Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonzo, the prominent Venezuelan politician and one of the founders of OPEC, in the early 70s called petroleum “the devil’s excrement” that always brings trouble—waste, corruption, consumption: our public services falling apart and debt. How I wish he could wake up from his grave to see the devastation of his native land, Venezuela my homeland, Nigeria, he would shake his head in shock how apt and in fact understated his prediction was.
The stench of oil, specifically, the high price of one of its refined products, petrol, is literally threatening to choke the life out of my ancestral homeland, Nigeria. It has set the country’s social media on fire and threatening to do same to the regime of the newly elected President Tinubu, who removed the corruption-infected oil subsidy scam.
The data below which is making the round on social media compares the selling price for PMS (petrol) across different countries apparently to justify the price hike. Assuming that one can even verify the reliability of this data (there are different grades of PMS in the U.S. for instance, and prices vary from state to state and in fact from one station to another on the same street. Due to local regulation and standards, in Carlifonia petrol can cost twice as what obtains in Texas. The data shows that PMS price in the US is about twice what we pay in Nigeria.
However while the proposed minimum wage in Nigeria is equivalent to $43.75 a month at the current exchange rate of Naira 1600 to a dollar, the minimum wage in the U.S. which also varies from state to state is $7.25 per hour for federal minimum wage for covered nonexempt employees. In Carlifonia the minimum hourly wage hovers around $16. The bottom line is, comparing PMS prices across nations is a meaningless venture.
In many of these countries unlike Nigeria, the public transport infrastructure is so advanced that many people don’t even drive.
With our poor public transport network, the ridiculously low wage in our economy, and our over-dependence on fossil fuel dependent road transportation to move commodities across the nation, the price of PMS is unsustainably high. It is a drag on our economy and a major driver of our high inflation.
Our challenge is that we can’t work our way out of the high price of PMS with the corruption-ridden oil subsidy scam. We have got to increase our refinery capacity. While Dangote coming on stream is a great first step, we cannot depend on another monopoly for the supply of arguably the most critical factor in our economy, petrol and diesel.
By the way as Dangote himself has proclaimed publicly, the refinery wouldn’t have happened without the visionary leadership of Tinubu, himself an oil man having worked in the industry before. We need to give the man Tinubu some credit.
Solving our petrol problem would not be easy nor quick, but we must have some faith in and give this 15 months old presidency time to work through it.
Although, the uninformed has been howling about NNPC acquisition of a major petrol distribution company two years ago, with NNPC poised to be the main distributor for Dangote petrol, this all is making some sense now. The petrol marketers are a powerful cartel which is adept at price manipulation and price gouging. Have you noticed the almost coordinated rolling sale of PMS by different petrol stations in your neighbourhood? Most of them close shop when PMS is available in NNPC stations. With NNPC acquiring more petrol stations and with its exclusive right to Dangote petrol, there is a distinct possibility to finally break the back of the oil marketer cartel. However, more refineries need to come on-stream to address the supply-demand-price equilibrium conundrum in the Nigeria petrol supply chain.
This coupled with massive investment in public transport infrastructure especially rail line and solution to our energy infrastructure, our power generation and distribution infrastructure, the prospect for economic revitalization of our country should improve substantially. However, all of these prospect goes down the tube if we throw the baby out with the bath water out of frustration. If we allow those vested and entrenched interest who have fed fat on our dysfunction andwho wish our country no good to decapitate the Tinubu presidency and our hard earned albeit imperfect and frankly frustrating democracy. Ww cannot allow people to fly the Russian flag again as a form of protest in our country.
We must understand that there can be no gain without pain. We didn’t get to this economic Armageddon in one day and it will take time, pain and sacrifice to dig our way out. We the grown-up who enjoyed the bounties of petrol-dollars in the 70s and who contributed in one way or another to our country’s perilous condition, should complain and whine less and make one last sacrifice to bequeath to our children, grand children and future generation, a country they can at least have an opportunity to salvage. We have made a mess of our country. We have put our parochial tribal interest above the mission of building a strong virile nation. We have complained about corruption until it is our countryman who is caught or it is our turn to dip our hands in the treasury and we end up doing worse than the people we once condemned.
We can heap the blame for global warming and every other problem that confronts our country on Tinubu’s 15-month regime all we want. It won’t solve our problem. Neither him nor anyone possess the magic wand to solve all the problems that have been built up through decades of misgovernance and corruption.
He is not to blame for all the governors mismanaging the huge revenue allocations they are now getting. He is not responsible for the price gouging by the market women and the corruption that has become endemic in the Nigerian moral fabric.
Our problems are multidimensional, multigenerational, of both poor leadership and incorrigible followership.
Our poor leadership is a reflection of us the people. We cannot ask of our leaders that which we the followers neither possess nor can give.
Leadership is a two-way street. Yes, the leaders can set the tone and lead by example but the system sets the limit of what is doable. We have set up a dysfunctional corrupt system, powered by a plagiarized constitution imposed on us by the military, in a multi-ethnic, multi-religious country that is constantly engaging self-destructive war of ethno-hegemonic advantage rather than what is best for the country.
Until that system is totally demolished, and Nigerians sit at a round table to decide if they wanted to live together in a harmonious country where common national interest trumps narrow parochial tribal hegemonic supremacist objective, there is little hope for our country.
Those of us who think they can perform miracle within the dysfunctional corrupt, nepotistic system we have created should quit their armchair pontificating business and throw their hat in the ring. Talk is cheap, governing a nation as complicated and dysfunctional as Nigeria is tough. Managing any group of Nigerians is tough as nail. Look at our socio-cultural associations and large families all bedeviled by conflict, power-tripping and divisions. Many Nigerian churches and cultural groups in the U.S. and Europe end up splitting into factors over leadership tussle, many ending up in courts for resolution. So extrapolate that to managing a country like Nigeria where each other ethnic group sees the other as enemy.
Dr. Adewale Alonge is the President and Founder, Africa-Diaspora Partnership for Empowerment & Development (ADPED) Inc. Miami, Florida. www.adped.org
