Too Poor to Be Nigerians

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SOME time last year, President Olusegun Obasanjo pulled a public relations stunt with his claim that he never knew kerosine cost more than petrol. For him the situation was unacceptable and he decreed a new price for the product, which suppliers ignored. The President, typically abandoned the matter at that point, pressing on with more rewarding national and international matters.

Price of kerosine has shot up to N125 a litre, double the official price. Nigerians have been groaning under the impact of this price hike. If they were expecting any relief, they would be shocked by what should pass for official response.

"Kerosine is luxury fuel. It is not for normal cooking use. It is aviation fuel and those who fly are not poor," Dr. Oluwole Oluleye, Executive Secretary of the Petroleum Product Pricing Regulatory Agency, PPPRA, told a conference of the National Institute of Public Information, NIPI, in Kaduna. The NIPI is the training arm of the Federal Ministry of Information and National Orientation.

There is a big gap between ordinary Nigerians and their government. When top government officials can make insensitive statements like this, they just reflect the thinking in official quarters that there are too many poor people, whose misfortune should be addressed through reforms that provide for the well-being of the rich.

What does Dr. Oluleye expect the poor to use in cooking? He suggested gas, without sparing a thought for its cost, and the fact that the poor may also not afford the accessories for using gas. The Government has failed to promote sustainable environmental policies. While waiting for the promised cooking gas for everyone, the rural and urban poor have resorted to massive despoliation of forests for firewood.

Cost-minded governments, like ours, should have a good idea of how much damage the depletion of the forests does to the entire economy. Dr. Oluleye makes it seem as if the poor are the obstacle to the rich enjoying their right to aviation services or that aviation fuel and domestic kerosine cannot be provided at the same time for the different users.

Aviation and use of domestic kerosine have run side by side in Nigeria for more than five decades. When did the PPPRA make the sudden discovery that the poor's consumption of kerosine was uneconomic? How would this discovery address the domestic energy requirements of the poor, which in this case refers to the over 80 per cent of homes that depend on kerosine?

The PPPRA should be aware that the diversion of kerosine meant for domestic purposes to aviation fuel is responsible for the scarcity. This diversion has led the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, to plan dyeing of the kerosine to forestall the profiteering on kerosine.

Instead of the PPPRA rating some people too poor to be Nigerians, it should work towards the pricing of products in a manner that would protect the interest of ordinary Nigerians. Unfortunately, the PPPRA believes these Nigerians should be sacrificed on the altar of reforms.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200604030575.html