There are no two ways about it; oil is to Nigerians what blood is to life. Nigeria’s economy literally runs on it and any policy taken by government in the oil and gas sector always affects them. With the planned removal of oil subsidy next year, some people have argued that the country should be ready for its own violent uprising. EMMANUEL ADENIYI writes about the proposed removal of oil subsidy and the possibility of revolution in Africa’s most populous country.
There is no cyclic agent as powerful and resilient as history. It is undying and its ability to put human folly on display is phenomenal. History’s effulgence is in its self-reflective education, which it offers mankind, the way a steadfast benefactor doles out aid without any restraint. History teaches. It warns, corrects and sets precedents.
It is, however, stunning how man and nations jettison precedents of history and turn deaf ears to its silent warnings. Empires have fallen; nations have splintered into irreconcilable states, not as a result of internal bickering or external aggressions, but because of man’s and nation’s inability to heed history’s self-reflective and self-corrective warnings.
Arab Spring, the wild fire currently consuming the Maghreb, is an offspring of history, a people’s response to a flurry of historical events. It is history’s transcendental message to a world that trivialises the essence of historical actualities. The uprising started like a child’s play, but snowballed into a conflagration devouring spittle-built structures and their builders. Interestingly, in each of the Maghreb nations, where hapless citizens have revolted against oppression, history has remained triumphant, setting precedents of overthrow and disgraceful exit after making a public spectacle of state-citizen disconnect in the nations.
Truth must be told, revolution is sweeping across the globe. In the region of the world where it has berthed so far, nobody gave it a serious thought, until it became uncontrollable for its victims. Right now, widespread demonstrations and protests have taken the centre stage in the U.S. The demonstrations, popularly called Occupy Wall Street (OWS), are said to have been held in over 70 major cities and over 600 communities in the U.S. The grouse of the protesters, like their counterparts in the Maghreb, is the impenetrable socio-economic inequality and a number of other corrupt acts that have impacted negatively on the hapless citizens.
Nigeria is, however, on the threshold of witnessing its own revolution, though many people have argued that Maghrebian uprising cannot happen in Africa’s most populous country. One can conveniently perceive Nigerians’ displeasure with the intractable problem of corruption in the country, marked disconnect between the government and the citizens as well as many anti-populist policies rolled out by government with utmost perfidious intention. These problems are enough to catalyse citizens’ misbehaviour against government and could trigger off mass uprisings in Nigeria.
The proposed oil subsidy removal by the Federal Government is a policy that could accentuate the country’s decline. It may serve as a firework that will trigger off the instruments of protests and demonstrations with unpredictable consequences and possibly upstage the country’s already suffused history of bad governance.
The Presidency has told the nation it is poised to remove the subsidy because of its depleting effect on the government’s revenue. It said that about N1.5 trillion was expected to be expended on subsidising the price of fuel this year, as against the N568 billion provided in the 2011 budget, noting that the subsidy when removed would be spent on health, education and improving infrastructure in the country. A subsidy of about N91 is currently paid on a litre of petrol by the Federal Government, thus making it available at N65 per litre as against N156 open market price.
Since the local consumption of petrol is heavily dependent on importation which is subject to the price oscillations of international market, Nigeria ironically pays heavily for the product it produces within its shores. Its four refineries are overstretched and poorly maintained, yet it fails to invest in building new ones with higher refining capacity. Should the subsidy be removed, Nigerians will have to buy the product at the international market price and be left to the vagaries of incessant price shift and adjustments.
The fear of many Nigerians, who have kicked against the move, is that the removal of the subsidy would add to the catalogue of problems they are grappling with. In a country where electricity is almost non-existent, with soaring unemployment of its youths, poor transportation system and a weak economy powered by generating sets, removing oil subsidy would spell doom for Nigerians who would have to pay through their noses for basic necessities of life.
Can Arab Spring happen in Nigeria?
Most of the factors that caused wild uprising in the Maghreb are prominent in Nigeria. There is corruption here, poverty is a towering tower in the country, as a matter of fact, it walks on all fours. Gross violation of human rights, like police brutality of Mohamed Bouazizi in Tunisia, is an everyday happening in Nigeria. The 2011 Global Hungry Index (GHI) of Nigeria is abysmally alarming. According to the 2011 GHI report released by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Nigeria is ranked 18th among 81 countries with extremely alarming and serious hunger situation in the world. It is not an understatement to say that socio-economic situation in the Maghreb is much more better than what is obtained in Nigeria. A recent survey has shown that per litre pump price of oil in Libya is just N15.95k, whereas in Egypt, a non-oil producing country, pump price per litre is N46.72k. A litre of petrol in Nigeria is currently N65, though it may shoot up if the subsidy on it is removed. Libya, till its benevolent dictator, Muammar Gaddafi, died, owed no external debt; Nigeria’s external debt, according to the Senate last Thursday, is currently US$39.72 billion. The Senate also said that many states in the country had gone financially distressed, giving the impression that the states would not be able to carry out their statutory duties since their finances had nosedived.
If Mohamed Bouazizi could perform self-immolation because of police brutality against his person and that act triggered off mass unrest in Tunisia, extra-judicial killings, coupled with an army obfuscating circumstances are enough to spark off Nigeria’s revolution.
Suffice it to say that some experts have described Nigerians as quiescent people, whose docility has been utilised by government to impose on them stifling policies that have forced them into capitulation. Besides, there is no absolute monarchy or dictatorship in the country; therefore, it would be difficult for Nigerians to rise up against a common enemy, more so when they are divided along ethnic and religious lines, they argued.
History of resistance and protest against bad governance is not alien to Nigerians. When it happens, Nigerians throw away their thin veil of differences and unite against a common enemy. The Ali Must Go riot of 1978, when students rose up against the then Federal Commissioner of Education, Colonel Ahmadu Ali, over his anti-students programme almost shook the then military government of General Olusegun Obasanjo to its very roots.
The 1986 anti-fuel-increase uprising championed by the like of Mr. Labaran Maku, who was then a student leader in the University of Jos, readily comes to mind. Mr Maku, now the current Minister of Information and National Orientation, led a group of students protesting hike in fuel price by the military junta of General Ibrahim Babangida.
The series of protest that greeted the annulment of June 12 election in 1993 and many others conducted by civil society groups and NGOs since the election have proved that Nigerians cannot be taken for granted, in view the their capacity to rise up against any oppressive policy or government.
No one prays that Nigeria tilts towards Arab Spring. The only hope of the country, however, is in its president, Dr Goodluck Jonathan, who many people believe will always identify with the masses and protect their interest.