Following the twin policy decisions to remove subsidy on petrol and the floatation of the naira against major world currencies by President Ahmed Bola Tinubu upon assumption of office a little over a year ago, the predictable consequences of these IMF/World Bank-induced neo-liberal economic experimentations have exploded in the faces of its promoters. President Tinubu’s widely advised but ill-informed policy decision to remove petrol subsidy and float the naira has seen the price of Nigeria’s most utilized energy product quadruple from less than N200 a litre to between N700 and N800, thereby setting off the worst inflation in the living memory of Africa’s most populous country. With wages remaining stagnant but thoroughly depreciated by the free fall of the naira and soaring energy prices, most of Nigeria’s 200 million people are now experiencing a cost of existence struggle that is accentuated by the widespread hunger, misery and deprivation in the land.
Having endured the dire consequences of the toxic effects of the IMF/World Bank-induced experimentation of removal of subsidy on petrol and the floatation of the naira in the last one year of the Tinubu administration, the Nigerian people have decided to draw the attention of their leaders to their unbearable plight by embarking on protests. Tagged #Endbadgovernance, the organic, amorphous and unorganized protests by Nigerians from all divides that have been united by hunger have been on the streets of Abuja, Lagos, Kaduna, Kano, Port Harcourt, Benin, Jos, Maiduguri, etc, making demands for a better Nigeria, wherein their welfare and security are guaranteed. The protests, which have been characterised by social unrest in some cases, have one consistent demand, among many others: the return of subsidy on petrol.
This is because common sense economics has linked the current hardship in Nigeria to the cost of petrol, an energy product that powers the bulk of Nigeria’s small and medium-scale enterprises-dominated economy. Petrol as Nigeria’s most utilized energy product drives the largest segment of Nigeria’s gross domestic production, from agriculture to services and from transportation to manufacturing. Common economic sense should have indicated that an increase in price of such a product will increase cost of production and induce a severe cost-push form of inflation such as the kind Nigeria is grappling with. And many Nigerians have come to this common sense realization that subsidy removal on petrol by Tinubu is primarily responsible for the hardship and hunger they are facing.
Having realised this basic linkage between high cost of energy and inflation, which has culminated in hardship, hunger and misery on them, the people enthusiastically demanded an address from the President with hopes that, like former Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan, Tinubu would see reason and reduce the cost of petrol by restoring petrol subsidy as a way of fundamentally rolling back the current precarious socio-economic conditions of the people. Unfortunately, while the ordinary man on the streets of Abuja suburbs like Nyanya, Mararaba and the street hawkers in Kano, Lagos and Maiduguri have understood the imperative of energy security [availability, accessibility and affordability] to economic growth, development and prosperity, the top politicians and technocrats in Aso Villa, seat of power, are yet to come to terms with this basic matter of economic fundamentals.
Tinubu’s address to the nation on Sunday not only failed to address the fundamental demand for the restoration of petrol subsidy by the Nigerian people but he doubled down on the fatal policy error of his administration in an unfeeling and detached manner with a touch of disdain for the people. It would seem by his response to protesters’ demand to restore subsidy on petrol that Tinubu has thrown Nigerians into a bottomless hell hole of hunger and misery and is still digging while at the same time insisting that his worst performance in the last one year is the best for Nigeria. By his detached, aloof and out-of-touch address to the Nigerian people, which was lacking in economic common sense of pledging to intervene in high cost of Nigeria’s most utilized energy product, Tinubu has cast a dark shadow that has rendered the helplessness of the people helpless.
And to overcome this state of hopeless helplessness, the theme of the protest may shift gear from “End Bad Governance” to ‘“End Bad Government,” with calls for Tinubu and his government to step down. Already, the protests and social unrests have resurged after his address and are now taking a revolutionary dimension with some protesters brandishing of the Russian flag and some calling on the military to intervene. Unbeknownst to many, the brandishing of the Russian flag is a symbolic rejection of what the protesters consider the neo-colonial influence of the West through the IMF and World Bank, which they blame for the toxic economic policies of the Tinubu administration that have poisoned their individual socio-economic well-being. To avert a system collapse and a consequential reign of terror that may engulf the country, Tinubu is hereby urged, in the interest of national security of the Nigerian state, to restore subsidy on petrol without further delay as his numerous interventions are ineffectual because the fundamentals of energy security are lacking. A word they say is enough for the wise.
Credit: Majeed Dahiru