VANGUARD
It’s just about four weeks since President Bola Tinubu put an end to the oil subsidy regime. Given how long his predecessor had toyed with and abandoned the idea, it wouldn’t have felt out of place for many Nigerians had Tinubu waited a little more before plunging them down the abyss of costly petrol per litre.
From 183 naira to 500 naira per litre is quite a leap. At half that price at any other time in the past, Nigerians had taken to the streets in their millions. Removing oil subsidy was a dreaded terrain no Nigerian leader dared to tread on not to say rush in as Bola Tinubu did within minutes of his taking over the reins of government.
At least three times in his last year in office President Muhammadu Buhari kicked the can of oil subsidy removal down the road. After his last unsuccessful attempt, during which there were discordant tunes from the presidency, the leadership of the Ministry of Finance and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, on the one hand, and oil marketers on the other hand, Nigerians were left in no doubt that that decision had become a booby trap for whoever succeeded Buhari. The failure to act was a sinister move that left many Nigerians wondering and projecting in pity what turbulent ride Bola Tinubu was bound to encounter after he was declared winner of the 2023 presidential election.
In light of his travails and all he had had to pass through shortly before, during and after the election, the lack of action on the oil subsidy issue by a government and a president that was still negotiating loans and signing agreements on behalf of Nigeria up to its last few hours in office, seemed totally foreboding and dangerous. While President Buhari technically took the oil subsidy regime off oxygen by making no provision for it in the 2023 budget, he left its execution (with all its menacing details) to his successor at the end of June, one clear month after he would have left office.
Nothing could have been more cowardly or shown that decision for the hot potato it was than that lack of will on the part of the departing administration. But Bola Tinubu approached the matter gingerly and perhaps naively. Everything could have blown off in his face. His words ending the subsidy on oil sounded urgent and very matter of fact. More or less like a decree. It was without ceremony and its effect was almost instant. Fuel stations didn’t waste time before they readjusted their gauge and jerked up the metres.
In hindsight, it was perhaps the right to do. It left no room for the usual bickering and unending mulling over of the pain that was to follow such a tough call. It also didn’t give labour leaders the opportunity to grandstand and pretend to be fighting on the side of the people while lining their own pockets. Nigerians had already been pummeled beyond words and they were ready to face whatever awaited them in the forest of astronomical oil cost. The effect was shocking but far less aggravating than the picture of Armageddon some had predicted. Nigerians started weathering the storm, as they have been doing one month on, in a matter of days…
