Yesterday, on my way from the inauguration, I stumbled on just one filling station selling fuel at Fadeyi.
Most filling stations had stopped selling, and the few that were selling had increased their prices, and as usual, it was commotion all of the way.
I walked in and asked for the CSO. Showed him my picture with MC Oluomo, and instantly, he pushed my car and filled my tank begging me to tell MC that it was him the CSO at Fadeyi.
Well, as usual, by this morning, it was now full-scale, category 5 fuel scarcity. It is clear that the marketers are up to their old tricks, but this time, I seem to be a little bit more understanding of their situation
So I would have been selling product at an artificially controlled price with all other cost racing like cheetahs
Inflation at 22%, human capital costs skyrocketing, multiple taxes, security taxes, and all of that, leaving me with the only option of driving volumes to make a profit.
Even that being scuttled by bottlenecks and corruption at the depot and with all the madness of NUPENG and police on the road, supply is at best jittery
I now wake up one morning and see one baba who can barely talk audibly being sworn in as our new slave master and he confirms what I have been hearing – subsidy is gone.
What first hits me is that at what price will fuel be retailed at the depot. If the subsidy is removed, then the cost of product will also ramp up and if I remain patriotic and continue selling at current prices, where will I get the balance to purchase new product at the post subsidy price.
I will immediately call the station and shout to stop selling o. Anybody that sells, I will wound the person.
It’s simple business sense. I joseph Edgar will stop selling and then ramp up my prices Cos I would have been owing banks who will not hear any story amongst others.
Now you will ask me where I stand with this subsidy matter. Away from the filling station owner who has nothing to gain or loose since he only just passes the thing on to consumers. No matter the prices, he will add his own and dispense
So the bigger picture. I SUPPORT wholeheartedly the removal.. this has not allowed the pricing to find its equilibrium in a free demand and supply market.
The horrendous leakage and cost for the Nigerians tax payer on this matter has more than enough been screamed by all and sundry
The decision to take this out has been in the making since Obasanjo when Oshiomole mobilized and kicked against it.
Jonathan tried and didn’t have the liver to go ahead, and Buhari, on the back of a popular acceptance, tried but also failed.
Now Tinubu with a nothing to loose disposition- after all una no kuku like me- has come out blazing and as expected, a massive fuel scarcity has been dumped on him throwing him up in history as the first President with this kind of welcome crisis in his first day in power.
I hear he has come out to say that it would not be in the immediate as he watches the beginning of his legacy as President begining to be sullied by this.
I think he wasn’t strategic in the pronouncement. I think he took the markets for granted in that assertion, I think he shd have calmed down and sent signals and not an outright proclamation just yet.
I support a phased removal and not a knee jerk removal as this. A 30% removal at the first so that prices can respond accordingly and business can have enough time to recalibrate and plan.
Then the government itself will show us responsibility in how it handles the savings, and then another 30% is removed
While doing this, very importantly, you begin to free the markets, gradually pull away from it, and allow more players so that competition can begin to affect prices
Jumping up on the mantle cos you have been sworn in after 30 years of American wonder in pursuit of the ambition doesn’t mean that you can just drop bombs like that.
He shd have talked about blocking leakage in the system. This is very important. Otherwise, the amount we are trying to save from this removal would just be stolen through other means, and Nigerians will be worse for it.
Tinubu misfired here. He saw the popularity of the move but didn’t gauge how the markets would respond and the people
No cure can be acceptable if it brings a worse than before pain, even at the shortest possible initial time.
Maybe that is what the young man with a brown envelope who leaped on the stage was trying to tell Daddy before the overzealous DSS people pushed him off the stage.
Daddy remove the subsidy but let it be gradual and very importantly block the loopholes, reform the civil service, streamline governance and push for robust reforms that will slim down cost of governance and much more importantly lets
not borrow again at least for a bit.
I have said my own.
Duke of Shomolu
