₦airaland Forum

Right from the onset, N141 was a price that would give the FG room for negotiation. Even a 2 year old knows that. This reminds me of reports in December that speculated price to settle at N120 after deregulation. Anyway, let's wait for the final outcome b4 we dance.

Pls urge every one of your brethren to move south. Your leaders also need to place more pressure on the govt from the international community. Let the honorable men among you like Achebe, etc get the attention of UN and start making a case for peaceful separation.

My 2kobo.

I hope NLC accepts an increase in minimum wage with current price in place Or at the worst, a phased removal but not beyond 2012.

This is how it always ends up. It's called perambulation. At the end of the day, we would have achieved nothing until we fully deregulate the sector.

^ Oops, dat reply was meant for Emekamex.

Busy Brain, what will u say then about Abdulmutallab the suicide plane bomber?

@ Paragonpro, you know for sure that there are several benefits especially on the macro-economic scale. That cannot be denied. I won't want to go into that all over again as many other threads have dealt with it.

For the case of whether local refining will be beneficial, we have 2 things going for us: FOB crude and a huge CIF market. In refining business, that is over 50% of what you need to succeed already. The other factors like presence of expertise, labor cost, taxes, system efficiency (technology driven)etc can be improved upon.

Remember that we are already running refineries locally today, and NNPC pump price is lower than the others. In addition, the pump price in the neighboring countries gives us a competitive advantage already. We can actually get to the point where we will refine all we need locally and as well export to our neighbors thereby becoming net exporters. Even if it is marginally cheaper to import, it will become a strategic investment to keep people employed, prevent capital flight and grow our economy.

@dayokanu, if I assume ur last question was a joke, I hope I won't be wrong?

@paragonpro, You could be right. To decipher the motive behind the action is a tough game to play. Only God and a few really know the true motives.

But looking at the policy as it is, I'm certain it holds a lot of benefits for Nigeria at a cost to us all today. A cost many of us don't think we can bear.

@Paragonpro, Sanusi also raised red flags on those issues. I wonder if NNPC and the rest of them can put out this information for all to see.

Smuggling and corrupt practices could have caused up to 80% of the total rise. Who knows?

There's where the strong argument for subsidy removal begins. And it's also the same reason why Nigerians maintain that the corruption in the system should be fought instead. According to Sanusi, "it is an economic decision" but I may add, with very strong political and social implications.

Exactly my points @Donalds.

No one is saying there was no corruption or whatever. People just want to get defensive as though we're trying to give an excuse. Fact is fact, assumption is assumption and suspicions are also suspicions.

@Omo-Tier, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I categorically stated that I'm not interested in justifying any figures. I have only made an effort to delve into the factors (broadly speaking) that could be at play.

Is this too difficult to comprehend? Sigh.

If we want to go down to the root of this, the first question will be: What volumes of product were actually delivered to the country and at what time. Next we should know how much slipped through the borders. Also, we need to know how much was retained or consumed in-country.

Then, we need to compare these with the financials. How much money was paid out, when it was paid out etc. If we don't have these facts, we cannot even begin to build the true picture.

If I'm paid as an auditor to do this job and given the facts, I will probably be in a better position.

Let's ask Okonjo Iweala, Sanusi, Deziani etc to tell us more. I guess they're in d best position.

Bottomline of most arguements here is CORRUPTION. Agreed!

If only we can quantify what our true consumption history is, we would have been in a better position to know how much corruption contributed. It would however be wrong to whimsically claim that the entire rise over the period is 100% due to corruption. That's why I have tried to list few factors that may have also contributed.

Dayokanu, can you read? If you can, you will see where I wrote the word "Assumption". Kindly look up the dictionary meaning.

I've made my points, you have identified possible flaws, good and fine. Let those that have access to real data do the rest. I just love to analyse and I'm having fun.

I speak like a doctor who is trying to treat a patient over the phone!

Most of these things have a multiplier effect. Assume each unique factor I mentioned increased by say 20% each for the year. What's the total effect:

Demand Rise x Exch. Rate x Supply chain factors x Smugglng rate x Price Increase = 1.2^6 results in almost 3x of total increase.

Once again, this is an assumption. I just hope you get the basic idea.

@Dis guy, that's a valid concern too but let's point the searchlight on the power sector also.

1. Population has increased leading to direct increase in energy need.
2. Increase in "MW" most likely did not meet up with the increase in power demand.
3. More appliances, more businesses, greater awareness, more wealthy individuals etc all contribute to an increase in energy demand and ability to meet it.
4. More generators imported as mentioned earlier.

As always, posters who have nothing to offer are very good at insulting. That's why I like posters like aletheia, ekt-bear, danjohn, etc
in issues like this. Hurling insults in response to facts and figures is simply immature.

I'm not interested in making any excuses and I will appreciate if people with analytical minds can come into this thread and do justice also. As you've noticed, smuggling / corruption is included in my list.
Going forward, let's look at the case of cars imports for example. Recall GEJ relaxed the age limit for importing cars. That must have had a direct impact on number of cars getting into the country. Imagine how many people bought up "fuel guzzlers" that were being dumped cheaply in the US. Last year alone, I got 2 SUVs for myself. For a quick check, go to autos section here on nairaland and study how people have bought more SUVs / gasoline trucks et al from the dealers there. Maybe we can even ask people like inspired to give us an idea in terms of % increase in sales for 2011. (Indicating % increase in SUV sales) etc.

One more thing in addition to all I have listed earlier. The absence of queues from our filling stations all year round without much efforts put into plugging the borders coupled with the increase in number of importers points to the fact that FG tried to flood the market to prevent scarcity. That's another factor too.

Pls remember, I'm not interested in justifying the increase. I am only playing the role of an analyst with limited info within my reach.

Thanks

Iweala did explain on AIT yesterday. Can't type much now but the following are all part of the equation:

1. Increased domestic demand for transportation (Commensurate with increase in number of imported / new cars within the period)
2. Increased consumption for powering generators (Also commensurate with generator imports)
3. Increase in oil price leading to increased price of petroleum products. Note that price was kept constant at N65 all through.
4. Exchange rate factors.
5. Pseudo-demand due to smuggling / other corrupt practices.

She didn't give figures anyway. If only we can see the figures and do the calculation ourselves, we can really see how the "blame" should be shared.

One of the greatest problems is our inability to quantify our actual market size (i.e demand).

By the way, I'm no govt official. I just regurgitated what madam said and garnished it with my own knowledge.

As "boko haram" is to insecurity; "cabal" is to economic crime.

I've always known the igbos to be strong and hardworking. Now I can see the Igbos are also very patient and wise people.

@ martyna4lf, that Israelite example you gave was classic. Well said.

Pls can anyone search for / provide a full english transcript of the video?

@alj harem, let me use a set of questions to "answer" one of your above questions.

Cars are smuggled daily from Cotonou to Nigeria. Does that have a negative effect on Benin Republic? Has the smuggling resulted a shortage of cars in Benin?

The key condition is this: When there is no subsidy (money paid out by govt), on a commodity, then its smuggling results in no loss for the nation as long as supply is guaranteed. (In fact it's a net gain for the source country).

@ Toba, it's obvious there are many factions and the political faction is fast swallowing up the others with strong support from international terrorists.

Now I can begin to put faces to the names. The game just entered a whole new level.

I'm mobile and cannot lay hands on the you tube video for now. Anyone can search and embed here.

11 January 12 14:48



The leader of Nigeria's Boko Haram Islamist militants has defended recent attacks on Christians, saying they are revenge for killings of Muslims.

In his first video message, posted on YouTube, Abubakar Shekau referred to attacks on Muslims in recent years in several parts of northern Nigeria.

Boko Haram militants attacked several churches on Christmas Day, killing dozens of worshippers.

This has led to some reprisals against mosques in the mainly Christian south.

Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation with 160 million people, is divided between a largely Muslim north and a south where most people are Christians and some animists.

Thousands of people have fled their homes following the recent attacks, leading some people, including Nigeria's president and the leader of the country's main Christian organisation, to make comparisons with the 1967-70 civil war when leaders of the south-eastern Igbo ethnic group tried to secede.

'Religious cleansing'

Mr Shekau, wearing a red and white turban, a bullet-proof vest and sitting in front of two Kalashnikov rifles, said he was responding to recent statements from Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan and the leader of the country's main Christian organisation, the Christian Association of Nigeria.

He warned President Jonathan that Nigeria's security forces would not be able to defeat the group.

Mr Jonathan, a Christian, has declared a state of emergency in some northern states but the attacks have continued.

On Tuesday night, gunmen opened fire on a bar in the northern state of Yobe, killing eight people, including several police officers.

The president recently said that he suspected some officials, politicians and members of the security forces sympathised with Boko Haram.

Defending the latest spate of violence, Mr Shekau referred to the killing of Muslims in places like Jos, Kaduna, Zangon Kataf, Tafawa Balewa in recent years.

Some of these places have seen bitter communal clashes but correspondents say they are often based on long-standing disputes over resources such as land, or are whipped up by politicians, rather than being based on religious differences.

"We are also at war with Christians because the whole world knows what they did to us," Mr Shekau said in the video, speaking in Hausa - the most common language in northern Nigeria.

"They killed our fellows and even ate their flesh in Jos," he said, referring to reports last year of isolated cases of Christian youths burning and eating their rivals in Plateau state, where more than 1,000 people have been killed in a series of clashes over the past two years.

Christian Association of Nigeria head Ayo Oritsejafor said on Saturday that his members would protect themselves against the attacks, which he said suggested "systematic ethnic and religious cleansing".

Mr Shekau said the group could only hold talks with the government in accordance with the teachings of Islam.

He said the group's primary targets remained the security forces, who he said had summarily executed their former leader Mohammed Yusuf after he was arrested in 2009.

"Everyone has seen how we were treated, people have seen what has happened between us and armed security agents and their accomplices who give them information about us," Mr Shekau said.

After a lull, in 2010 the group started to stage drive-by shootings on government targets in its base in the north-eastern city of Maiduguri.

Last year, it carried out suicide bombings on high-profile targets such as the headquarters of the UN and the police in the capital, Abuja.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/world-africa-16510929

When you shut down the oil, you shut down Nigeria.