Harcourt refineries in the 1960s may have become obsolete, as such, expending funds to resuscitate the â€˜oldiesâ€™ may not be in our best interest. Yes, they will run again but for only a short while before breaking down like Honda old model.

Meanwhile, refining our oil locally will as well reduce our pressure on forex, thus, strengthening the naira. And it can be said that we used one stone to kill two birds.

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