“We also told government team that its argument that the economic meltdown makes deregulation necessary is not in tandem with trends in the other parts of the world like the United States (US) and Europe where the meltdown has meant government stimulus package for the economy and the citizenry. As other forward looking countries have shown,this not a time to cut social spending;rather this is a time to increase social spending”
-Omar Abdulwaheed Nigerian Labour Congress(NLC )President

“I am not afraid of tomorrow,for I have seen yesterday and I love today”
-William White

Among the 140 million citizens of this country called Nigeria,how many can stand up with their heads high and affirm like William White “am not afraid of tomorrow,for I have seen yesterday and I love today”. As we all know,life in Nigeria today horrible for the poor and downtrodden,even the rich are not spared.

On the 2nd May 2009,President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, in a press conference informed Nigerians that there is a cartel within Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation(NNPC) which has held the energy sector hostage and he vowed to fish out this “legion of extraordinary gentlemen” and deal with them. This cartel in NNPC ensures that despite the millions of dollars sunk into the refineries annually in the name of turnaround maintenance,the refineries fall short of their refining capacity failing to meet local demand. This situation, they know,will enable them to continue importation of petroleum products so that they can make huge profit associated with international trade.

This cartel reminds me of the scintillating US Reality Series 'Prison Break' where a corporate Mafia lord, “the General” used countries as his experimental fields and the citizens as his experimental rodents. Funny enough Nigeria alongside Indonesia and Laos were mentioned by Agent Don Self the government FBI agent as one of the countries the General had tried his experiment on. The US government had to dislodge the US Chicago Mafia families who had a grip on virtually all segment and major businesses of the US economy,in the first half of the 20th century. The Mafia families could fix price at their convenience and they sometimes brought the nation to a stand still with the their gangsterism and brutal mob war.

We have four refineries which cannot work due to inefficiency of government which is fraught with corruption,mismanagement and poor governance. Even the abundance of the basic raw material for the refineries cannot make the refineries work. We have pipelines running from the oil fields running straight to the refineries. What would have happened if we had to buy crude oil from the international market for these refineries? Probably,we will not have had any refineries at all just as Nigeria cannot boost of one car manufacturing plant. The ones that were established after independence have all closed shop. We now have to import all brand new Toyota/GM cars from South Africa. Is this not failure of government in the highest order?

We prefer to export the crude oil to Western countries and then stupidly go and buy the refined fuel at international price given the high disparity between Naira and Dollar, because we have petro-dollars to waste. This is madness. Obama will call it the “disastrous polices” of Africa leaders. Instead of breaking the jinx of poor governance and corruption and bringing this refineries to full capacity, they chose to dangle the evil carrot of deregulation of the downstream sector of the petroleum industry in the face of helpless Nigerians who been at the mercy of successive retrogressive governments since 1960.

What is deregulation,It is a policy initiated by the United States Government by the Nixon administration after the post-war economic prosperity of the US that lasted till the introduction of Deregulation policy by 1974. That prosperity has been on upward movement. Wikipedia defines deregulation as “ the removal or simplification of government rules and regulations that constrain the operation of market forces. Deregulation does not mean elimination of laws against fraud,but eliminating or reducing government control of how business is done thereby moving toward a more free market”

However at the time of implementing deregulation,the per capita income of the US was $4,445 which has a 2006 value of $16,031.Moreover the US being the champion of deregulation is a pacesetter and have achieved milestones in several aspect of human endeavor. Our per capita income is less than $400.Over 70 percent of our population live in abject poverty.

This is a nation where successive governments have exhibited high level of poor implementations of the proposed plans attributing failure to corruption. Policy inconsistencies,implementation inconsistencies, policy reversals, policy terminations, lack of implementing capacities by political actors are the bane of underdevelopment since 1960 and lack of political will from the FG is the reasons for the failures in all sectors of the Nigeria economy. Take a look at Nigeria's Report Card in tabular form (http://nigeriarevolution..com/2009/11/nigerias-2008-2009-report-card-and.html) vis-a-vis global indices bench making political,economic and human development climates for 2008 and 2009.

The shallow comparison of the deregulation of the telecommunication sector to the deregulation of the downstream sector of the petroleum industry has shown that wickedness and lack of consideration for the poor has blurred the thinking faculty of our leaders. If there was a way to get into my TV,I would have jumped in to lynch the minister who was making this comparison. He needs to go back to kindergarten. Our government lacks common sense. These men don't queue up at fuel stations,taxpayers foot their bill, by the time they are leaving office,not only the huge salaries they have earned and all the contracts they given themselves,they loot the nation dry.

Since the advent of GSM,we still have a telephone density of less than 70 million out of 140 million citizens. Moreover, every subscriber is not an active one and while the active ones can chose to control his or her usage of phone services. Deregulation is a policy that will affect the unborn,the lame,the beggar,the poor,every living soul in this country will feel the effect. It is not by choice, it by existing with the geographical space called Nigeria.

One of the Telecom company says that it incurs N700 million per annum in fueling it generators and this cost are transferred to the subscribers. With the epileptic power supply,you can not question that claims even if they put the cost at N5bn. The same scenario will surely repeat in the petroleum industry given the failure of government in in every aspect of regulation.

Even when Ghana had not discovered oil in large quantity the leaders understood that entrenching democracy and reducing poverty is the key to national development. The former President of Ghana,Kuffour ,once said,without disconcert,that he would not hesitate to spend huge chunks of money to subsidize requisite infrastructure and business-especially oil and electricity-to ensure the welfare comfort of Ghanaians. Hence,today,Ghana is running its third year of hitch free,uninterrupted electricity and the cost of oil is subsidized as a matter of government conscious policy to alleviate the energy needs of the citizens.

This same Ghana which is not practicing deregulation is a darling of the inventors of deregulation,the United States. Obama has described Ghana as “a model in Africa”. As Obama observed “ there is correlation between democracy and prosperity”,the country is on course and have bettered the lots of its citizens. Trust Nigerians,we will soon start hearing of Nigerian estates and even cities in Ghana because everyone is rushing to that country because you don't need visa to get in.

With the current recession the US Government has now started calling for greater regulation of the market. The United States is moving back towards greater government control and regulation of the private sector doling out outrageous sums of over $700bn for bailout and nationalization of failing companies. Then our government who has failed Nigeria for 50 years and this administration who have seen decline in every indices of political,economic and human development want to deregulate the downstream sector of the petroleum industry. Other petro-dollar countries such as Venezuela,Iran,Saudi Arabia,Qatar,UAE and Angola subsidize several needs of their citizens such as fuel and electricity. Until they attain a certain level of economic prosperity akin to that of the G20s,where such state is in favour of free-market economies they will now deregulate the economy and leave the fate of the citizens to the vagaries of greedy capitalist.

The government of Nigeria whose corruption,mismanagement and poor government despite earning over $600bn since 1970, has become a subject of scholarly debate,conferences and and study, many of which I encountered in the course of this write up,has vowed to inflict untold hardship and suffering on its citizens,instead of pursuing democracy and good governance which will in turn bring prosperity.

I will not hesitate to believe that it is still this same cartel that is pushing for deregulation. Its seems Yar'Adua made a slip of the tongue when he mentioned the cartel so instead of staying put,to avert the wrought of Nigerians who will soon expose these evil men by themselves,they have changed tactics-deregulation.

Why can't this government who contracted oil majors to drill our crude oil also partner with successful refineries in the world to bring the existing refineries back to full capacity? If fuel is refined in our refineries will government have to subsidize it? Won't the cost and logistics associated with importation be removed cutting down the cost of fuel? Now,embrace true federation so that states can also take charge of their own oil fields and own refineries? No way! If the FG's refineries are owned by Lagos Government,I bet them by now they will be producing at full capacity and there will be no need for deregulation. The issue will boil down to supplementing the output if it not enough to meet local demands or more refineries built as $4bn can comfortably set up a refinery.

The FG gives the excuse that government is not a good of manager of business. Okay,because of poor governance,corruption and mismanagement that have plagued the business of governing Nigeria since 1960,which was even the excuse the military gave for intervening in 1966, and it has not improved since independence,its high time we deregulate government so that government can become efficient. Yes, lets deregulate all unelected offices-MDAs for efficiency. Deregulation shows that Yar'Adua's leadership is rudderless.

Many are saying that deregulation will eradicate scarcity of the commodity. That many investors will come and flood the market with products and crash the price. Nigerians indeed do not take cognizance of the fact that importation depends on the dollar and given our exchange rate we will always be at a disadvantage. Price of crude oil is on the increase and the western companies will sell the imported fuel given the price they buy our crude. They higher the price of crude, the higher imported products which is compounded by importation cost and other logistics. And we are not the only country that determines the cost of crude oil. So no matter the volume that is imported,there is a certain price that the importers will not go below so as not to run a loss. The cement industry is a typical example,despite opening up the sector for many investors to import the product, the price of cement hovers between N1500-N2000.

It is a failure of government and indeed shameful that the only commodity we have comparative advantage is going to become inaccessible to its citizens. In the Western countries and Asia economies,commodities that they have comparative advantage are cheap. In my 28 years of life in this country,prices have been sky-rocketing and the standard of living has been on the downward slide. Their is no price stability for more than one year.

If Nigerian Government works,at this point of our national development we should have been exporting refined fuel and electricity to other African countries while we sale crude oil to the west. This will create jobs and earn this useless government extra revenue to squander. We will wait not for OPEC quota to increase our foreign exchange earnings. What Nigerian leaders don't understand is that there are certain aspects of the economy you do not deregulate so as to protect your citizens until you attain a certain level of economic development. Why didn't the US deregulate until 1974 after about 20+ years of prosperity? Have they not heard of protectionism?

When mediocre ministers deregulate I hope everyone will be able to fix his usage of the transportation system or even abstain from it and start trekking long distances or revert to Ojo Maduekwes bicycles. People will reduce the number of times they eat because food prices will be affected as prices will go up because it depends on the transportation system. Then all the companies who depend on generators to produce goods will also control their production so that they will not incur cost because of epileptic power supply or move to other countries and we now begin to import everything from abroad.

Then we will have shortage of common goods such as biscuits and sweets. The Chinese are there to fill in the gap. Even the imported goods will incur extra cost when they land in Nigeria because trucks will lift them from Apapa to all over the country. Madness,absolute madness! People are suffering at N65 and you want to increase the cost of petrol with almost 100 percent and you call it a good policy. That 70 percent of Nigerians live below the poverty line is mere statistics to these people whose wisdom has failed us for 50 years. You have not improved their lot. Increase minimum wage to N52,500,it is then that they will start beaming with intelligence to define inflation for you and cling on recession. This shows that our government does not know the economic state of Nigeria. We have been in depression ever since and it is getting worse. Arrant nonsense!

I wonder if these government ministers know that powerful cartels are wont to 'price fixing' in developed free market economies. If they cannot curtail them now is it when you don't regulate them that you can. Most Nigerians have corruption in their subconscious,while Nigerian businessmen who are know to be notorious and are acute capitalist will not fail to resort to price fixing so as to make maximum profit. If not for the arrival of the “Inventor of Sanusinomics” ,they would have collapsed Nigeria's financial system with corruption,poor credit administration and billions of bad loans. One man alone owed N108bn to several banks.

If there is any aspect of life of this nation that the government has managed well,then we can buy their idea of this deregulation. Present and past leadership have failed us and everyone has lost fate only praying for deliverance. The government continues with policies that can increase prices and lead to national unrest, We continue to import policies without aligning them to the realities of our nation before implementation.

In the US,social spending item in their annual Federal budget is more than any other item in government expenditure. The United States still subsidizes cost of petroleum products for its citizens. Although it has transferred the subsidy from petroleum products to alternative sources of fuel to discourage the dependence on oil. It is still subsidy. They pay Social Security Benefits to every citizen who is in need of it so that they can be insulated from poverty when they retire,lose their jobs or belong to the low cadre of the society.

A Labour leader at made this analysis at demonstration against the deregulation in Abuja. Going by figures released by government as one of its reasons to remove the subsidy,N650bn incurred as cost of deregulation translates to about N700m per day. We have 140million citizens. Then every citizen stands to gain about N5 per day as the only social spending the government offers its citizens. What the extremist proponents of deregulation tell us that the money used for subsidies can be plunged into other sectors of the economy for accelerated development. Then I ask them,can we account for other monies from the over $600bn earned from oil which we sunk into these sectors since 1970? So what is the guarantee that appropriating the funds meant for subsidy for other sectors will not follow the status quo?

France Model of socialist capitalism is being adopted by other countries in this economic recession. Instead of raising the standard of living of Nigeria and tackling poverty. Our ministers under the supervision of Yar'Adua prefer the outdated killer version of capitalism that other countries have abandoned in favour of capitalism with huge bailout which simply means part nationalization and increased government regulation of the private sector. They want to deregulate because they will give themselves the licenses to become the importers and continue to amass wealth while the common man suffers.

Labour has sworn that there will be blood and the masses are solidly behind them. We want to copy the United State only in implementing unfounded polices without the requisite economic realities. Thank God for Obama who shunned us and sent Hillary to come and tell us to wake up from slumber. When the US implemented deregulation in the 1970s it had attained a high level of economic development. The standard of living of the citizens was in the right shape to cushion the effects. As the chief advocate of free market economies,they wanted to allow the natural laws of demand and supply to take prominence so as to fully understand the theories that have existed in their books; before destabilizing Soviet Union and enforcing democracy and free market economies on the world. The recession has jolted them to know that you can't practice free market economies in isolation. Karl Marx must be having a good time popping champagne in the great beyond.

Let us call on "obstinate"Yar'Adua to resign now before Nigeria collapses after swallowing his bitter pill of deregulation or better still let him start planning for a successor in 2011.

Excerpts from an article to be published on 9th November 2009 on (http://nigeriarevolution..com/2009/11/there-will-be-blood-labour-on.html) titled “10 Critical Reasons Why President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua must Resign Now”.

Aluta continua victoria accerta. I support labour 100%. Labour fought obj througout his wasted 8years in office under Adams oshiomole which is y d price of petrol didnt get to N100 per litre under d wicked ota farmer. Now umaru that is not as active as baba iyabo wants to start where his predeccesor stopped, Never he will fail