More than half of Nigerians think full deregulation of the downstream petroleum sector will not be beneficial to the citizens, a survey by the NOI Polls, a Nigerian survey and research firm has shown.
Full deregulation has been at the fore of President Umaru Yar’Adua’s economic policy this year, but organised Labour and civil society have kicked against it, basing their argument on an anticipated increase in the price of petrol and subsequent hardship for the masses.
War of wills
Despite the outcry, the federal government continues to reaffirm its commitment to deregulation of the sector. The government hinged its decision to hands-off and allow full participation of the private sector on what it says is the un-sustainability of continued subsidy on the sector.
The federal government argues that it has spent more than two trillion naira on fuel subsidy between 2006 and 2009. Against this backdrop, it announced its intention to deregulate the downstream oil sector on February 27, 2009.
A planned November 1, 2009 take-off of the policy was postponed after government failed to meet Labour’s criteria for the start of the policy.
The poll results
In the survey conducted by the NOI to assess public sentiments on the planned policy change, Nigerians were asked if they think the policy will be beneficial to them.
Some 52 percent of those surveyed said they are aware of the planned deregulation. But they said they do not think the policy change in the sector would be favourable to Nigerians. While 41 percent said deregulation will benefit Nigerians, seven percent said they don’t know if Nigerians will or will not be better off with deregulation.
“This figure is lower than the proportion (about 85 percent) who said the same, in a similar poll conducted in March 2009. The data indicates a marked change in opinions between March and November 2009,” the survey report said.
The poll also asked if they were aware of the government’s intention to deregulate the downstream oil sector and if they were aware that removal of subsidies is part of the deregulation process.
“74 percent of Nigerians surveyed said they were aware of the planned deregulation in the sector. This figure shows an increase in awareness levels from 58 percent in March 2009 to 74 percent in November 2009,” the report said. This might be explained by the increase in public debate over the issue. The government estimates that it spends around N600 billion annually on petroleum subsidies, thus, with the removal of subsidies, a substantial amount of money would be saved each year.
However, awareness that removal of subsidies is a major part of the deregulation process was only 58 percent.
High support for infrastructure
In the NOI poll, Nigerians were asked what they think the government should do with the money saved from subsidies on petroleum products. The response was diverse.
Investment in infrastructure and agriculture was the pick of 23 percent of the respondents. They were the most common responses given by the people surveyed. Seventeen percent of the people picked investment in social services, such as free health care, while 11 percent mentioned investment in educational reforms.
The organisers say “these results are based on 1034 telephone interviews with randomly selected phone-owning Nigerians aged 16 years and older, across the six geographical regions of the country.
“With a sample of this size, we can say with 95 percent confidence that the results have a statistical precision of plus or minus 3 percentage points of what they would have been if the entire population had been surveyed.”
The NOI poll is conducted by NOI Global Consulting, an organisation established by former Nigerian finance minister, Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, in technical partnership with Gallup Polls (USA), to conduct periodic opinion polls on socio-economic issues in Nigeria.