Return The Subsidy To The People, Not To The Barons, Please! -By Isaac Asabor

There is a point at which government must stop asking citizens to endure pain in the name of economic reform and begin asking whether the reform itself is still serving the people. Nigeria may have reached that point.

The removal of petrol subsidy was presented to Nigerians as a difficult but necessary decision. The argument was straightforward: the subsidy regime was expensive, opaque and vulnerable to massive abuse, while the money being spent on it could supposedly be redirected to infrastructure, healthcare, education and other areas of national development. There was logic to that argument. But there was also an assumption that the removal of subsidy would ultimately improve the lives of Nigerians.

That assumption now deserves a serious review. For millions of Nigerians, the immediate consequence of subsidy removal has been brutally clear: higher petrol prices, more expensive transportation, rising food prices, increased production costs and a steady erosion of household purchasing power.

The question government must therefore confront is simple: “How much more suffering should Nigerians endure before the policy is reconsidered?”

This is not an argument for returning to the old subsidy regime with all its alleged loopholes and abuses. Far from it.

It is an argument for “returning the benefit of subsidy to the people while removing the barons, middlemen and criminals who allegedly turned a public policy into a private feeding trough.” The distinction is important.

For the sake of clarity, subsidy Is not the enemy.  For too long, the subsidy debate has been presented as though subsidy itself were the problem. It is not. The problem is a subsidy system that can be manipulated, inflated or hijacked by powerful interests. So, there is nothing inherently wrong with government cushioning the cost of an essential commodity for its citizens. Governments around the world intervene in markets when circumstances demand it, particularly where the consequences of allowing prices to rise unchecked can inflict widespread hardship.

In fact, petrol occupies a peculiar position in Nigeria’s economy. When its price rises, virtually everything moves with it.

The commercial driver pays more. The passenger pays more. The farmer pays more to transport produce. The trader pays more to move goods. The manufacturer pays more to power logistics. The baker pays more. The restaurant owner pays more. Eventually, the consumer pays more for almost everything. That is why petrol pricing cannot be treated as an isolated issue. When the cost of petrol becomes unbearable, it becomes a cost-of-living issue. And Nigerians have suffered enough.

Without a doubt, the people have paid the price. The most difficult part of the subsidy debate is that ordinary Nigerians have no control over the factors determining petrol prices, yet they bear the consequences of every increase.

A worker who earns a fixed salary cannot negotiate a discount with the filling station. A commercial driver cannot tell his passengers that he will absorb the increase in petrol prices indefinitely. A small business owner cannot simply manufacture cheaper electricity because diesel or petrol has become expensive. The farmer cannot magically reduce the cost of transporting produce to the market. Everybody eventually passes the additional cost down the chain.

That is why the argument that Nigerians should simply continue to endure the consequences of subsidy removal must be reconsidered.

Economic reform cannot become a permanent sentence of hardship. If a policy is hurting the majority of citizens, government must have the courage to review it.

There is no shame in policy review. In fact, the willingness to change course when circumstances change is one of the marks of responsible governance.

Return it to the people. What Nigeria needs is not necessarily a return to the old subsidy regime. What Nigeria needs is a “new subsidy architecture”.

If government decides to restore subsidy, it should be transparent, targeted and subject to strict independent verification. Every naira spent should be traceable. Every litre covered should be accounted for. Every beneficiary should be identifiable. Every claim should be independently verified.

And every official or private-sector participant found to have manipulated the system should face the full weight of the law.

Technology should make it possible to track petroleum volumes from the refinery or point of importation through distribution to the filling station. There should be no room for phantom imports, inflated volumes or fictitious claims.

Government should also publish enough information for citizens to understand what is being spent and why. The subsidy should belong to the Nigerian people. It should not become another opportunity for politically connected individuals and companies to accumulate wealth at the expense of the treasury.

In fact, what the government should have done is to arrest the barons. This is where Nigeria must be particularly uncompromising.

If there were individuals who became wealthy through fraudulent subsidy claims, they should be investigated. If evidence establishes criminal wrongdoing, they should be prosecuted.

If public officials facilitated such wrongdoing, they should face the law. If money was stolen, government should pursue recovery.

In fact, the answer to corruption in a public programme should not automatically be the abandonment of the programme. Otherwise, every public institution becomes vulnerable to the same logic. If corruption occurs in public procurement, should government abolish procurement? If tax officials facilitate fraud, should government abolish taxation? If politicians steal public money, should government abolish government? Obviously not. The answer is to strengthen the system and punish those who abuse it. The same principle should apply to petroleum subsidy.

In reality, enforcement efforts should be directed toward subsidy syndicates, holding them legally accountable whenever they jeopardize the integrity of the subsidy program. This is as Nigerians cannot keep paying for everybody’s mistakes.  There is something profoundly unfair about asking ordinary Nigerians to bear the full consequences of a system allegedly abused by a relatively small number of people. If the subsidy system was corrupt, those who corrupted it should answer for their actions. The ordinary Nigerian should not be made to pay indefinitely for the alleged crimes of subsidy beneficiaries.

Indeed, this is where government must demonstrate that its economic policies are designed around human beings, not merely fiscal statistics.

In fact, government finances are important. Fiscal discipline is important. Reducing waste is important. But the welfare of citizens is also important.

A government cannot celebrate improved revenue or reduced expenditure while millions of citizens are struggling to afford transportation, food and basic necessities. The ultimate measure of economic policy should be what happens to the lives of the people.

In a similar vein, subsidy should not become another bonanza. There is also a warning that must accompany any call for subsidy restoration. Nigerians must not allow nostalgia for cheaper petrol to become an excuse for recreating the same system that allegedly produced subsidy barons. The country must learn from its history.

A restored subsidy must be fundamentally different. There must be transparency, accountability, independent auditing, digital monitoring and public disclosure. There must also be consequences. Nobody should be able to hide behind political connections, corporate status or official position.

If someone steals one naira from a subsidy programme designed to help millions of Nigerians, that person should understand that the government will pursue the money and the law will pursue the person. That is how confidence is rebuilt.

Without dilly-dallying, the government must listen again. The Nigerian people were told that subsidy removal was necessary. They accepted the pain, however reluctantly, because they were promised a better economic future. But government cannot continue asking citizens to sacrifice without periodically examining whether those sacrifices are producing the promised results. The time has come for a sober review.

If the evidence shows that a carefully designed subsidy can protect Nigerians from unbearable petrol prices while avoiding the abuses of the past, government should not be too proud to reconsider its position. There is nothing ideological about hunger. There is nothing ideological about transportation becoming unaffordable. There is nothing ideological about a worker discovering that his salary disappears at the filling station and the food market. Policies exist to serve people.

When policies stop serving the people, they must be reviewed. Therefore, the message should be clear: “Return the subsidy to the people, not to the barons”. Give Nigerians the relief they desperately need. Build a transparent system around it. Plug the loopholes. Publish the figures. Track every litre. Follow every naira. And where the evidence points to fraud, arrest the barons.

In fact, Nigeria should not have to choose between affordable petrol and accountability. It can and must have both. The subsidy should return to where it was always supposed to belong, with the Nigerian people.