Punch Editorial Board
The choice is yours: buy petrol at an exorbitant price or go for cheap compressed natural gas. That is the upshot of what President Bola Tinubu told Nigerians on October 22.
“Nigeria’s motorists can buy petrol at N1000 per litre or equivalent gas per standard cubic meter at N200,” he said at a meeting with a delegation of Nigerian Independent Petroleum Company members in Abuja.
It was the most insensitive and apathetic thing a leader would say to his people in the throes of agony. Tinubu has made some forgettable statements since taking office last year. His ‘Let the poor breathe’ was hollow and unconvincing and was consequently turned into a sad joke by the Senate leadership. Also, ‘Nigerians deserve better’ was at odds with the people’s suffering from the president’s harsh policies. The “struggles many of you face” in the first line of his October 1 speech gave the president away as aloof and far removed from the plight of the people he leads. But telling Nigerians to choose between buying petrol at N1000 or CNG at N200 is probably the most egregious thing he has said.
The choice Tinubu offers is what British novelist Frederick Forsyth would describe as the devil’s alternative. One option is as tragic as the other. It is misleading to say, as the president did, that petrol is sold at N1000 a litre. Some still buy the product at over N1500 per litre even after the Dangote refinery came on stream. But even at N1000, petrol is still too expensive for motorists and other users. Many private car owners have resorted to leaving their vehicles at home. Commercial transporters transfer the high cost of fuel to their passengers. And so do virtually every other service provider, from foodstuff sellers at the markets to the neighbourhood hairstylists and millers. Life has become too tough for everyone in the last 16 months of the Tinubu administration. When he took office, a litre of petrol sold for less than N200. Under his watch as president and minister of petroleum, the product has sold for as much as N2000 in a country grappling with nasty inflation and low purchasing power of the naira.
Telling Nigerians to choose between expensive petrol and N200 gas exposes the president’s indifference to the suffering of his people. He doesn’t feel what they feel. There’s an empathy deficit. Tinubu conveniently glosses over the fact that Nigerians are not to blame for the country’s high energy cost. Things went south the moment he declared fuel subsidy gone at his inauguration on May 29, 2023. Soon, he tossed the naira into a volatile sea, to sink or swim. And the currency has been sinking since.
The Tinubu government is driving a compressed natural gas policy as a cleaner and affordable energy solution. It’s a good idea. For the moment, however, CNG is as problematic as petrol. The first challenge is converting vehicles already running on petrol or diesel. The second is the cost of the conversion which is put at over N1million. How many commercial motorists can afford this amount? A conversion explosion in Edo State sent safety fears across the country but it was put down to the use of substandard materials by unqualified hands. It will help if the government will get, say, the banks, to defray conversion costs. Tinubu’s claim that the government has provided free conversion for commercial motorists is not verified. The third problem is scarcity. There is said to be about 50 conversion centres in the country, most of which are in the state capitals. What is the fate of vehicle owners in towns and smaller communities? A fourth issue is the age of vehicles on the roads. Experts say CNG is not suitable for vehicles older than 10 years. This is a red flag. Fitting CNG into the old and rickety vehicles on the roads, especially commercial buses, is potentially dangerous.
The biggest problem with the Tinubu CNG push is the ghost of not leading by example. Government officials do not care about CNG. Their fleet of vehicles still runs on petrol that the common people cannot afford. This translates into one lifestyle for people in power, and another for those they lead. That is why belt-tightening is meant for the common folks, not for those who lead them. This ghost trails the administration at every turn.
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