Former Coordinating Minister of
the Economy and Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has revealed how a former
governor of Niger State, Babangida Aliyu and his counterparts ‘wrongly’ advised
former President Goodluck Jonathan to announce the withdrawal of fuel subsidy
on January 1, 2012.
The announcement caused bloody
protests across the country, which forced government to backtrack on the price
increase.
In a new book, “Fighting
corruption is dangerous: The story behind the headlines”, Okonjo-Iweala
recalled how the move was “ill timed and wrong.”
She wrote, “There were some
debates within the Economic Management Team as to whether fuel subsidies should
be phased out in stages or in one fell swoop. The consensus was that experience
in Nigeria had shown that even a small partial phase-out would draw the same
large protests as a complete phase-out, so the feeling of the team was, ‘why
die in stages?’ Perhaps, it was better to do all at once. There was
overwhelming agreement that such an action would require a period of
communication and education of the public, to build a larger consensus on the
matter. To this end, an important televised public debate was organised in
Lagos. The feedback from participants was that the public felt better educated
about the benefits and drawbacks of the subsidy. It was clear that the audience
felt that there was a lot of fraud in the system.
“The debate took place in early
December 2011 and it was agreed that the remaining public debates would take
place after the Christmas and the New Year holidays.
“There was a tentative
understanding that January to March 2012 would be used for further debates and
communication with the public with a tentative implementation of the subsidy
phase-out in April 2102.
“On the morning of December 31, I
received a shocking call from my friend and colleague, Professor Sylvester
Monye, special adviser to the President on Performance Monitoring, telling me
he had just heard something strange and was calling to check if I was aware of
it. He had run into a senior official from the Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation (NNPC) who told him that the president was going to announce the
phase-out of the fuel subsidy on January 1. I was taken aback. It made no sense
in the light of the agreement we had reached to educate the public further
before implementation.
“I tried all day December 31 and
stayed up all night trying to get the president but I was told by ‘Control’
that he was unable to speak on the phone, even though he was always exceedingly
generous in taking my calls.
“One of the most interesting
questions in my mind was who had advised the president to make the premature
announcement on January 1 about phasing out the subsidy? I wanted to know
because I had become the scapegoat for the action.
“It was not until a meeting of
the NEC, weeks later, when the issue was under discussion, that Babangida
Aliyu, former governor of Niger State and then chair of the Northern Governors’
Forum, bravely acknowledged that it was the governors who had urged the
president not to delay any longer but to announce the subsidy phase-out at the
beginning of the year. The mystery was solved, but, I found it incredible that
none of the governors came to the rescue when the policy roiled the nation and
that they were content to let others take the blame.”
No comments
Post a Comment
Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)
Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com