jaybee3: @barcanista

Like seriously, who are you?

4Play:

All corruption is self-inflicted, corruption doesn't happen inadvertently but is the product of the deliberate machinations of insiders who exploit loopholes in policies to reward themselves. Any subsidy policy, whether you are subsidising fertiliser or fuel, is nirvana for thieves. The solution isn't to engage in fantasies about our political class ending corruption but in closing those loopholes that breed corruption, such as ending the subsidy policy.

There are underlying premises to your argument that are unjustified, the main one being that subsidising fuel is an inherent good. The Govt fixing a price for a consumption good by fiat has no economic logic to it. If it was such a good idea, why are we not subsidising food stuff such as garri and rice? Is fuel more important than food?

To compound things, the Govt's policy is to compensate importers for the difference between the market value of fuel and the fixed price. If you guys can't see the inherent stupidity in such a policy, I don't see any hope for this country. If subsidy didn't provide such a lucrative loophole, it would have long ago been abolished. In the subsidy debate, you have an unusual alliance between the profiteers and the people, between the exploiters and the exploited.

I have always said that if this was merely about sharing the benefits of our ''bountiful'' oil proceeds, we can scrap subsidy and replace it with free healthcare and free education. Healthcare and education are investment goods - an educated and healthy populace are more productive and add to a nation's human capital. Subsidising fuel simply ensures the cheaper consumption of fuel presently but has no positive future value. The mark of intelligence - what distinguishes the civilised from savages - is the ability to plan for the future.

Ovamboland:
This is the line sold to confuse and deceive people like you, don't you know USA became world power and industrial giant on the back of cheap energy prices when its fuel prices were cheaper by a factor of 3 or 4 compared to Europe.

Only ignorance will not make you not see the dislocating and poverty promoting policy been pursued by unbridled fuel importation as Nigeria is about the only large crude exporting country that cannot refine enough fuel for domestic use , what a shame. Lives too many are dependent on price of fuel, inefficient generators for small businesses, public transport dislocations that you don't remove such subsidy carelessly.

Are you not ashamed that a whole government cannot or is not willing to defend or enforce it' own economic policies and is willing to surrender to so-called cabals who happen to be it's biggest friends and financiers of it's elections. The activities of this cabal would have led to firing squad or gallows in some other countries but our government presents these economic saboteurs as untouchable while the masses can be dealt with at will. I will try and avoid the regional slant where parts of the country that always participated in agitation to maintain subsidy suddenly became champions of its removal

4Play:

Complete and utter falsehood. No, the US does not subsidise fuel nor is it anymore industrialised than Europe. Its fuel is not cheaper by a factor of 3 or 4 and the difference in pump price is largely down to the high amount of tax that European states impose.

Industrialisation is the product of high quality human capital and good infrastructure not cheap fuel. Nigeria spends more on fuel subsidy than on education and health combined, do you seriously believe this is the path to industrialisation? Fuel subsidy came into place in 1972, where is the industrialisation in Nigeria and how come Nigeria managed to have a diversified healthy economy prior to 1972?

4Play:




You are a confused man. You bemoan the loss of refining capacity but praise subsidy. Subsidy and Govt intervention has a lot to do with the state of our refineries. It's very difficult to get people to invest in refineries when the output's price is fixed by Govt fiat. More importantly, whether we refine or import, the Govt still has to pay the different between the market price and the fiat price. Given that our refineries are less efficient and given the opportunity cost of not exporting the crude oil which is ultimately consumed locally, it probably works out cheaper to import than to refine locally.

If fuel subsidy is the antidote to poverty, it's odd that poverty has exploded since the 70s. Fuel subsidy is an odd policy tool for addressing poverty as it benefits wealthier households who consume more fuel than poorer households. Most Nigerians are rural dwellers and do not have generators or use public transport. My mum has 2 fuel guzzling SUVs and a Mercedes as well as 2 generators. Fuel subsidy benefits her, whereas a rural dweller living in Adamawa or Sokoto receives virtually nothing from the Govt. Don't you think there are better ways to target poverty using policy tools that directly target solely poor households such as higher minimum wage, free healthcare and education instead of subsidising the fuel consumption of say an Ikoyi resident who drives a Lincoln Navigator and needs generators to power their 6 bedroom mansion?

Let's face it, fuel subsidy is a ruse by the urban middle and upper class like you who want to capture the proceeds of oil for themselves while displaying complete insouciance to the plight of the vast majority of poor Nigerians who face high infant mortality rates - nearly a million Nigerian children per year - low levels of illiteracy due to the lack of free healthcare and education. This seems to be a society that values cheaper fuel more than good health.

Ovamboland:
Learn to read and comprehend, don't think like Jonathan, must everything be spelt out in ABC before you understand? the fact i said 'became industrialized on the back of cheap energy prices' will ring bells in the mind of any bright student that it refers to time in the past because USA is not a recently industrialised nation.
Read the first 10 lines of the link to get educated and you will see low energy prices is one of the significant factors that gave USA the edge until it was able to outpace every European country in industry. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_and_industrial_history_of_the_United_States
This does not in any way imply that USA fuel is subsidized today, i can't fathom how you made that leap from my post. However fuel is still cheaper today in US than most EU states due mainly to the tax reason you stated.

Cheap energy should be a comparative advantage for Nigeria to help make cost of living and doing business lower but we can choose if we all agree to throw it away. It cannot be rammed down our throat by Jonathan.

NOI and Madueke claimed we consume about 40 million liters daily, with the last increase in price by 32 naira, the government should have saved 470 billion in subsidy. What has the government done with this savings to convince people the rest should go. And with this figure the subsidy should not be up to 600 billion a year but what is the government paying to it's cronies?

Your myopia makes you swallow the line that fuel consumption is only by SUV and generators, what of when you need to visist the salon, grind pepper, take public transport, move goods from the poor farmer to town, transport inputs to the farm, is that only done by middle class Nigerians? You are only been clever by half to think only your type and your mum will be affected by higher fuel prices.

I bet the %tage of your mums income she will spend to buy fuel at extra 40 naira to maintain her lifestyle will be far less than the %tage of the income the urban poor and the rural dweller you proclaim to love so much will pay on daily basis to transport himself, his goods and buy inputs not available in his locality.

It is laughable that in your bid to sound eloquent you made the gaffe to say it is cheaper to import fuel than refine locally shows your own short term thinking is terrible and you only see things in immediate naira and kobo. Imagine the number of Nigerians that would have been employed in refining our consumption, the number required in handling and transportation, the by-products that serves as inputs to whole new industries that is totally lost as we have people like you saying importation of unemployment is cheaper for any economy. I am amazed!

4Play:
So your justification for supporting an economically illiterate policy such as fuel subsidy for Nigeria is a passage you found in Wkipedia referring to the cheap extraction of energy from abundant natural resources. Talking about leaps, it takes a humongous leap of logic to state that the cheap extraction of energy from abundant natural resources, which Nigeria already achieves, requires the subsidisation of fuel by Nigeria. If this was solely about industrialisation, why not provide subsidies solely to industrial users?
In your desperation to find justification for your naive claims, you managed to miss a whole range of causal factors - land, literate labour, transport infrastructure, capital,e.t.c - named as responsible for the US's industrialisation and latched on to one line you saw about the cheap extraction of energy. What does subsidising fuel for consumers have to do with the costs of extraction?
In your argument you ignore the elephant in the room - Nigeria has been subsidising fuel since 1972 and is no closer to industrialisation as a result. Yet, like the proverbial mad man who does the same thing hoping for a different result, you insist that subsidising present day consumption of a finite commodity is what will ensure a prosperous future.
You use phrases which you clearly have no understanding of their meaning. Comparative advantage refers to productive choices, choosing to make things you are better at making and buying the things someone else is better at making than you. There is simply no correlation between the concept of comparative advantage and consumption subsidy. To hold otherwise illustrates that you are engaging in charlatanism.
This is a uniquely Nigerian logical fallacy - Removing subsidy results in corruption, therefore we must retain subsidy which itself is riddled with corruption. The subsidy programme would not have lasted this long if Govt officials did not make billions from it. Our Govt ignored us when they ended free education to university level for instance but you seriously think it's merely out of the goodness of their hearts that subsidy remains in place since 1972? It is because the subsidy programme is an excellent conduit to loot.
Spare me your straw man arguments. I have never said that fuel consumption is only for SUVs and generators but that fuel use is higher amongst higher income households than lower income households. It is bizarre to claim that the way to address poverty in Nigeria is by creating a programme which spends more money on the rich than the poor. Of course higher transport bills affect the poor, but you can design policy that target solely the poor without spending on the rich. You are simply a middle/upper class guy demanding awoof oil money whilst pretending to help the poor.
Unlike you, I believe that what the poor needs is free healthcare and education not cheaper fuel. Most rural dwellers are subsistence farmers and do not own cars, use public transport or own generators. The cost of fuel subsidy is not simply the headline Govt cost - running over a trillion Naira - but the opportunity cost of failing to providing things like low interest loans, education, healthcare and infrastructure investment which we can provide with the foregone subsidy budget.
Weren't you the naif blithering like an unashamed sciolist about comparative advantage? You now don't seem to agree that if something is cheaper to import than to produce locally, one ought to import it. That is the very essence of comparative advantage. If it was cheaper to refine locally, investors will be piling in to do so. Do you think we have never tried what you are suggesting which is called in policy circles import substitution? I leave you to wallow in your ignorance.

barcanista: The Government of Goodluck Jonathan is Clearly a Government of Deceit. Finance Minister Okonjo Iwaela and Petroleum Minister Diziene Allison Madueke Owe Nigerians some explanation as regards this "MAGIC"

barcanista:
The 2nd Niger Bridge hasn't even been built and the Govt is counting it as "Achievement" neither is uninterrupted Power. In 2012 The Government promised Buses as part of palliatives for the Partial subsidy removal-Yet we see no such buses on our roads except the few that goes on "parade" in major cities. The SURE-P that was instituted is only performing on the pages of Newspaper and on TAN website with NOTHING to show on ground. Nigerians are paying for the PMS at a high rate. The Government WAS shouting "Cabal"...Cabal that only surfaced when Jonathan took the helms of Power in 2011.

#A government of Deceit

Obiagelli:
I swear this guy na clown

Sincere9gerian:

My guy, a beg make you no vex, what do you do for a living?

barcanista:
The worse is that they are promoting lots of propaganda to make him appear as a "SAINT"