Liberal Mind

Minimum wage and Petrol pump price: Honesty of dishonesty

 

With AyoBrown Adetunji

Honesty they say is one of the best ways to disarm the wary, but it is not the only way if you ask me. The case of the Buhari-led APC Federal Government of Nigeria and its labour should be a recommended chapter to study for political students.
When President Muhammadu Buhari signed the new minimum wage bill into law, labour and the Nigerian workers went into jubilation mode while forgetting that the APC-led Federal Government is using ‘selective honesty’ tactics to disarmed the already impoverished Nigerian workforce, because it was so unexpected, it is a case of giving with the right hand and taking it back with the left.
FG may increase fuel price after elections, many Nigerians are already aware of this even before the last general elections but Buhria’s government is only waiting and for the appropriate time. As information circulating has it, the new price will hit N200 per litre for petroleum motor spirit (popular called petrol). It is a case of someone who has quenched his thirst and immediately turned his back on the well, thinking he no longer will be needing it; the sum up is that the presidential and general elections are over, Buhari and APC can do whatever they like with the Nigerian workers.
Yes, the new N30,000 minimum wage may seem to be good to workers, but many states stated categorically that even with the recent bailouts and monthly federal allocations, they cannot afford to implement the increase. Going by statistics, many of these states are still battling with huge debts and owing their workers several months’ salaries and allowances.
As it is today, the Federal Government is only moving from being welfarism economy and moving to full blown capitalism. There are rumours are across the polity of an increase in the pump price of petrol in Nigeria, Africa’s number one oil producer and most populous nation, where the downstream and upstream oil market is still heavily regulated by government and where government has to offset huge sums in subsidy payments.
In ancient China, it is called ‘giving before you take’ because the giving makes it hard for the masses to notice the taking back by the government.
Nigeria imports the petrol it consumes because local refineries have become comatose or are functioning below optimal capacity. As a matter of fact, there are indications that the Federal Government have concluded plans to increase the pump price of PMS from N145 per litre to between N185 and N200 per litre, may be it just waiting for the general elections and the new minimum wage waves to subsidise.
If the Buhari government is actually sincere in subsidising fuel, our three refineries should work effectively, reducing importation thereby reducing the subsidies paid to importers but the reverse is still the case. Minister of state for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachukwu said the landing cost of fuel is now N180 and that he would resign in 2020 if local oil production do not start;  lies must not be allowed to be told often, else it turns to become the “truth.”
The essence of deception is distraction. Distracting people you want to deceive gives you the time and space to do something they won’t notice…vis-a-vis the signing of the new minimum wage bill into law. Many see this signing as a gift that brings out the child in Nigeria masses and workers, instantly lowering their defences. Although, some view Buhari’s actions in the most cynical light and rarely see the Machiavellian element of the gift which quite often hides the ulterior motives, as it is, it is very clear and glaring that the gift is the perfect object in which to hide the deceptive move.
Truly, an act of kindness, generosity or honesty is often the most powerful form of distraction because it disarms other people’s suspicions. It turns them into children eagerly lapping up any kind of affectionate gesture. The President Muhammadu Buhari administration had increased the pump price of petrol from N87/litre to N145/litre in 2016; when the then newly inaugurated APC government came to grips with long queues at gas stations, a depreciating currency and huge debts owed oil marketers.
Few weeks ago residents of Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, Port Harcourt, and Kwara began to notice queues at gas dispensing stations. That week, fuel dispensing stations in many other states were running skeletal services or not dispensing the product at all.
A resident of Sokoto said petrol is now being sold for N150/litre in the North-western state. In Ilorin, the Kwara State capital in the north central, petrol stations opened for business had long queues. The rest were shut. Petrol queues have been getting longer across Nigeria all week long while some petrol stations haven’t been dispensing the product as they anticipate a price hike. Nigerians are however wondering what the government’s position is on this matter?
Although, NNPC stated that it “has over 1 billion litres of petrol in stock while imports of 48 vessels of 50 million litres each have been committed for April 2019 alone”.
Lies can be made the official truth if one does not take the warnings of Joseph Goebbels. What did ***Kachikwu and the Buhari government do in April 2016 if not subsidy removal? Why did the price of fuel move from N85 to N145?! It’s the biggest lie that subsidy has not been removed from oil. If it has not been removed, oil should be N45 by now… Nigerians suggested.
A single act of honesty is not enough, what is required is a reputation for honesty, built on series of acts – but these can be quite inconsequential. But many still wondered where the latest petrol price increase rumour came from, as has become the norm in Nigeria, no one can place a finger on where recent news of a petrol price increase, emanated from. It is a subsidy of the importing not of the production of oil. If the Buhari government is sincere in subsidizing oil, the three refineries should be working effectively, reducing importation thereby reducing the subsidies paid to importers. Also, the propaganda that Buhari is a welfarist and is not bowing to the forces of “demand and supply” is a calculated attempt at keeping the working people really deceived and ill-informed.
Nigeria is a big capitalist country operating critical neo-liberalism, the idea of transferring all public wealth to private pockets by all means possible. It is just that the move to full blown capitalism is being resisted in the past three decades since the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) that Babangida and Olu Falae forced on the country in the mid-80s. Workers under the aegis of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) have held nine general strikes against “subsidy removal” since 1999 till date. This is why several SAP-renewed policies like NEEDS; SEEDS; and PPP being rejected by the masses.
By playing on people’s emotions, calculated acts of kindness can turn a foe into a gullible child. The so-called subsidy that is being operated by Buhari is a commercial one. In other words, Nigeria has been operating state capitalism according to John Maynard Keynes since Independence until Ibrahim Babangida helped to change the economy to the gospels according to Kafka and Stieglitz.
Unlike Keynes who believe that capitalism can have human face and introduce some forms of welfarism to cushion the effects of the “greed and power” of business, Kafka and Stieglitz believe that “government has no business in business.”
So, the only aim of the Buhari government by inviting International Monetary Fund’s “Madam Gagool” Christine Lagarde, just like it did late 2015, to lie to us that removing subsidy on oil will help investment in welfarist angles like education; health; housing and other social infrastructures, and the option is to increase fuel price.
Starting some fake debates, their pundits would then start writing as if reality is not teaching us all otherwise…but they should understand that it is never appealing to sanity to say that to stop borrowing, we must stop subsidy. IMF is never against borrowing. They have just borrowed Ecuador millions of dollars as bait to arrest Julian Assange of Wikkileaks. What IMF is against is the loans from China!
Genuine interests in Nigeria should be rejection of any fuel price increase under whatever guise. We should tell the Federal Government to nationalise the oil sector and put it in workers’ control instead of the so-called professional managers whose interests are to destroy public companies in order to justify the argument that government has no business in business. Even Saudi Arabia does not put its oil sector in private hands.
Given the current mass hunger and worsening hardship in the country, oil price should be reduced to N45. And with the billions that FIRS; Customs; and many others are declaring as money made in 2018, there is more than enough money to fund budgets without borrowing. So, the lie that subsidy must be removed to stop borrowing should be told to the marines!
Workers, artisans, and youths should be united for this major battle. What the Federal Government now want to do is the same thing Atiku Abubakar was shouting during the last campaigns  about selling NNPC that many workers thought was not good enough.
Nothing in the realm of politics and power is set in stone. Overt deceptiveness will sometimes cover the tracks, even making Buhari admired for the honesty of his dishonesty.
Everything is to make oil business pals richer than ever removing subsidy and increasing fuel price.  We demand for minimum wage and they now want to increase the burdens through VAT and fuel price increase. We must not only reject these wicked policies, we must reject all those formulating, supporting and implementing them!
Brazenly taking something from someone is dangerous even for the powerful. The victim will sure plot revenge. It is also dangerous simply to ask for what you need, no matter how politely: unless the other person sees some gain for themselves, they may come to resent your neediness. Learn to give before you take. It softens the ground, Buhari/APC lesion as it is about to force it down Nigerian workers’ throats.
*Ayobrown, Senior System Analyst, National Pilot Newspaper, writes via [email protected]

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