National Chairman of Labour
Party, Dan Nwanyanwu in this chat offers reason for the boycott of the
recent meeting held with chairmen of political parties by President
Goodluck Jonathan on the planned removal of fuel subsidy. He also spoke
on political developments in Ondo and corruption in the country,
claiming that the corruption in the public sector is more than what the
nation had under Olusegun Obasanjo. He spoke to IHEANACHO NWOSU in Abuja.
Wednesday, December 21 , 2011
Wednesday, December 21 , 2011
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•Nwanyanwu
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Boycott of meeting on oil subsidy removal
First of all we were invited to the meeting but since the agenda was to discuss the issue of the security of the nation and removal of oil subsidy, the President’s intention was to persuade or he attempted to seek the support of political parties for removal of fuel subsidy there was no point going there. Our party’s position has been very clear, that we are against the removal of fuel subsidy.
We knew ab nitio that it is one decision that will not fly. This is predicated on the fact that LP as a mass based organisation, and political party that is truly representing the people of Nigeria, it will be irresponsible of the party to endorse the removal of petroleum subsidy.
But we must make this point clear, we gave alternative even as we are opposed to the removal. We do not want to accept that Nigerians are not in a position to run refineries effectively. We do not want to accept that government has no business in business. We should ask ourselves how they doing it in countries Saudi Arabia, Quatar, Vienna and Ghana. Ghana that just joined the oil producing countries.
The truth of the matter is that this so called subsidy has been based on importation. As they are doing their calculation, even before the vessels arrive Nigeria, they have already calculated all manner of things. For instance, they have already calculated that there would be 10 days demurrage, there will be this, there will be that. It is purely based on government’s inefficiency, why can’t we get our refineries perform optimally.
LP believes that we need at least four oil refineries in Nigeria. Last year the federal government spent about N240bn on subsidy. As at September this year it, has spent N1.3trn without the approval of the national assembly. If I go by what the managing director of NNPC told the senate that N1.3tr is more than the cost of building a standard four refineries. That will make us be in a position if we add them to the ones we have to refine all our domestic needs and then sell to our neighbouring countries. So it is a question of throwing away money that would have given us four refineries that would have complemented the three we have to get seven refineries.
If we do that, there will not be a need for subsidy again. LP believes that Nigerians should not buy petrol at more than N35 per litre. This is supposed to be God given resources but we cannot name one thing Nigerians are enjoying from successive administrations in the country. Petroleum subsidy is the only one left and they want to take it away. That is why we are opposed to it, we will continue to be opposed to it. We will join Labour, civil society to demonstrate against it. We can never be persuaded or convinced to accept it because it is against the people, is anti Nigerians, is unpatriotic for anybody to accept that fuel subsidy be removed. It is to bury the people of Nigeria finally.
I think this is a booby trap set for President Jonathan. We drew his attention to it , they are trying to force IMF pills down the throat of Nigerians. Mr President must realize that whether we like it or not when this whole system is destroyed alongside the people of Nigeria, i mean their economic capacity, it is his administration that would be mentioned, not those who initiated the nefarious policies and got him to accept them.
First of all we were invited to the meeting but since the agenda was to discuss the issue of the security of the nation and removal of oil subsidy, the President’s intention was to persuade or he attempted to seek the support of political parties for removal of fuel subsidy there was no point going there. Our party’s position has been very clear, that we are against the removal of fuel subsidy.
We knew ab nitio that it is one decision that will not fly. This is predicated on the fact that LP as a mass based organisation, and political party that is truly representing the people of Nigeria, it will be irresponsible of the party to endorse the removal of petroleum subsidy.
But we must make this point clear, we gave alternative even as we are opposed to the removal. We do not want to accept that Nigerians are not in a position to run refineries effectively. We do not want to accept that government has no business in business. We should ask ourselves how they doing it in countries Saudi Arabia, Quatar, Vienna and Ghana. Ghana that just joined the oil producing countries.
The truth of the matter is that this so called subsidy has been based on importation. As they are doing their calculation, even before the vessels arrive Nigeria, they have already calculated all manner of things. For instance, they have already calculated that there would be 10 days demurrage, there will be this, there will be that. It is purely based on government’s inefficiency, why can’t we get our refineries perform optimally.
LP believes that we need at least four oil refineries in Nigeria. Last year the federal government spent about N240bn on subsidy. As at September this year it, has spent N1.3trn without the approval of the national assembly. If I go by what the managing director of NNPC told the senate that N1.3tr is more than the cost of building a standard four refineries. That will make us be in a position if we add them to the ones we have to refine all our domestic needs and then sell to our neighbouring countries. So it is a question of throwing away money that would have given us four refineries that would have complemented the three we have to get seven refineries.
If we do that, there will not be a need for subsidy again. LP believes that Nigerians should not buy petrol at more than N35 per litre. This is supposed to be God given resources but we cannot name one thing Nigerians are enjoying from successive administrations in the country. Petroleum subsidy is the only one left and they want to take it away. That is why we are opposed to it, we will continue to be opposed to it. We will join Labour, civil society to demonstrate against it. We can never be persuaded or convinced to accept it because it is against the people, is anti Nigerians, is unpatriotic for anybody to accept that fuel subsidy be removed. It is to bury the people of Nigeria finally.
I think this is a booby trap set for President Jonathan. We drew his attention to it , they are trying to force IMF pills down the throat of Nigerians. Mr President must realize that whether we like it or not when this whole system is destroyed alongside the people of Nigeria, i mean their economic capacity, it is his administration that would be mentioned, not those who initiated the nefarious policies and got him to accept them.
LP’s position
We have our own way of doing things and that was why we endorsed Jonathan. It was the most critical and significant endorsement he got before the election.And that sealed victory for him, even those who had not made up their mind on him had to do so immediately LP endorsed him. It was so because we have integrity and we have credibility.
We discussed a lot of things with President Jonathan, we told him that time had come for us to build more rail tracks from Lagos to Abuja, Abuja to Sokoto, Abuja to Kano, Adamawa, Owerri etc. That we should have light rails within cities to ease the suffering of Nigerians.
My brother, if we can leave Abuja and get to Lagos in four hours, most people will have no business going to the airport. People can from any part of the country come to Abuja and return to their place of residence the same day. This is possible. We talked about education, revitalising our industries, Niger Delta, welfare of Nigerians. Those were the issues we took up with him one after the other. And we all agreed.
The issue of removal of fuel subsidy was not there. If he had introduced it during the electioneering i bet you Nigerians wouldn’t have voted for him.This is a policy that only those in government today are singing the song of removal. We have been told that the people are less than 20 and it is true because the senate has released the names. All they are trying to do now is to increase the number to 50 or 100 . Not that Nigerians will see the effect. Those that are outside now want to come in. All the noise about removal of subsidy is to increase the number of those that will share from the trillions every year.
We have seen all the increase in prices of petroleum products in the past three, four administrations and Nigerians have been worse for off because, there has been nothing to show for it. The only time we saw something good coming from petroleum proceeds was during the PTF era managed by Buhari. Till tomorrow if you go to universities you see what PTF did, so also some of our roads.
Nigerians have no trust that the revenue that will accrue from the subsidy removal will be managed as government is claiming. So this is a deadly pill that the people of this country have refused to swallow. I advise Mr. President to drop it and use the plan B which is building more refineries and running them effectively.
Before they said it was not possible to run a national carrier, I was very happy with the minister of aviation when I read few days ago that it can be done. I said in my mind thank you madam. I have been an advocate of Nigeria having its own carrier because that is a good source of revenue. We should run it professionally like a business. Why is Arik making money? Why has Aero not gone down? Why is ChanChangi still flying? Why is Dana progressing? Yet they will say that government cannot run one. Ethiopia has no mineral resources, the only strong source of revenue is through Ethiopian airline which comes to Nigeria.
Yet somebody will sit down in the ministry and tell us that Nigeria has no business running a national carrier. If I had my way, I will tell the Federal Government (FG) that I need N10bn to run an effective airline and return the money to government in five years. There are people in this country that can run it professionally. Those in government don’t look for free ticket in British Airways or Lufthansa, they pay up front yet they would want a free ticket in our own national carriers. We have to change, the time has come for us to go past all this confusion and claims that nothing works in Nigeria. We have people that can effectively run this country and its organisations.
It appeared that some parties who were part of the meeting agreed with Mr President that there is need to remove the subsidy, how true is this?
That was the situation LP didn’t want to put itself into because even if we had agreed or we did not agree which was most likely the news will be that LP attended the meeting where subsidy was removed. What the federal government wanted was to give impression that major political parties were consulted. We knew this and we decided to keep off.
Like I said we were part of the making of the government but we do not accept the subsidy removal policy and we have the right to keep off. We do not want to be referred to being part of that meeting, because Nigerians can read different meanings.
It was only ANPP I learnt that was opposed to it during the meeting. Other parties agreed with Mr President. It is only ANPP in that meeting that stood firm and opposed the proposition. No other political party did. I have been briefed on what transpired at the meeting. LP did not attend because our position had been made public long before now.
True infrastructural palliatives We have our own way of doing things and that was why we endorsed Jonathan. It was the most critical and significant endorsement he got before the election.And that sealed victory for him, even those who had not made up their mind on him had to do so immediately LP endorsed him. It was so because we have integrity and we have credibility.
We discussed a lot of things with President Jonathan, we told him that time had come for us to build more rail tracks from Lagos to Abuja, Abuja to Sokoto, Abuja to Kano, Adamawa, Owerri etc. That we should have light rails within cities to ease the suffering of Nigerians.
My brother, if we can leave Abuja and get to Lagos in four hours, most people will have no business going to the airport. People can from any part of the country come to Abuja and return to their place of residence the same day. This is possible. We talked about education, revitalising our industries, Niger Delta, welfare of Nigerians. Those were the issues we took up with him one after the other. And we all agreed.
The issue of removal of fuel subsidy was not there. If he had introduced it during the electioneering i bet you Nigerians wouldn’t have voted for him.This is a policy that only those in government today are singing the song of removal. We have been told that the people are less than 20 and it is true because the senate has released the names. All they are trying to do now is to increase the number to 50 or 100 . Not that Nigerians will see the effect. Those that are outside now want to come in. All the noise about removal of subsidy is to increase the number of those that will share from the trillions every year.
We have seen all the increase in prices of petroleum products in the past three, four administrations and Nigerians have been worse for off because, there has been nothing to show for it. The only time we saw something good coming from petroleum proceeds was during the PTF era managed by Buhari. Till tomorrow if you go to universities you see what PTF did, so also some of our roads.
Nigerians have no trust that the revenue that will accrue from the subsidy removal will be managed as government is claiming. So this is a deadly pill that the people of this country have refused to swallow. I advise Mr. President to drop it and use the plan B which is building more refineries and running them effectively.
Before they said it was not possible to run a national carrier, I was very happy with the minister of aviation when I read few days ago that it can be done. I said in my mind thank you madam. I have been an advocate of Nigeria having its own carrier because that is a good source of revenue. We should run it professionally like a business. Why is Arik making money? Why has Aero not gone down? Why is ChanChangi still flying? Why is Dana progressing? Yet they will say that government cannot run one. Ethiopia has no mineral resources, the only strong source of revenue is through Ethiopian airline which comes to Nigeria.
Yet somebody will sit down in the ministry and tell us that Nigeria has no business running a national carrier. If I had my way, I will tell the Federal Government (FG) that I need N10bn to run an effective airline and return the money to government in five years. There are people in this country that can run it professionally. Those in government don’t look for free ticket in British Airways or Lufthansa, they pay up front yet they would want a free ticket in our own national carriers. We have to change, the time has come for us to go past all this confusion and claims that nothing works in Nigeria. We have people that can effectively run this country and its organisations.
It appeared that some parties who were part of the meeting agreed with Mr President that there is need to remove the subsidy, how true is this?
That was the situation LP didn’t want to put itself into because even if we had agreed or we did not agree which was most likely the news will be that LP attended the meeting where subsidy was removed. What the federal government wanted was to give impression that major political parties were consulted. We knew this and we decided to keep off.
Like I said we were part of the making of the government but we do not accept the subsidy removal policy and we have the right to keep off. We do not want to be referred to being part of that meeting, because Nigerians can read different meanings.
It was only ANPP I learnt that was opposed to it during the meeting. Other parties agreed with Mr President. It is only ANPP in that meeting that stood firm and opposed the proposition. No other political party did. I have been briefed on what transpired at the meeting. LP did not attend because our position had been made public long before now.
We have a lot of waste pipes in government. I can tell you that there is more corruption in government now than during Obasanjo’s tenure which most Nigerians have written off. We have a lot of waste pipes, a lot of money is being siphoned. I will give one example. People believe that free education is not possible, but a government in Imo state came up and said I will give free education. The first thing he did was to look at the money which one man collects; about N7.5bn yearly and said I will use N2.5bn for my security. He gained N5bn and said it should go to education. Federal Government can do similar things in every ministry, some state governments can do similar things. It is possible for government to continue with its business, if we are sincere and honest we will achieve whatever we want with the revenues that accrues to government .
But because of wastages, because of corruption government is saying it is not possible. We don’t need to borrow to run this country. If government wants to finance railways, it does not have to borrow. All it needs to do is to go the National Assembly and request for $2bn from our reserves. This is what we want to use it for. It will advertise in international magazine for bidding, top countries will bid as well as Nigerians. They will award the contract transparently, get the best company to do it. It is not going to China or one country where they can cut corners-something meant for $100 will be sold for $1000.
Look at the CCTV which they are installing in Abuja, they are using substandard facilities, yet the price the company handling it charged is higher than what is used in installing the CCTV in Ghana. And Ghana‘s own is of higher quality. Who was responsible? Nigerians, those in government. They are there sharing our money with foreigners, giving us low quality service.
So the nation does not need to borrow to run this government. If you convince the National Assembly on projects, it will allow government access to our foreign reserves. Today we have a situation where everyday the foreign reserves go down without Nigerians knowing what they are used for. If you ask Okonjo iweala she will give you one calculation in economics, she will not tell you why a money that is in the bank is going down without being withdrawn.
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