EDITORIAL COMMENT: Fuel subsidy removal, Tinubu’s commitment and sincerity of government about governance – Lagos as a case study

“That is the better quick thing to do now. Else, no one prays for revolution because, no matter the extent of perseverance that Nigerians can be capable of having, once an average worker on minimum wage of N30,000 per month now needs N1,500 to and from work, excluding the cost of living, Nigerians will revolt.”

Before the Monday 29, 2023 inauguration of Senator Bola Ahmed ‘Omo Olodo Ide’ Tinubu as President and Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, his country base of many years, Lagos, had a culture of its transportation not being managed by state but non-state actors. The Agberos.  It is still the same.

Although in that City by the Lagoon, to borrow from the word of former boss of our boss, Odia Ofeimun, Agberoism is an allegory to depict a parallel government. Yes! That is correct to say by anyone who lives in Lagos and would be more sincere to himself in saying the truth. No gainsaying Tinubu is their godfather that empowers and provides them with the oxygen that makes them stronger.

These agberos had recently been transformed from their former status of a ‘mediocre’ to parks and garages managers with a former Commissioner of Police of Lagos State, who retired as Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG), serving under them (?) Yes! He did and still does! They are a body in Nigeria’s largest economy, upon which economies of other 35 states in the country depend, which determines how everybody lives his life here.

All the hardships in Nigeria are caused by nonchalance of government or administration in Lagos State. That is a fact. And all the hardships in Lagos State are caused by the fact that the economy in the state – once run as truly Centre of Excellence by then Colonel (now Retired Brigadier General) Mohamed Buba Marwa – is left in the hands of mediocre.

They dictate what commercial transporters from commuter buses to Keke and Okada charge as fare per passenger. They impose price tag on particularly Federal Mass buses, the left-overs of Molue buses, the LT buses, the Faragon buses and now the Korope smaller buses. No one of these listed buses’ operators dares to refuse the price tag, he would be vehemently told – even with a dangle of some kpankere cane to his face – that he either loads at their imposed price tag or loads at his own price and still pays them their own charges.

The agberos increase their charges to commuter buses’ operators, depending on the direction of their own spirits and nobody in government cares. Yet, these agberos’ unbearable charges are singularly a reason no amount of salary any worker in Lagos takes except that before the end of the month, he must still beg to eat or transport to and from work before another salary is paid.

What then is the essence of life and where is the presence of government and its governance in a state where every Nigerian citizen under its Area of Responsibility (AoR) provides himself EVERYTHING.  And this includes even pipe-borne water and electricity that are supposed to be primary duties of government to provide as payback for the taxes received from the people.

Even housing that used to be a primary duty of Lagos State Government during the days of the likes of Governor Lateef Kayode Jakande, today, is no longer easy to go by. At a minimum wage of N30,000 per month, a single room self-contained in Lagos currently goes for N12,500 per month meaning N150,000 in 12 months. How much is left for transportation to and from workplace where the money is made? How much is left for feeding of self (let it be said he or she is unmarried)? How much is left to pay electricity bills (that is the electricity that DisCo does not really provide because Nigerian still goes to neighbour’s apartment, who has ‘I pass my neighbour generator’, to charge his phone in a situation where even the government communicates to staff via online)?

It is expected, since even from the February 25, 2023 presidential election and his declaration by Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Mahmood Yakubu, as President-elect Wednesday night of February 29, till now, that the now inaugurated President Bola Ahmed Tinubu would have prevailed – directly or indirectly – on these agberos to watch their activities and make Nigeria enjoyable for its owners, the Nigerians living in the state.

This has not been the case. The moment he “won” election, the stronger they have continued to become. No thanks to a Lagos State Governor Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu, who has the constitutional powers to effectively administer the state he (and not Tinubu) swore to oath to make good, security wise and economically, for his people but who has continued to renege on such responsibility that has not even only earthly but also heavenly accountability implications.

Under the watch of Governor Sanwo-Olu, since COVID-19 Lockdown, distance that used to cost transport fare of N150 (e.g. Toll-Gate/Alagbado to Ikeja/Oshodi, Oshodi to Ikorodu, Obalende to Lekki/Ajah, etc) in Lagos has since been increased by the non-state actors, agberos, to N400.  More saddening is that, from Alagbado, the blue buses called BRT and pretended to be owned by Lagos State Government charges N600, where even the agberos charge N400 on normal day, at worst N500.

The moment President Tinubu announced in his inaugural speech on Monday that “Fuel subsidy is gone”, and the petrol marketers started their ‘Business as Usual’ – fuel hoarding – agberos found it as long awaited opportunity to jack the N400 a distance transport fare to N1,500 the following day, Tuesday May 30. That is the ‘Tinubu’s Lagos’.

But why having to be sudden with subsidy removal?

The question is: Should President Bola Ahmed Tinubu have made its electioneering promise of fuel subsidy removal an inaugural speech affair, knowing the nature of Nigerians especially oil marketers in particularly his part of Nigeria? Anyway, some Yoruba in Lagos have defended him. In an opinion sampling on Tuesday, an Okada man had said in Yoruba tongue, “Ha! Baba said so and has done so. He is the one that will finally liberate us from them. He said it that the way forward is to remove fuel subsidy and that he would do it once he wins election. That is what he has done,” the poor Okada man even gloated in suffering.

Now, in assessing the submission of the poor Okada man at Agege on Tuesday, the question to ask is: from whom is Tinubu believed to “liberate us”? Who are the ‘us’ and who are the ‘them’?  Which one is ‘once he wins election?’ When cases questioning the integrity of his declaration are still hovering in court, can it be right to say he has really won an election? What is right to say is that, because there can be no vacuum in power, the person that was declared as President-elect, right or wrong, stands until court says otherwise.

But it is still part of the reasons ethnic and religious sentiments will remain the bane of true development in Nigeria and why any civillian President will continue to fail. Nigerian citizens, of whatever extractions, must begin to make a paradigm shift from “Tribesman President” to “Nigerian President”. Only then we can unite on having a truly free, fair, credible, accountable and transparent election process because, the country’s electoral victory must move away from being determined by courts.

Even the Okada man in question, himself, charged N200 for a distance from AP Cement to Oniwaya Junction at Capitol Road, Agege hitherto carried for N100.  You could scream on top of your voice against ‘President Muhammadu Buhari’, blaming him even for activities of Agberos, LASTMA and KAI that have afflicted hardships on you in Lagos State (which you know are not Federal).

But now you would love to be hugely and loudly heard praising Tinubu as ‘Omo Olodo Ide’ even when his Federal based decisions have plunged you into an unprecedented hardship like we have seen in the fuel subsidy removal on his day one in office, so long you wake up and the man there is a Yoruba man. You would not even consider the feelings of other tribes in the country about what you come publicly to proclaim. How does a country move forward that way?

The way out

No matter how truthful he wanted to be seen, President Tinubu should not have announced fuel subsidy removal in his inaugural speech. That is not what Nigerian “controllers” of economy are cut out for. They are a special specie of economic drivers. They are cut out to make economics principles of demand and supply with regard to its law of diminishing return that work well in other climes to work anti-reality in Nigeria. They will make you fail because, they will exploit that presidential inaugural speech to maximise self-based gains for themselves.

This explains the reason Nigerians woke up on Tuesday to see all the queues at the filling stations across Lagos. Once it starts from Lagos, it must spread. And you know that even without fuel subsidy removal, agberos in “your” Lagos have their parameter for determining fare increase – internally motivated spirit – and they are now at work. It does not matter whether it is in tandem with the law or breaches the constitutional provisions of right to good living system for the people. Distance that a Lagos person paid N400 for is now charged for N1,500. On Tuesday, it went down to N1,000 only during afternoon time when they had no passengers at bus stop.

The way out, and which must be a quick one now, is to find a way in-between by also presidentially FIXING a price that is affordable for all and ensure unbeatable enforcement on all oil marketers across bounds including those at the depots – major and independent marketers – and let it run from now till December 2023, when you must have ensured that all the provisions required to cushion the effects of fuel subsidy removal have been put in place.

That is the better quick thing to do now. Else, no one prays for revolution because, no matter the extent of perseverance that Nigerians can be capable of having, once an average worker on minimum wage of N30,000 per month now needs N1,500 to and from work, excluding the cost of living, Nigerians will revolt.

You have a grace that Dangote Refinery Company has taken off.  The 650,000 barrels per day (bpd) capacity is one good measure that President Muhammadu Buhari took to make Nigeria great in terms of economic development and strengthening of the Naira. It is also in line with the recommendations of the Major General Emmanuel Adebayo Panel and that was subsequently sanctioned by Major General Tajudeen Olanrewaju Presidential Panel that wrote the White Paper on NNPC in 1995. And that Dangote Refinery, also, alone can take care of Nigeria’s local demand and still export to earn foreign exchange for the country.

But once you remove fuel subsidy when products from that refinery are yet to materialise and are not already in circulation, you place unnecessary pressure on its ability to handle satisfactory supplies to local market. Thereby, you only wittingly or unwittingly provide a shelter for activities of the corruption laden elements, who will – again – never allow Nigerians, already deprived of benefitting from the well intended state’s subsidy largesse of many years, to feel the impact. In the end, Nigeria ends up after four years with yet another President that is a failure.

A stitch in time, an adage says, saves nine!