I laugh in English when I read about this ugly headline this morning. I wonder in my mind for how long this new invention called subsidy which has become a caricature and has been become a viable tool to politician as a mean of siphoning huge amount of money from the public funds in the oil sector is going to stop. Subsidy has become virus and bacteria in the veins of our economy and need to be nip in the bud.
Not that government had not been subsidizing fuel price for the masses to be able to afford from the onset but the subsidy issue took a new dimension when the old man in Ota (OBJ) got into power. Why did I start from this point (1999) is that corruption perpetrated by the government of OBJ and his prodigious son far outweigh the corruptions of all the other prior government put together. As worse as Abacha was he met petrol price at 11 naira and left it at 20 naira per litre (That is not excuse for Abachas behavior anyway) .
When OBJ became president Nigeria had it so good. The crude oil price increase from 22 dollar per barrel to 150 dollar per barrel. As if that is not enough our quota at OPEC was also increased from 1.6 million barrel to 2.5million barrels per day. With this huge quota and price (revenue) we are supposed to enjoy this product more locally. But instead what do we have more embezzlement at an alarming rate. OBJ took the price from 20 naira per litre to 75 naira per litre A situation that has made everybody a slave, especially we the entrepreneur. When you consider the amount of money used to buy petrol or diesel in a month, you will agree with me that all the money are going back to government pocket.
I think the way government is attributing their corrupt ways to subsidy, people are going to revolt soon. Enough is enough.