By Uche Diala
After weeks of shopping for and cooking a response to the master stroke Atiku production subsidy plan, today, we heard what the Tinubu administration has managed to come up with after nearly 4 years and it is an insult.
Read your Minister of Finance:
“We are introducing price modulation. Pump prices should not have to follow every swing in global crude or exchange rate (they just realised that). The government IS NEGOTIATING a ceiling of N1,350 a litre on the ex-gantry cost of petrol to keep pump prices stable.”
“We are offering a discount on petrol dispensed by NNPC Limited for THE NEXT 30 DAYS in the first instance with priority for public transporters nationwide. It’s not a subsidy; the government is saying we sell to you at a cost.” ~ Taiwo Oyedele
It would be laughable if it wasn’t so tragic and insulting to Nigerians. Not only do these folks not give a damn about Nigerians and what they’re putting Nigerians through, they also truly believe that every Nigerian is stupid.
They want to put a “ceiling” on the price of petrol – which is another name for price control but which they have baptised as “price modulation”. The same way they baptised subsidy as “energy security expense”
They tell you that, where the actual cost of petrol rises above their set ceiling, refiners and importers would bear the shortfall and recover it later when crude prices or exchange rates become favourable, without breaching the ceiling.
Really? Like seriously!!
Forget about importers – they are in bed with them and the NNPCL. So, they will force a price ceiling on privately owned refineries who they sell crude to at international market price and in dollars, then force them to bear the “shortfall” when crude price rises, and “recover it later when crude prices become favourable”
From the same people who have been lecturing us on the PIA, deregulation, etc.
How stupid do they really think all of us are?
The Minister says; “it is neither a subsidy nor a price control; it is designed to smooth prices over time, rather than suppressing them.” It’s not subsidy. What is it and who will bear the cost?
Yes! We know exactly what it is. It is the desperate antics and gimmicks of an administration that has lost the people – aimed at hoodwinking and deceiving Nigerians until after the election in January. We also know they have been paying subsidy and will continue to pay subsidy to their importation cronies – never mind “subsidy is gone”!
By the way, like N1,350/litre is so very cheap or is the N198/litre President Tinubu met petrol at.
They are not even hiding the fact that there is no hope of petrol price coming down at all. As Daniel Bwala once rightly said, when the policy is wrong, “even if you give it 30 years, it won’t work.”
Tinubu’s “subsidy is gone” policy, strategy and plan is wrong. So, even if we give it 30 years, it won’t yield any positive benefits for Nigerians except T-pain.
They suddenly started running helter skelter – after subjecting Nigerians to the worst form of wickedness and dehumanization – because Alhaji Atiku Abubakar came up with a masterstroke – and the best they could come up with is this deceptive mumbo jumbo.
The Atiku Production Subsidy plan offers a common sense, practical, realistic and efficient and effective solution to out fuel/energy crises and the cost of living crises feeding off it.
The majority of Nigerians have already understood and embraced the Atiku subsidy plan. They are only waiting for the next 3 months to do the needful.
No amount of copy catism, desperation and deception by agents of a heartless and clueless administration will decieve and dissuade Nigerians.
Nigerians are not fools. Even if we were before – not anymore.
©️ Uche Diala
