Government’s fuel subsidy figures don’t add up, say ACN, Iyayi

THEY should know it wouldn’t wash with all of us. “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time”, so said the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln.

And so it is for the current federal administration’s plans to remove fuel subsidy in the country; not all Nigerians are taken by the government’s statistics being bandied to justify the policy.

Consequently, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), in reference to a piece published by The Guardian on Wednesday, December 28, 2011, has asked the Federal Government “to either debunk, with facts and figures, a published informed analysis of the true prices of locally refined and imported fuel or apologise to Nigerians for cheating and deceiving them over the years”.

Also, former National President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Prof. Festus Iyayi, has queried the wide gap between prices of petrol in other Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) countries and Nigeria, arguing that the low price of the product in those nations is because they “built their refineries, managed them for the benefit of their people and even export”.

Iyayi spoke yesterday in Benin City, Edo State capital, at a forum on the fuel subsidy organised under the auspices of the Coalition to Save Nigeria (CSN), which is made up of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), ASUU, students bodies, women groups and other civil society organisations.

The former ASUU president said: “A litre of petrol sells for N18 in Saudi Arabia, N32 in Kuwait, N57 in United Arab Emirate (UAE), N17 in Venezuela, N34 in Quatar, N17 in Iran and N31 in Algeria. “Our sweet crude is easier to refine than those of some of these countries. The government’s claims are tissues of lies. Petrol-economists have done their studies and it is clear that the total cost for refining a litre including landing cost is N34.03 per litre but it is being sold for N65 per litre over 90 per cent tax imposition being borne by Nigerians.

“We are the ones subsidising the living of our leaders and this should stop. It is unfortunate that there is no private sector in Nigeria, what we have is a foreign dictated private sector”.

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By Alemma-Ozioruva Aliu, Benin City

Source: Guardian