Late last month, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, rolled out figures about the parlous state of the education sector in Nigeria. Speaking at an event in Kaduna to mark the 80th birthday of Prof. Adamu Baike, a former vice-chancellor of the University of Benin, Sanusi noted that "although there are no comprehensive data on the number of Nigerian students abroad, recent data have shown that there are about 71,000 Nigerian students in Ghana paying about N155bn ($1.03bn) annually as tuition fees as against the annual budget of N121bn ($806m) for all federal universities".If those figures were intended to shock us, I am not sure many Nigerians were shocked. We have become inured to the waste, brigandage, and purposelessness of our ruling elite. And Sanusi should know what I am talking about. Not too long ago, it was reported that the CBN, which Sanusi supervises allegedly spent almost N20bn ($133m) of taxpayers money for a piece of land (originally belonging to the Federal Government) in Abuja to build "a world class international conference centre". The CBN, and its governor, have yet to offer any plausible reason for such wanton waste of public fund. And chances are that nothing will come out of a public enquiry, if at all any is held.That is the sad story of Nigeria. Everywhere you turn, there are mind-boggling excesses of official corruption and abuse of office. Recently, the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, told the House of Representatives committee investigating the non-remittance of N450bn ($3bn) to the federation account by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation that the corporation was "too big for the Federal Government". "NNPC is not subjected to the consolidated fund of the Federal Government. It cannot depend on federal budget because it runs very capital intensive operations beyond what government can finance," the minister said. "The NNPC budget is not an appropriated budget. We function largely like a private commercial enterprise." Even if the NNPC is run as a private commercial enterprise, does that exempt it from being accountable to its owners, the Nigerian public'For those wondering whether we have a government in Nigeria, you need not look any further than the explanation offered by Alison-Madueke. It is a perfect metaphor for the sorry state of the country. Nigeria, not just the NNPC, functions largely like a private commercial enterprise. It is in this light that we must view the planned removal of fuel subsidy, an action that will test the will of the Nigerian people and their readiness to reclaim the country. The removal of fuel subsidy will be the greatest affront by the present administration and it appears the battle line has been drawn. "The Peoples Democratic Party has said though the removal of fuel subsidy will be painful for Nigerians, there is no alternative to it," THE PUNCH of November 4 reported the acting national chairman of the party, Alhaji Kawu Baraje, as saying.According to the report, while the PDP "was not against the public debate either for or against the proposed subsidy removal, it however condemned the opposition who it said was using it to advance its warped and unrealistic arguments, using populist sentiments to misinform the people, and "as the custodians of the peoples mandate and the resource base of the ideas that inform government policies, the party owed it a duty to Nigerians to break its silence on the matter".The PDPs position is that "the removal of the subsidy was the only way to revamp the economy. "Nigerians are aware that the Federal Government is deeply committed to tackling decaying infrastructure, provision of jobs to the youths, stimulation of investments in critical sectors and provision of security", Baraje said. While declaring support for the governments determination to deregulate the downstream sector of the petroleum industry, Baraje said "the PDP was also encouraged by President Goodluck Jonathans decision to constitute a committee of reputable Nigerians to advise on the management of the income accruable from the removal of subsidy."The PDP may delude itself that it has the peoples mandate, but it is only the people who will decide where power lies ultimately when the time comes. If the party was really interested in a public debate about subsidy removal, and not just engaged in doublespeak, then it should know that overwhelming majority of Nigerians (four out of every five Nigerians, according to a report released recently) are opposed to the so-called removal of oil subsidy.Clearly, Nigerians are no longer interested in the fuel subsidy debate because it is quite evident that fuel subsidy, is nothing but a ruse. We are interested in knowing from Baraje, and the PDP, why none of the four refineries in the country is working after 12 years of PDP rule. We need to know why Nigeria exports crude oil and imports petroleum products. The collapse of our refineries is an indictment of the PDP that has been in power for 12 long yearsa period that has witnessed the largest inflow of fund to the Nigerian state since independence, 51 years ago. Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, an active supporter of subsidy removal, said recently that fuel subsidies would cost Nigeria at least N1.2tn ($8bn) this year alone. That money, I am sure, is more than enough to fix our refineries. This will solve the subsidy conundrum, and provide employment for thousands of Nigerians. Nobody is enthused by the plan of the government to constitute a committee of "reputable Nigerians" to manage the income from the removal of fuel subsidy. Since the government cant manage income accruable to it, then it should hand over power to a consortium of managers in the spirit of running the country as a private commercial enterprise. If the government cant manage refineries, is it the purported trillions that will accrue from the removal of fuel subsidy that it will manage well'The PDP has been in power since 1999, and all we have witnessed is the withdrawal of services that benefit the common people. We have had three PDP governments in more than a decade and they have not been able to provide any tangible service. The real sector of the economy has collapsed; our education sector has crumbled; our hospitals are death chambers; unemployment is at an all time high; poverty and insecurity stalk the land. All this, in a country that has earned trillions of naira since 1999.The last time we learnt of the huge amount accruing to the PDP-led governments was in 2005 when then finance minister, Okonjo-Iweala, revealed that the Federal Government received and disbursed N11tn ($74bn) from June 1999 to December 2005. She noted that the figure did not take into account money generated by other tiers of government (state and local). In a country that ranks among the most corrupt in the worldwhere last year alone, according to Transparency International, civil servants took N450bn ($3bn) bribeyou can be sure that Okonjo-Iwealas figures didnt tell the complete story. So, lets just assume, for the purposes of argument, that the PDP-led governments received and disbursed N4tn ($27bn) between 2005 and 2010, Baraje should tell us where all that money went to since, clearly, it did not go into providing safe and motorable roads, quality education, and affordable and efficient health care delivery systems, things he and the PDP are now seeking to do with proceeds from the removal of fuel subsidy.Governments are supposed to serve the people. But when they renege on that task, the people have a responsibility to assert their citizenship rights. We have seen it happen before our very eyes in North Africa and the Middle East.Onumah, Coordinator, African Centre for Media & Information Literacy, Abuja, can be reached on conumah@hotmail.com
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