Central Bank of Nigeria Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi (SLS) responds to some Internet Inquiries on fuel subsidy and wrote: If you will patiently read this mail to the end you will understand my position. I won't be able to repeat everything I have said over the past few years on fuel subsidy, but in summary; Fraud like theft thrives not only because of the existence of greed and benefit but of opportunity. Place yourself in

the shoes of the average nigerian "businessman" or "entrepreneur"-polite euphemisms for rent seeking parasites.

You establish an elcee for importing 20,000MT of PMS and the PPPRA says this is at a landed cost of N145 for example per litre. So u know that for every litre in that vessel you will get at least N85 as subsidy. Now you have a number of "possiblities":

1. You can off load 5,000 MT and bribe customs and other officials to sign papers confirming u offloaded 20k MT. Then do the same across the chain with a paper trail showing you delivered 20k MT to a tank farm, and maybe even that u transported it to Maiduguri entitling you to a share of the price equalization fund. Maybe for N20-N30 per litre u bribe all those who sign the papers. The 15k MT you take to Benin or Ghana or Cameroun and sell at market price thus makin an additional "profit" of N55/ltr on 15,000MT!

2 you can just forge documents and have them stamped without bringing in anything and collect the subsidy-PPPRA pays based on DOCUMENTS.

3 you can bring in the fuel, load on tankers, sell some at N65N some at 80 some at 100 some across the land borders.

You can do all this and no one can catch it or prove it because somebody was paid to sign off on docs. And with a high enough margin there is too much temptation to be resisted and firepower for bribing officials.

When I spoke to the house of reps I told them why I was suspecting fraud. It starts from PPPRA "allocations" based on "capacity". You will find a company like Mobil with capacity for say 60,000 MT and a relatively unknown name with a capacity of say 90k MT. Red alert number 1.

Although PPPRA is supposed to give license only to marketers with a national distribution network you see names of companies where you have never seen a filling station in their name.

I was a chief risk officer in UBA and in FBN for many years approving loans so I know the name of every big player in every industry that nigerian banks lend to as these are among the biggest banks in the country. I see names on the list I don't recognise either from portfolios. I looked at or industry studies over the years. Red alert number 2.

I studied the papers presented to PPPRA in a short period in 2010 (I won't tell you how I got them!). And I was surprised that on some days over 10 vessels are said to have discharged cargo in lagos on the same day-clearly the same officers stamping and "verifying" that the vessels were SEEN. Is it really realistic that on the same day 13-15 vessels can discharge in Lagos? Red alert number 3.

Why was I interested in fuel marketing. Because the two sectors that led to the near collapse of the banking industry were capital markets and oil marketing. I am not giving any confidential info out as AMCON MD has already disclosed publicly that two companies alone-zenon and AP-owned by the same businessman owed the nigerian banking industry N220b. And we all saw the amount of subsidy paid to those companies published by BusinessDay.

So money had been taken, subsidy had been collected but loans were not repaid, and we couldn't see the money either as product in tank farms or in fuel stations or credit sales. So I became obsessed with trying to understand how that industry operated and the more I saw the more I hated it and I started the war against subsidies.

It is actually better to do a direct cash payout or add a line item to salaries called petroleum support or transport allowance capped at say N300b p/a than to keep paying it. It goes to pay middle men, rent-seekers and corrupt officers and there is no amount of preaching that will stop this fraud so long as the policy is so badly defined.

Everytime oil price goes up and everytime the naira is devalued and everytime the quantity of imports increases the "subsidy" and thus the "rent" increases and there is more gravy to go round. So every year we "import" more and more and deplete our reserves, and the government borrows more and more to pay for subsidy and the beneficiaries are a smal group of marketers, govt officials and neighbouring countries which get fuel without losing forex! And while a person who applies intelligence can see what is happening you can't prove it in a court of law. If the man says he sighted the vessel and it was 20kMT you have to accept it. It was a year ago!

So for two years I have been convinced that this thing is a scam and that it cannot be stopped because the entire controls have been compromised. NNPC sells domestic crude, Pays whatever subsidy PPPRA says and then gives the balance after JVC to the federation account. And while fani kayode is right to speak up, the truth is that it was obasanjo who first subverted the process by allowing NNPC to make the deductions before paying into federation account. Because once money goes into that account it is to be shared among 3 tiers of government so strictly speaking the deductions have always been unconstitutional as the FG was paying subsidy on behalf of itself and state and LGs without their approval.

So yes, I am willing to take all the criticism and labels and be unpopular but this has to stop and govt can find other ways of alleviating pain. Iran removed subsidies and started cash transfers directly to the poor. It is up to fiscal authorities to figure out safety nets but from where I sit and what I know this decision is not only correct but necessary and overdue. I also confirm that I have revealed nothing here I haven't spoken about before in public and it is just that Nigerians never listen!

I am not complaining about insults I am used to that. I just believe that an insult is not an argument and when people resort to personal abuse they have run out of logic.

But to then go beyond me and extend it to my dead grandfather and his "descendants" ie my late father his siblings etc I think goes beyond the pale. As a Nigerian-and as an economist- I can take a position on economic matters and this position is one I have had for years even before coming in to the central bank.

I have also explained the position on several occasions and criticised government for not doing this before. In 2010 at a public hearing in the House of Reps on the 25% saga I alerted the nation of what I considered a potential big scam around subsidies and urged for its removal. No one paid attention. The economics is very clear to me. That it is unpopular is also understandable.

The British public is unhappy with Tory budget cuts. The Greeks went on riot over austerity. Italian parliamentarians came to blows before Berlusconi was thrown out of office. The US congress is yet to approve Obamas tax increases.

Economic decisions-by definition-ALWAYS must involve a cost or an opportunity cost since for them to qualify as economic they must involve a choice in resource allocation among competing uses. An enlightened debate is one that weighs the pros and cons of removing subsidy and continuing with it.

Removing it has costs in terms of nigerians paying more for PMS-which by the way is not the fuel for genrators, power plants, production facilities, heavy duty goods transportation trucks and even luxury buses.

It is fuel used by the middle class and car owners to drove around town and from city to city not to employ workers and produce goods and services. Diesel which is critical to manufacturing and employment creation is not subsidized as the subsidy was removed years ago by obasanjo. Nigerians said nothing then because it was blue collar workers that got retrenched by factories.

Those speaking now on the internet and facebook and twitter and newspapers are not workers but middle class elite who use PMS in their smart cars so let's stop all the ideological pretence. This is not about elite and masses but an intra-elite discourse.

I will summarise the issues and I write as a Nigerrian economist and public intellectual not as a public servant:

1. I am a strong advocate for subsidies if they are for production and not consumption, and if they benefit the poor and not middle men and rent seekers. The US government subsidizes cotton and wheat farmers and nigeria spends its reserves importing wheat from america and keeping american farmers employed. The OECD countried pay subsidies to cattle farmers. Today Promasidor imports powdered milk from New Zealand and packages in nigeria using our foreign exchange while we have cattle. WAMCO imports milk from the UK and adds water and tins it and calls it "production" of Peak milk. We use our forex to import petroleum products and keep refineries and jobs open in europe. Meanwhile precisely because of market distortions there can be no private sector investment in refineries since no one can make profit seling at the regulated price unless we are going to provide private refineries with crude for next to nothing. Certainly no one can purchase crude at market price, refine it and sell at N65 without huge losses so this explains why there are no private refineries.

2. what I mention above is at the heart of the problem with government economic policy which needs to be changed. The economy since SAP is one that supports imported consumption and not local production, perpetuating dependency, non inclusive growth and insecurity. Why is it that the economy is growing at 7pct annually but the people are getting poorer. Because growth gains are not evenly distributed. Personal income is skewed towards people in the oil industry, telecomms, high finance, stock market, real estate and yes civil servants and politicians who feed on corruption. We produce crude oil but import petroleum products (today the UKs highest exports to nigeria are petroleum products). We have a large cotton belt but import textiles from china (thus keeping their subsidized factories open and jobs in china). We are the world's number 1 producer of cassava but import cassava starch from europe. We have a huge tomato belt in kadawa, jigawa and chad basin but are the world's largest importer of tomato paste-from China and Italy. We can produce rice but we import rice from Thailand and India-most of it from grain reserves that have been in stock for over 5

3. If above is clear then it is evident that this trajectory can only lead to disaster. We will continue to spend our resources promoting growth and employment in our trading partners. Terms of trade shift against us, we can only have foreign reserves because by the good grace of God we have Oil which will be exhausted soon and with new discoveries may become so cheap it loses value. We don't create any value added jobs as the only real production is peasant farming. Oill, telecomms, finance and real estate are not employment intensive. So everyone becomes a civil servant as the economy cannot create jobs. Result? In 2012 budget out of a total N1.8tr recurrent expenditure for the executive arm N1.6tr is on personnel costs not overheads. To reduce this you have to cut salaries or pensions or retrench civil servants. This is the classic trajectory of underdevelopment, de-development and de-industrialisation.

4. For the above reasons I am a strong proponent of structural reform and this begins from the fiscal framework. The limited resources of government should be allocated to supporting production-especially if we are running a budget deficit. We cannot keep borrowing to support conspicuous consumption. To support a job creating economy we need to fund power, transportation infrastructure, market infrastructure and access, technical and vocational education etc. We need to build rice processing plants, produce starch and cassava flour and ethanol, process our tomato and milk locally, regenerate our textiles firms (which used to employ 600,000 workers but now employ 30,000!), refine our own crude etc. We cannot even begin to do this if 30pct of govt expenditure is on fuel subsidy, if out of the balance 70pct is recurrent spending, 10pct is debt service, 10pct goes to the niger delta and only 10pct is capital expenditure. So it is about a choice-what do we spend money on and how do we allocate resources?

5. We often compare ourselves to other oil producing countries like saudi arabia. What are the facts? With a population of over 160m we produce 2mbpd ie 1 barrel for every 80+ citizens daily. Govt share of revenues if like 50pct of every barrel so it is effectively a barrel for 160 citizens. Saudi Arabia with a 24m population produces over 8mbpd or one barrel for every 3 citizens. In fact in 2010 the nearest OPEC country to nigeria in production per capita was Algeria with a barrel for 30 and algeria is more gas than oil.

With one barrel for 3 citizens dailt saudi arabia is able to provide infrastructure, education, healthcare and social safety nets and have huge savings. It can provide subsidised fuel at a total cost that is a fraction of its savings and even export refined products. It is paying for subsidies ouy od its fiscal savings and not borrowing to pay. We are like a poor man with a rich neighbour. The neighbour buids a good house, buys several cars, eat expensive food, travel abroad every year and still have huge balances in sevral current accounts. Then you choose to live that lifestyle and mortgage your house, take an overdraft from the bank to finance it. Next year it is time to repay the bank, u don't have the money so u go to another bank, borrow enough to pay the first bank principal plus interest and also fund the continuation of the lifestyle. It continues till u can't borrow anymore and the bank throws u and your family out of your house and you everything.

A responsible father would have long since faced reality and told his family he doesn't earn as much as his neighbour and expectations need to be moderated if they to keep their roof. Of course the children won't be happy at not going to Hawaii for summer and having to take public transport rather than own cars like their neighbour's children. Maybe they will even abuse the father behind his back and call him a miser. That is the cost of leadership.

Finally: removing subsidy is not a silver bullet that solves our economic problems. And there is a huge trust deficit that government has to address. Government needs to investigate subsidy payments and punish any violations of extant guidelines. It needs to cut on unnecessary and waste ful expenditure. It needs to fight corruption and show seriousness in that. It needs to deliver on capital projects, power and infrastructure including irrigation, farm-level storage and agri-processing. These are all valid issues that are to be taken IN ADDITION to and not in place of subsidy removal.

Since someone has decided to make insinuations about my grandfather I owe it to him to defend his record. it was my grandfather as emir that repealed an obnoxious rule started from the days of Emir Usman that disenfranchised women from inheriting property. It was sanusi that built the groundnut pyramids to the point where Kano NA was contributing 40pct of the revenues of the northern region. It was emir sanusi who built the Bompai Industrial Estate, and turned kano into the industrial nerve centre of the north. He was acting governor of the northern region, minister for pilgrim affairs, chief Imam of friday mosque, judge and leader of the Tijjaniya order. As for his "descendants" my father was one of the very first batch of 12 Nigerians recruited by the British to set up the foreign service in 1957 and he remained in public service and rose to be permanent secretary before retirement. He set up in the 60s the research dept of the ministry- the present NIA so he was the first external intelligence officer in Nigeria. As permanent secretary he was the architect of Murtala Mohammed's policy on decolonisation of Africa and oversaw the independence of Mozambique and Angola and the final push to liberate Zimbabwe and South Africa.

So yes Sanusi was not perfect. He was a feudal aristocrat. And my father was not perfect. He was also a prince and priviledged to go to Oxford and LSE. But please if you want to abuse my grandfather and father kindly tell us what contributions your own grandfather and father made to the people.

Dear Lord, I want to be like Sanusi Lamido sanusi when I grow up. Thank you Lord for answering my prayer, Amen!

I will keep Sanusi and Nigeria in my prayers because they're both going to need it! Sanusi is about the only person that I’ve seen with the intellect and integrity to rule a country like Nigeria but unfortunately, Nigerians can’t seem to get past their own biases! 

Being a leader is not a popularity contest as you would need to take some very unpopular steps against some people but at every single step your actions should be guided by equity, justice, and humanity!

Read what Sanusi is saying carefully and you would see that his support for fuel subsidy removal is only meant to checkmate the cabals and he wouldn’t even mind paying the poor directly if it comes to that.

Thinking about this further, there’s no way a person like Sanusi will rule Nigeria because that means Nigeria will get better but we all know that cannot happen because Nigeria is cursed! Nigeria has been cursed to dig her own grave without any outside help!

I got this email from a friend of mine at ServeNigeria and I think it touches some of the point Sanusi did not touch.

My comment is inspired by a comment from a business associate this evening that through ServeNigeria I would have communicated some position on the fuel subsidy debate.
Please I want to deal a policy conversation. And pls don't ask me to come to Ojota cos I have developed sore throat due to this harsh weather and my stomach is aching too.

Currently, If everyday I use 30litres of petrol(Car/Generator), at N65/Litre, I am benefitting N85/Litre daily. This means that the government is spending N2550/day on me. This accrues to N930,750.00 annually spent on me from subsidy.
Meanwhile the 60% unemployed guys in yobe state who do not own cars, do not own generators all are cheated in this subsidy.
However myself and these unemployed buy food at the same costs(including conveyance/transportation costs), so you can see that I am getting 930k extra which I don’t need from the government which they will never get as long as they are unemployed dont own cars and dont own generators.
Please think about it, who needs the 900k more between me and the unemployed?
Is it a fair way of sharing the country’s wealth?

Let us be fair to our brothers who have no jobs!!!!!!!!!
Also for those poor 60% unemployed in Yobe state, they would prefer a health center with their money equivalent or a graded village road. Remember they have already been surviving on expensive kerosene for their fire woods and the food increases barely get to them cos they live quietly in their farms but either way the increment is across board but the excess money spent on people like me and more excess on the wealthy who spend more petrol on their numerous cars, is thrown into the society for the benefit of the less privileged.
It is beta to subsidize mass transportation since the poorer people use mass transit than keep giving money to those who don't need it.
Some people will never enter Lagos are BRT buses or PH mass transit buses no matter the cost, but there are people who will genuinely not be able to accomodate a fare difference of N10.

This policy is for the poor and we should really consider its benefits in addition to the job opportunities.
NNPC will neva work. All over the world, companies 100%owned and 100%run by the government neva works.
When celebrated personalities like Femi Falana, NLC, Okonjo iweala, TUC, Lamido Sanusi, Pat Utomi and Tunde Bakare speak, people should check their comments on google atleast.
There is no global corporation in the size of NNPC and I will give some stats;

Petrobras: Brazil government owns 64%
China Mobile: chinese Government owns 74.22%
Indian Oil – Indian Government (78.92%)
Neste Oil – Finland Government ( 50.1%)
ONGC (Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited) – India Government (74.14%)
Eni – Italian government (30%)
France Telecom – French Government (27%)
Saudi Aramco – Saudi Government operated BOT system and their intial stake was 24% before increasing it to 60% etc.
Venezuelas PDVSA – Venezuela’s gov started withbuying 50% of Citgo before completing a takeover and renaming it to PDVSA.
Kuwait oil - BP and Gulf had been running the project since December 1934 before government took over in 1975.
QP – (Superior oil Qatar, and Shell company Qatar) and even then government started with a 24% stake before increasing to 60% etc.
Even British Airways was privatized in 1987 even though it still answers British airways.

The Government has realized that NNPC downstream will never serve us, so the best thing is to deregulate the sector allowing for the emergence of private refineries knowing that NNPC refineries will die a natural death like NITEL died but then we have MTN, Airtel, Glo, Etisalat etc.

From a humanist perspective, a single 100,000barrel working refinery can create 3-5000 sustainable jobs. Here I am referring to averagely 30k jobs($30,000 annual salary). How many of our banks and etc companies generate these types of jobs?
Out here we are also looking at 1000regular employee jobs of averagely 50k for each refinery.
Imagine how many refineries we will need to serve the entire 150million Nigerians and another 3.2million barrels daily serving an African population of 500million which will grow to 2billion by 2050 because of Africa's highest birth rate in the world.
Opportunities like this is the reason why countries like Iran are coming to west Africa to survey the possibilities of buildng refineries while we are protesting subsidy.

Also, refineries will produce byproducts which are capable of supporting other industries;
Alkenes (olefins) - plastics industry
Lubricants
Wax - Used in the packaging of frozen foods, etc
Sulfur or Sulfuric acid.
Bulk tar.
Asphalt
Petroleum coke,
Paraffin wax
Aromatic petrochemicals
Also, we need to consider shipping companies who will be distributing our products to other African countries. Rail shipping, road shipping, sea shipping companies will be necessary.

This policy is the fastest route to Six(6) million SUSTAINABLE jobs in ten(10) years, and it will not be government created companies. These will be PRIVATE SECTOR OPPORTUNIST powered.
This oil subsidy is the single most potent policy that can transform our nation within the shortest possible time frame and that explains why every president tries to remove the subsidy.

And also when people use the word “Cabal”. Its fallacy. These guys are doing nothing wrong. Atleast nothing provably wrong. If the inspectors at the port say they saw the supply of 15 or 20MT of petrol, you cannot say they didn’t see it. And its not like its stored as it is supplied, Nigerians are consuming it daily as it is supplied.
Eg. XYZ is given a contract to import 1000MT, instead he supplies 200MT and tips the officials to sign off 100MT. the books are balanced becos everybody at PPMC is tipped. And the profits are so much that the tipping is too significant to turn down.
Now, when the 200MT enters Nigeria, the guy who own a a filling station around the border states recognize that if the fuel sell across the border for N180, then why sell at N65. the margin of extra N115 means that If he uses a 10k petrol tanker, that N1.2million instead of his paltry 100 or 200k profit If he sells at his local filling station.
Nigeria has 14 border states and If you have been to some of these states, you walk on a street and you are asking where the border lies. Some borders are in farmland. So when you decide to invest on tighter border control, it means chasing every motor cyclist who has tied six(6) jerryry cans and every guy who is carry 20litres of petrol in rubber across the farm border.


Also people say the figures went up fron 400billion to 1.13Thrillion.
Part of the answer is that the cost of subsidy depend on oil price and we should start be checking oil price for each of those years during the period of increase. Also, we should acknowledge that we have been paying subsidy for all the neighboring countries too and reverting to N65 means we continue subsidizing for them.
And even if the refineries were producing, we will still be producing and subsidizing for these countries.

Also remember that when the marketers are selling direct to the people, they have to convince us to by the petrol and then our true consumption will be clear because we are in No way consuming N1.13Trillion annually. Its like government deciding to put the money in people's hands and saying pay for the fuel as you buy except that the only way government can give out the money is infrastructure hence the infrastructure listing on the SURE document and the sharing of the funds to the LGAs.
Some Nigerians have argued that they don't trust their states and LGAs but my perspective is that we also dont trust the federal government, but people are closer to their states and LGAs and it is easier to harrass your LGAs for accountability than to harrass the federal government since we live closer to the people running the LGAs.
Those in remote areas don't need to start travelling to Abuja for answers to their immediate complains If the LGAs are collecting money monthly.

As regards timing, If this was done 10yrs ago, by now most of us won’t be working where we work at the moment. Maybe we would have been the ones running one of the new companies If we understood the opportunities in time.
Also regarding time, we seem to be telling the gvernment that transformation should start after one(1) yr or that we should grow slowly.
So when we say Government should negotiate, we are saying we are not ready for massive progress right now.

I admire the likes of Occupy Nigeria, Campaign for Democracy, NLC but I tell people to ask every NGO for their policies on education, economy, politics etc before joining them in any campaign rally be it pro or anti.

They should rather tell the senate to cut down their salaries by 75% instead of telling the federal government to revert to N65.
Another thing the NGOs could ask for is Tax recovery.

ServeNigeria wrote a legislation in 2008 about setting up a tax recovery commission which will go round Nigeria and check If the estates(properties, businesses etc) owned by every Nigerian is commensurate with the amount of Tax he/she has paid over the years.
We estimated a recovery of 13Thrillion naira because every politician who looted money would be forced to pay back 20% of what he looted and it will be a win/win situation for government and the “corrupt politicians”.

I expect some bashing but please I am writing as Uduak Asuquo and not on behalf of ServeNigeria.

Thanks and please have a great year.
Apologies If my email includes any offensive tone.


Best Regards
Uduak Ekpenyong Asuquo
Research & Development - Core Mobile & GRIP
ServeNigeria Projects Research Council

(1)Fantastic write up that will hold water in a sane country(mayb Ghana) and not in Nigeria. Kindly note that a single attem
pt by govt to fight corruption in the subsidy scam will go a long way in gaining people trust, when this is achieved then people can risk trusting govt on this plan
(2)Pls do note that all the eminent Nigerians who spoke are not against subsidy removals but they are against the way the plan was implemented. They are not asking for too much; put the fuel price back at N65, the president should use executive power on national assembly on the urgent need to pass PIB bill inorder to have the framework for business to thrive in the sector for investors, set up independent regulators(like NCC in telecoms), privatise refineries and full deregulation kick off. NB-this might take btw 12-24 months, there is no need to rush. Like Pastor Tunde Bakare used to say IT IS BETTER TO FAIL IN that which will eventually succeed than to succeed in that which will eventually fail.
(3)Pls note that this is the first time Nigerians will be speaking in unison on a subject matter, with this 95% of all populace can't be wrong, I think there should be a rethink on the govt part ASAP.

I rest my case for now

SLS is one of the few gov officials that I respect. However, I (and I believe many Nigerians) do not need to be convinced that fuel subsidy removal is in the best interest of Nigeria after seeing SLS debate in the townhall meeting. Having said that, I will like to ask a simple question. IF THE GOV. IS SINCERE, WHY THE RUSH?? GEJ administration is less than a year. There is still over 3yrs for this administration. There is plenty of time for this gov to gain peoples' TRUST. What is wrong in passing the PIB, make the refineries work, provide electricity and prosecute the cabals and other corruption goons, reduce wastage in the executive and legistlative expenditures then come back and tell us to tighten our belt so that you can provide roads, good health, etc. You can't tell me to tighten my belt while you loose your and tell me its for the sake of the country. Let the gov. put on ground some of the things they say they'll use the money from the removal to implement, make their own sacrifices (not the laughable 25% basic salary reduction), then come back and ask us to make ours.

I don't care if someone has 10 cars thus enjoying N800/liter while I have only one car (just N80/liter). So you expect me to thank you for removing my N80 benefit just because you want to stop another person from getting N800. In my opinion, that is called Pull Him Down P.H.D. Similarly, I don't think the man that don't have a car but can take okada at say N50 will thank you if it nows costs him N80 to get to the same destination just because you want to stop the guy getting N800. Particularly if this will make the poor to make a choice between his child's education vs his own's health. I know how many of my extended family's members I have subsidized their child's school fees after they themselves have cut corners with their health.  We have not seen anything on the ground at the moment to give them succor (I'm not talking about 1600 buses. I mean electricity, good healthcare system, well equipped schools etc) but just promises - just promises like in the past but which were not kept.

Let the gov. put on ground some of the things they say they'll use the money from the removal to implement, make their own sacrifices (not the laughable 25% basic salary reduction), then come back and ask us to make ours.  .

How I wish. . .

In "non-banana republic" countries this statement by a non-independent central bank governor would have seen a huge investigation of the parties involved, the resignation of the finance and petroleum ministers and the eventual resignation of the Central bank gov for authorising those payments.

The Govt of the day would be forced to sacrifice some major political backers and many people would have gone to jail for very long times.

In GEJ's Nigeria it is the poor that police chase and kill, Boko Haram bombs and "tribal warriors" emerge threatening trade unions. Nigeria, the mental patients are in charge of the asylum.

This only explains the failure of the govt. That the general Nigerian people cannot enjoy subsidy because the govt is corrupt and cannot deal with corrupt individuals is out of place. What else are Nigerians enjoying from the govt of the day if not subsidy, no road, no water, no light, the infrastructures are not there.
A govt that cannot deal with subsidy offenders cannot convince me that it will judiciously use subsidy gains for the Nigerian people, punish offenders and I will join your train, shikena!

[size=20pt]So money had been taken, subsidy had been collected but loans were not repaid,[/size] and we couldn't see the money either as product in tank farms or in fuel stations or credit sales. So I became obsessed with trying to understand how that industry operated and the more I saw the more I hated it and I started the war against subsidies.

Yet moomoo Nigerians will say Northerners are illiterates.
God bless you my darling.
If na Yoruba or Igbo man dey power. . .we would never know this.
Soludo and OBJ just take Nigeria dey do wetin dem like.
Good job Sanusi. . . .

Let the 'mentally docile' borrow-borrow Nigerians hold their governmental officials accoutable. This will force Nigerians to think and save!!!
NO MORE LOANS!!!


You hear that? LOANS=subsidy.
Nigeria. . . NO MORE FREE RIDES!!!

im not jobless, so i cant read all this long stories,
thanks for the time taken to write it sha

The problems with Nigeria is d high level of illiteracy to literate people. Some literate use this advantage to keep most Nigerians in d dark, while a few like SLS exposes d truth to us. I hasve said it that most of these people fueling these protest are just distractors e.g bakare.

[size=20pt]They should rather tell the senate to cut down their salaries by 75% instead of telling the federal government to revert to N65. Another thing the NGOs could ask for is Tax recovery.[/size]

Only salaries?
Allowances too!
From cabinet appointees. . . Ministers and House of Reps officials.
Let them make the same sacrifices like the masses.

Thank you again sir!

The write up was good, but in a government that cannot prosecute known cabals, how i'm i sure that these cabals won't hijack the so called beneficiaries of subsidy removal?

So if i am clear about sanusi .what he is saying is that the goverment knows about this huge monumental corruption going on on a daily basis and with all the ministries and arms of goverment and all the ministries which all they have and with jonathan as the commander in chief of all the arms of security there is no way they can stop or minimise this craziness for like 2 years before implementing the removal .then my question is this WHAT ARE THEY THERE FOR?THAT MEANS THEY HAVE NO BUSINESS BEEN IN GOVERMENT BECAUSE THEY CANT PROTECT THE INTEREST OF PEOPLE. Is SANUSI TRYING TO TELL US NOW THERE IS NO SINGLE WAY TO MONITOR AND CURB THIS SHARP PRACTICES.I MUST CONFESS WE HAVE FOOLS IN POWER

Good Good

We somewhere along the lines have to also address our crazy and unsustainable birth rate.

Yes u re rite

I had said Sanusi Lamido Sanusi was smart and with every word that comes from his mouth, he confirms that. Wish all hausa -fulani could adjust alittle bit more, to be like him.

Surely one Nigeria would be complete. I just wish.

me and sls went to the same secondary school

Just in; Former Presidents Shehu Shagari and Olusegun Obasanjo are said by sources to have weighed in,
urging President Jonathan to disregard contrary counsel and “revert to the situation pre-January 1, 2012”.

See details at;

http://5slate..com/p/fprmer-presidents-obasonjo-shagari-lead.html

All I see is somebody who has endorsed d lazy man's approach rather than adopt a holistic approach.Sanusi has endorsed corruption bc he feels many along d fuel supply chain have bn so corrupt that d govt cannot fight them,rather d govt shd overlook dis cankerworm by removing what he feels fuels that corruption,subsidy,but he is very wrong.Corruption in d industry goes beyond subsidy& will not b solved by its removal.If there is anyway of putting this to d test,it wud b seen that subsidy removal will only open another link in d corruption chain.This is a man that seemingly advocates for deregulation but doesn't see d contradiction in PPPRA setting a benchmark for marketers.Just like Ngozi years back,SLS is another person that like making d right sound bites& some people are now hailing him as d next best thing,sorry am not in that school.A man that conveniently uses comparison of a country like Saudi Arabia to advance an argument that suits him while overlooking Indonesia wt a bigger population than ours is not to b trusted.
See how his hurried approach to a cashless economy is alredy running into serious problems,see how he has bn doing flip flop wt POS terminals wt some companies that invested heavily alredy running into a loss.His zeal for islamic banking still leaves a sour taste in d mouth.
Sanusi as they say is an establishment man& always fixated on an idea,doesn't like looking at d whole pix& most importantly adjustments based on d peculiarities of d nigerian situation.

It is a shame that it is only in creating economic plans and speech writing is what most of nigerian are good at but when it comes to translating the speech and plans into inplimentation and really working the work, all they think about is their pockets, what they will gain from it.
what happened to NEEDS programm by OBJ?
Now they are talking about SURE-P.
Another way of allocating more money to the friends, family and business associate.

Abeg, spare me all those analysis that will never translate into tangible transformations.
I what to see good roads
I want see stable power
Transformation of education sector
Jobs creation
I want to see provision of Good health care etc
not all this bu.ll Sh.it

So for two years I have been convinced that this thing is a scam and that it cannot be stopped because the entire controls have been compromised. NNPC sells domestic crude, Pays whatever subsidy PPPRA says and then gives the balance after JVC to the federation account.


If the government is unable to fight corruption,do dey expect me to do the fighting for them.The government is only looking for a way out while leabving the main issue unresolved.If the subsidy is removed,how are we so sure that the so called cabals will not hijack the subsidy.Why are they so scared of fighting corruption.Look at China,if you embezzle public fund you will be executed even if you are the owner of your company.

@op, will spending N2,000,000+ to achieve what N900,000+ used to do make u more productive?
Petrol subsidy is the kinda benefit were u av to part with something to get, our use of petrol is tied to necesary activities in ovr lives, by ur logic everyone shld be getting relatively equal benefits from oil even if they have no use for it. I dont agree with that for now. The argument shldn't be how does subsidy go from one person to another, it shld be about corruption free scheme.

In an argument, all parties always ve something to say.

I have also noted over time dt EXPERTS do not always agree on the single best solution to a problem

In an argument, all parties always ve something to say.

I have also noted over time dt EXPERTS do not always agree on the single best solution to a problem
.

Like I always say SLS good man working with statics fine but is his position the true position of what's on ground NO! They are too far from the people to know what actual obtains, their is one basic thing that touches all nigerian's PMS, its used to power speed boats in the creeks used to move small cars that transport food items from farm settlements inside thick forests in ilaro to oja odon in ilaro to where big vehicles now load and bring them to town, its used to power light (I better pass my neighbor) in the local governments of wamba in nasarawa its used by unemployed youths that have established barbing and hair dressing salons to survive its used by unskilled technicians vulcanizers to pump tires people to pump water for sale in lagos not diesel, 98% of the middle and low class people depend on it, okada riders depend on it, just name it to go and buy kerosene to cook you need to enter buses that are run with fuel PMS, their is no alternative at all its like air we breathe, water we drink no substitute at all, go to move locations and see what they use to power sets generators business centres generators and all on PMS, and these are the 4% people that are adding to the 3% causing the economic growth which is exported/taunted outside the country, we all know figures can be looked at but in reality what does this translate to? In terms of the effect on the people. Nigeria is a developing country and for that reason a cash economy which in turn makes it a consumer economy because of the lack of long term funds to help create enterprises and this in turn affects every decision policy of govt, are we supposed to keep growing inflation and encourage wasteful spending like our legislator is doing and FG buying new presidential jets, over invoicing, excessive spending on feeding and irrelevances these may look small but a composite of all the aggregates of these small spending and over invoicing is min buggling and if the govt could judiciously following the cash flow plan for subsidy in just 8months, how would they manage excess funding from my pocket, they can even give me the actual break down of cost components in the production of a litre so how can they justify the above said,cabal thing  they have dealt with the insecurity thing and you think they have the capacity to manage money, the first lady is out of the country on medical check up why not in a hospital in nigeria even with the billions put into some, look at the level of NEPOTISM, I wish SLS could leave the comfort of his office and home and live in mararaba experience a average nigerian's life that eats meat only once in 3 weeks and see's milk as a delicacy for the rich, so many things are wrong if we refuse to farm that doesn't mean we can't become a processing hub, in west africa establish these companies and sell them or take them PLC, tin tomato manufacturing, juice packaging, beans tinning etc these are proactive innovative things that would generate enterprise

hmm nice story,

If it is difficult for the government to punish offenders than they can't implement those policies either, period.

I said b4 I am a proponent of the sanusi led subsidy becos he made me believe that it will be better, lets gv me a chance, please please lets agree wiv them thanks yous.

dustydee God bless you. I can't believe some people fall for all this, sanusi is right fraud but he's also telling us that this government he is part of cannot deal with corruption, then i think they should all resign and let someone capable do it. The whole situation is just like for example am having headache but i don't know how to cure it and the only solution is just to cut my head off. Does that make any sense?

Nice analysis. But one big question, did the corruption in subsidy suddenly quadrupule in 2011? Hw was the perious admin able to manage the foriegn resevere and still manage subsidy? SLS, u didn't shutdown the banks that had corrupt pratices but went after the corrupt bankers, so is the corrupt cabal a mission impossible. Note there are corrupt pple in the U.S and china too but they have a system that helps to tackle d prblm. Well I guess corruption is a burden we have to live with just like insecurity and bokoharam.