It is interesting to see how a leader behaves when he’s seeking our mandate and what he does after he has been elected, gets enough power, and doesn’t need anybody anymore. It’s about what power does: Power is like a bikini: It reveals more than it can hide. I am talking about President Muhammadu Buhari and the governing All Progressives Congress (APC). The proposed plan by the Federal Government to remove fuel subsidy early next year, and replace subsidy with a token N5,000 monthly transport fare grant for “40 million vulnerable citizens”, could prove to be one of the most  ill-conceived, insensitive, untimely, wicked and inconsequential of choices ever made by an incumbent president serving his last tenure in office.                                                                          

Clearly, the remaining 18 months of Buhari presidency will not be fun if his administration goes ahead with this anti-people plan to remove fuel subsidy. For me, the hard stance of the government to heed public opinion, is a window to understanding the true nature of power, what power does, how it works in reality, its raw and unadorned essence, as well as the need to understand the difference between moral imperative and economic necessity. The fact that government is a human enterprise often makes economic necessity of secondary importance, especially when the citizens are going through extraordinarily hard times. To disregard this imperative is to hurtle between change and calamity.                                              

Look back to 2011 and 2015, you will see Buhari  while seeking your vote and where he stands now. As a Presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) in  2011 elections, Buhari was one of the prominent voices who vehemently opposed the plan by the administration of Goodluck Jonathan to remove fuel subsidy. He joined forces with his friend, Prof. Tam David-West (now decreased), and organised labour to say that the attempt to remove subsidy was a clever decoy by the then government “to defraud Nigerians of huge portion of their collective patrimony”. Specifically, Buhari urged Nigerians, and organised labour to “resist the withdrawal” with everything at their disposal. Nigerians hailed him as a man of courage, a defender of the masses. President Jonathan hearkened.                                               

Also, in March,  2015, as standard bearer of the APC, Buhari said few days before the presidential election concerning fuel subsidy: “In my time as NNPC Chairman and Minister of Petroleum Resources in the late 1970s, two of our four refineries were built and domestic consumption well catered for”. But, over the last years, he said,and rightly so, all our refineries have become moribund, and the country at the mercy of fuel imports.”We must reject a system that has turned one of the world’s largest crude exporters into an importer of petrol. Things must change “, he said with pain and anger in his voice. Days later, he became the President-elect. Have things changed? More than six years of his presidency, why has positive change not come?                                                                       

According to statistics published by The Guardian newspaper, November 26, 2016, Nigeria spent N958.3bn importing petrol in five months. The amount, experts said, could build five 20,000-barrels per day mini refineries. One of such refineries would cost government between $75 million and $250million. In naira terms, higher expenditure on petrol imports gives impression of worsening foreign exchange position for the country and emphasizes the need to activate the country’s four idle refineries.  The questions are: What took over the President’s mind? Is this the same Buhari of 2011 and 2015 who dug a big hole for the former administration? What a tragedy! But, it’s not hard to find why. As Robert A. Caro, a two-time Pulitzer prize-winning biographer reminds us, that’s what happens when a leader gets enough power, when he doesn’t need your vote anymore,  we can see how he always wanted to treat people, and we can see – by watching what he does with his power- what he wanted to accomplish all along”.                                                                           

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The argument behind the government’s plan is flawed. And those advising it to take the action are sincere deceivers. The know the truth, but won’t  be courageous to admit that not only does the math not adding up, the timing is fraught with calamity. When things go wrong, a leader is left to rue his decision, that wise counsel, “penny wise and pound foolish”. Where’s the infrastructure that will support the N5,000 monthly transport palliative? This could be another bazaar, a source of self-enrichment by government officials entrusted with that responsibility. Didn’t that happen with the so-called ‘school feeding programme’ under the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management, during the COVID-19 lockdown? Didn’t we see similar corruption during the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) of IBB administration in 1986? Those who fail to learn from history, live to repeat it and regret their actions. How did this government arrive at 40 million vulnerable Nigerians?                                              

Successive administrations in Nigeria have become enemies of the people they were elected to protect. Personal interests have supplanted collective, national interests.  This administration seems to be the worst enemy of the Nigerian people. Those advising President Buhari to take the ‘kamikaze’ decision, is all about selfish interests. The World Bank ,and Gov. El-Rufai of Kaduna state, last week, sounded the alarm bells to the government, saying further delay in removing fuel subsidy could see both the federal and state governments unable to pay salaries from next year. Also, the GMD of NNPC, Malam Mele Kyari, said petrol may sell at N340/litre in 2022 if government does not stop subsidy.                                                             

All of them miss the point. The World Bank may not know the intricacies of subsidy in Nigeria, the revolving door of corruption involved that successive governments and privileged individuals have benefited from at the detriment of the people. Governments all over the world subsidize certain goods dear to the people. The process is what matters. Take for instance, in 2014, the Senate Committee on Petroleum Downstream, unveiled a harvest of phony companies that were beneficiaries of government’s subsidies on fuel, amounting to N3.655trn from 2006 to 2011. Many of them, the Committee said, had “no business importing petroleum products”. The Committee also faulted the process that brought up these fake companies, and asked government to take action. It did not. Beside, it debunked the claims by NNPC on the amount reportedly spent on subsidy. The Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency(PPPRA) also agreed with the Senate Committee against the claim by NNPC, saying no such record as claimed by the corporation existed in its record books. So, who’s deceiving who?                                             

So, President Buhari beware. Right now,  Nigerians are disillusioned. Anger is eating them up like acid. They are dissatisfied with the way your government is running the country. Disregard those who tell you that you are making better things happen. Cost of living is at all-time high, unemployment and insecurity have reached frightening flood tide. The disgruntled Nigerians are looking for a trigger to pour their anger. As historians say, when things begin to go wrong, it starts with sticky thing like subsidy withdrawal.            

A leader who lacks self-awareness begins to accelerate his own problems and gets into “war” with his own people. Mr.President,  remember you already have a lot of firestorms in your plate. In all fronts- insecurity, economy, ethnic agitations- are some of the challenges of immediate sort your administration hasn’t dealt with. Don’t leave office as a wimp, unless you want to be remembered as a President who whipped his citizens with horsewhips. That’s what withdrawal of fuel subsidy means in practical terms at this time. In this season of discontent, subsidy removal will be a hard pill to swallow. My final advice: first tackle the supply side of the fuel situation in the country such as fixing our refineries and make them run at optimal level before contemplating subsidy withdrawal. Altogether, the choice before Buhari is: either force ‘change’ down the throats of Nigerians, or risk a looming, violent protests. Lesson in power is: Be wise!