Roll back the Tinubu Fuel Tax, a.k.a. subsidy removal

Courage! President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is courageous, as shown by his public records. He courageously took on internal and external opposition to his quest to be the president. It led to the courageous Abeokuta Declaration of Emilokan.

Tinubu confessed that a courageous spirit entered him to declare the end of subsidy in Nigeria at his inauguration. It was unscripted. In other words, neither the president nor his team had worked out the dynamics and modalities.

Tinubu merely worked up the courage to follow the received Western wisdom against subsidies in the developing world, even as almost everything in Western economies is subsidised.

It was unlike Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the strategist and marathoner. Even to appoint the second tier of his team, the heads of agencies, Tinubu subjected the key appointees to thorough scrutiny, including asking them to submit position papers.

He did not do so on 29 May 2023. Nigeria has paid an outsize prize for that courage. It is not working. Nay, it is causing enormous hardship. Citizens are groaning from Kutuwenji to Kaura Namoda. From Mushin to Maiduguri and from every corner of Nigeria.

Citizens have moved beyond the muted complaints in their sitting rooms and clubs and taken to the streets. Protests are mounting.

More disturbingly significant are the complaints of the elite and governing class.

The Nigerian governing class and elite have returned to their favourite habit of speaking in forked tongues about significant issues. They are doing so now on the consequences of the alleged removal of fuel subsidies and the dollarisation of our economy through floating the Naira. Once again, they see the elephant in the room but speak only of the mice running around.

My key witnesses are two Bola Ahmed Tinubu cabinet ministers and a former presidential special adviser under President Muhammadu Buhari. Enter into the witness box: Atiku Abubakar Bagudu, Minister of Budget and Planning; Senator Abubakar Kyari, Minister of Agriculture; and Prof Itse Sagay, a former adviser to Buhari.

Before the National Assembly on Friday, 9 February 2024, the two ministers critiqued the administration’s key policy thrusts. They stopped short of calling on the government to withdraw the policies.

Bagudu told the Senate Committee that the removal of fuel subsidies instigated a high cost of petroleum with its ripple effect on the transportation of goods and the high price of farm produce.

He said: “What we are faced with today is the undocumented food export to our neighbouring countries. Today, one CFA is N2.50; 100 CFA is N2, 200. That used to be N400 a few years ago. When you look at our neighbouring countries, all four neighbouring countries around us, the CFA is their currency, and because of the devaluation of the naira, our food is the cheapest around the neighbourhood. So, you find a lot of undocumented exports, smuggling across our porous borders to these neighbouring countries.”

Bagudu contemplates border closure to curb unrestrained export of our goods to neighbouring countries. He names nationals of India, China, and Turkey among the culprits who export Nigerian produce without repatriating the proceeds.

“Export is a good thing for us, but when you don’t earn the foreign exchange, and it is not repatriated back to us, and the government doesn’t have any income from it, I am sorry, that is not a good sign.

Food production is endangered, Bagudu submitted. “The benefits of fuel subsidy reforms must be supported by measures that guarantee food production and stability.