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•Palliative an insult to citizens
A public affairs analyst and Convener of the Reset Lagos Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Dr. Adetokunbo Pearse, has called on President Bola Tinubu to go after the fuel subsidy cabal, instead of punishing Nigerians with the subsidy removal.
In an interview with VINCENT KALU, the member of the 2023 PDP National Presidential Campaign Council noted that the palliative to cushion the harsh effect of petrol subsidy removal was an insult to the citizens.
What is your view on the state of the nation?
Every nation to a large extent is judged by two aspect of governance. The first is the economy and the second is security. Right from May 29, when President Bola Tinubu took over, he has put our nation in jeopardy. The economy is in turmoil because, as soon as he removed subsidy for petrol, the price jumped from N195 per litre to N500, immediately. A month later, it went to N617 per litre. Now, petrol consumption has reduced by 28 per cent; what happens is that economic activities have also reduced to about 28 per cent. The Chinese say, if you want to develop an economy, you build roads so that people can travel from back and front. As soon as petrol price went up beyond people’s ability to purchase, movement became slow because the consumption of petrol has reduced, therefore, our economy is in trouble. Individuals are suffering, buying and selling is suffering, companies are folding up and leaving the country because cost of production is high and they cannot employ, so unemployment has gone up. That is bad for the economy.
We are not hearing too much now in the media, but up North, the issue of banditry and kidnapping has gone up again and is a free fall now. To add to the insecurity, you have stealing, mugging, blackmailing, etc going on now in the country. Any time you walk the streets of Lagos, about five people will beg you for money before you get to your destination; everybody is becoming a beggar. People are poor, people are unemployed, and the companies are leaving and the economy is going and people are suffering.
Now, you have insecurity, and the president is so eager to declare war on Niger. As soon as you have declaration of war, what happens to your economy? It goes down because speculators will know that you will be in trouble and that is why the naira hit N950 for a dollar last week, though it has gone down to N870. But you can imagine what is going on; the currency is going down and down. When Tinubu got into power, it was about N730 to the dollar, it went as far as N950, and today it is about N870.
If you go to war with Niger, our security is gone. Seven states in the North are sharing border with that country. People are talking about sharing border, but when I look at the map, we are not sharing border with Niger, but we are surrounded by Niger. The whole of North West – four states from North West and three states from the North East are basically surrounded. So, Nigeria is surrounded in the North West and North East by Niger. From Kebbi to Sokoto, Zamfara, Katsina to Borno, are basically surrounded by Niger. So if we go to war, we are in trouble. When you go to war, your economy is already in shambles. He said he is going to war, where is he going to get the money? He cannot get money to sustain fuel subsidy, but he has money to go and fight. We are in trouble in this country.
President Tinubu was sworn-in in May, three months ago. We were told he would hit the ground running. What do you think of his performance so far? Did he hit the ground running?
He was too fast, he didn’t hit the ground running, he hit the ground and crashed on the ground. He came in running too fast, he put the cart before the horse. He is just running in circles; he is not running in progression, he is running in circles, and doesn’t know what he is doing. He didn’t hit the ground running, he just wanted to impress, and he doesn’t know that prudence is the better part of valour. You can appear to be courageous, but if you don’t take time you destroy yourself. So, he didn’t run in progression; he didn’t hit the ground running, he hit the ground in a crash.
President Tinubu has constituted his cabinet. Ministers have been assigned portfolios. What is your assessment of them?
The government is too bloated with too many people, and that is a waste of money again. Where would he get the money to maintain that? The man is digging his political grave in so many ways and it is unbelievable. I thought that he knew what he was doing, but he has shown that he is a disaster. That is what you get when you have a man who has never developed any business before.
The ministers are too many and the quality is very poor. About seven of them are former governors; people who have failed in their profession, people who could not get elected or get their own people elected as governor; people who could not get elected as senators, and people who were rejected were the ones you brought as ministers. He is only giving them compensation; appointing people for political patronage. Many of them are square pegs in round holes. It is a shame. If you are appointed a minister, you are an executive; you are going to key in to the policy to change things for the better. For example, I’m in education, and if I’m made a minister, am I going to execute the foolish policy on education? You are raising school fees, and you are giving people conditions to get education loan, which don’t make sense. Bank rate has gone up so much now. It used to be N450 to a dollar that people were able to pay school fees for their children and wards abroad, but it is not so again. This is totally-anti education, and education is the antidote to poverty in any nation, and he has blocked that too. If I’m made the Minister of Education, I would not promote those anti education policies. The man is doing everything wrong and it is unfortunate.
I’m not happy in criticising a government like this, I want this government to move so that we can change the damage that Buhari has done, but it is unfortunate that Tinubu is adding more damage to what we had with Buhari.
You condemned the manner that the president removed the fuel subsidy, but your principal Atiku Abubakar during the electioneering, also said that he would remove the subsidy, What would he have done differently?
Atiku, knowing his character of being composed and calculating and introspective, would not remove subsidy in this brash manner. If you didn’t remove the subsidy in the brash manner that Tinubu did, the chances are that you would be able to deal with the problems that we have now. The price would not go up so suddenly; it goes up gradually, it is something that is manageable.
Atiku would have considered increasing minimum wage, and so many other things; a lot of consultations before he would make such an announcement. Have you ever seen a president who would announce on the first day that he was going to make life difficult for everybody?
As he is removing subsidy, he is increasing benefits for the bourgeoisie; that is why everybody is a minister, associate minister, special adviser, assistant adviser or security something or the other. Atiku wouldn’t have done it this way. But if he did it in this brash manner as if it was a small thing, we would have the same result and people like us will not be happy with him because this is not personal. He would not have done this way. He is more calculating; he would have done some consultations. It is not the subsidy that is the problem; have they not removed subsidy for over two months now? Has the economy improved? In fact it has gone worse. Is he not still borrowing money? So, it is not subsidy that is the problem. Atiku’s priority is restructuring of the country; devolution of powers to the state. If you devolve power, the cost of petrol would differ from state to state, and salaries will also differ in the states. Those who can afford to pay more will do that. And where cost of living is low, the salary will not be as high as Lagos. So, Atiku would not have done it the same brash way.
Nigerians were told that the reason for the removal of subsidy was that few individuals were benefitting and defrauding Nigeria. What should be done to them?
It was the Vice President Shettima, who said that when they will remove subsidy, the marketers will fight them and they will fight them back. When the marketers went to visit them in Aso Rock and to congratulate the president, they (the marketers) were happy that he removed subsidy and even promised to give him support for transportation project. They were happy because the government was subsidising them with maybe N300 per litre, but now they are collecting N500 per litre from us. So who is suffering?
If subsidy is being consumed by some groups of people, those are the people you go after instead of removing subsidy. The solution to our problem is that 90 per cent of our foreign revenue comes from the oil industry, so the NNPCL is where you go and know what is going on there. If you can plug the leakages in the NNPCL, stop the oil theft, and the inefficiency and corruption there, then you have more money to develop the economy. You don’t need to remove subsidy, you don’t need to be talking about palliative, which is not doing anything for anybody.
Mr. President, by not facing those people who were siphoning the money from the fuel subsidy regime, you are encouraging them and employing them because part of them is in government right now. If he cannot face them that means he is afraid of the cabal or he is one of them, and he is not going to solve any problem in Nigeria, unless he goes to NNPCL, where our money is coming from.
Imagine you are running your business, and it is one sector that is sustaining your business. Is that not where you go first and foremost to see why your business is losing money? If you have not gone to NNPCL and interrogated Kyari, what are you doing? Do you know that on the June 1, 2023, on Channel TV, Kyari said that even when Dangote Refinery is on board, and we have refineries working in Port Harcourt, Kaduna, etc that pump price of petrol would not reduce? That’s a criminal statement and the president is not going there. I have always said, Mr. President, go and interrogate Kyari; look into the production of oil. That is where the money is because 90 per cent of our money is coming from there.
As a way of cushioning the harsh effect of the subsidy removal, the federal government is giving N5 billion to each state to share to the poorest of the poor. What impact can this money make?
Palliative is not the solution. Palliative in the medical field, it is defined as treatment without curing, while in the social field, it is like looking for excuses. Look at N5 billion per state. In Kwara State, they said they have got N1, 200 bags of rice for a population of about 2 million. Ondo got 3,200 bags of rice and Plateau got 3,000 bags. Imagine the insult. Imagine a state that has 16 local governments. How do you divide 3,000 bags into 16 places? In quantity, it is an insult; in quality, it is a joke. How long will this last? How many people are going to get this? How do you know the number of poorest of the poor in Lagos? How do you judge?
In Nigeria, I don’t think we have up to 10 per cent of people earning more than N100, 000 a month. That means only 10 per cent of the people do not need support. You must develop your economy in such a way that revenue coming from the state can sustain the state. Palliative is like a lunch box that you give to people when they come for campaign rally; when they eat it, it is not even enough and they would still eat when they get home because it is only snack. Palliative is snack, which you eat in one or two days.
There is no substitute for developing the economy, and that is why we talk about restructuring. Tinubu is not saying anything about restructuring, which is so strange. Every student of the society has said that you must restructure.
What happens if the economy is restructured?
If the economy is restructured, there is no need for palliative. Ondo State is sitting on the third largest deposit of bitumen in the world. All you have to do is to develop the bitumen and use it to boost the economy of the South West. There is gold in Oyo. In the South East, Enugu is sitting on the ninth deposit of natural gas in the world. They are piping our gas from Warri to Niger, to Libya, to Morocco, to France, and to other European countries, instead of using the gas to develop our area. They are talking of French stealing uranium from Niger, the same they are stealing Nigeria’s uranium from Borno and all the neighbouring states that share border with Niger. If you steal Niger’s uranium, you are also stealing Nigeria’s uranium, and then we have no electricity and France is well lighted.
We have not had a president yet. This palliative business is rubbish. Subsidy is what keeps countries going. Do they not have subsidy for transport in America; do they not have subsidy for education, health? Imagine if American says they were going to remove subsidy on Agriculture? We are just beginning to have people who understand the way government should work, and unfortunately, Tinubu is not one of them.
The most current mineral today that everybody all over the world is looking for is lithium, and we have it in abundance in Kwara and Kaduna states. If we have devolution of powers whereby the states would use their natural resources and they wouldn’t be any reason for them to go to the centre begging for loan. Investors from abroad will come in to develop those mineral resources, and taxes from uranium, bitumen, lithium will go into the coffers of the federal government. The crude oil in the Niger Delta belongs to the people of that area. It is because the federal government is taking everything from them that the place is so poor. Anywhere you have crude oil exploration, you are going to have so much devastation, and therefore money must be ploughed into that place otherwise, you destroy the people there and their land. You cannot take money from crude oil in that region, and yet there is no money to take care of the problem that crude oil exploration has caused. Leave the Niger Delta with their oil, leave Enugu with their gas, leave Taraba with their bauxite; leave everybody with what they have, let the states develop their resources.
Our GDP in Nigeria went to the highest in history, surpassing that of South Africa for the first time because during the Jonathan era, Adesina, then minister of Agriculture was developing and increasing our foreign exchange; we were moving, but as soon as Buhari got there, they killed that project. In the financial sector, Okonjo-Iweala was working so hard, making sure that our minerals were being looked upon by foreign investors as potential for economic development; therefore we were able to borrow money knowing that we have something we could develop to pay for the money. Now, we don’t have anything. All we have is suffering, you removed subsidy and you came up with some short-minded idea that you are going to solve the economic problem by giving them palliative. The president should not use that word again. He should be talking about subsidy in the various aspects of the economy.
