Nigeria: Fuel Subsidy As Buhari's Baptism of Fire

opinion

In the spirit of a debate that has lasted for over three decades on one aspect of Nigeria's political economy, the House of Representatives voted yesterday against the total removal of fuel subsidy. Instead, the lawmakers would like the President-elect, General Muhammadu Buhari, to continue with the subsidy regime. As the lawmakers pondered what to do with subsidy, Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was busy having the usual dialogue with fuel marketers so as to arrest the fuel scarcity already plaguing the economy. The Coordinating Minister for Economy met with marketers to sort out their claims for subsidy payment. Similar meetings to reconcile subsidy figures had been held in the last few years. So nothing new is happening on the fuel subsidy front. But for the next administration something new has to be done to solve the problem.

The debate on fuel subsidy has generated more heat than light over the years. Obfuscation| is deliberately introduced into the debate by vested interests. This is probably why the heated debates have not resulted in policy breakthroughs all these years. The facts are not always in the public sphere for informed discussions of the problem. Technocrats revel in talking of the illogic of fuel subsidy. But in the streets the phrase, "removal of fuel subsidy", has a less technical translation called "increase in fuel price". What ultimately registers in popular imagination is the cost of fuel with its multidimensional consequences. So the emergent issues from it are not only technical; they are also social, political and even legitimately emotive.

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