Some people and their pessimism. Please how is it done in other climes. If you are going to give people money. They come to you, you dont go to them. When they come you have to make sure they provide enough and convincing proof of their eligibility. This includes proof of age, citizenship etc. When they register once, they cant register again because they must have their finger prints and faceswould be on the computer. This information would be held in a distributed database. Do this instead of another census or silly national id card scheme.

And let me add it should for those earning below 40,000 a month because I dont understand why govt should subsidise anything for a millionaires.

Nigerians Shine Your Eyes! Read This
• Do you know that fuel subsidized for the common man is what is diverted to our neighboring countries to sell at high prices; (Chad, Niger, Cameroun, Benin Republic, Ghana, and other African countries)?
• Do you know that it is our subsidy money that oil mafias in Nigeria divert to buy jets and houses in Dubai, London America and all over the world, while the common man is dying on the street every day?
• Do you know that money saved from this waste could be used to build our roads, schools, health cares, agriculture, transportation etc, which will have direct benefit to the common man?
• Do you know that these mafias, who have diverted our destiny for their comfort, put their children in the best schools in the world?
• Do you know that the mafias are the sponsors of labors?
• Do you know that NNPC workers {PEGASSAN} do not want the deregulation of oil sector to work because they are afraid that what happened to NITEL would happen to them? Before, phone was meant for the rich, Nitel workers then saw themselves as Lords over the masses, but now, everybody has phones nobody can Lord over you, over phone just the way NNPC workers see themselves as Lords Today?
• Do you know NNPC workers are the reasons why refineries will never work? Any amount voted for the refineries, the big Men in the NNPC will wire it away?
• Do you know that with the removal of subsidy, investors will come in and open up oil sectors, build refineries, and create jobs just the way it is with G.S.M and cement?
• Do you know that the big men who have diverted our subsidy money to their private purses are afraid they will develop heart attack because their easy money line is blocked by Mr. President?
• Have you heard that Ghana quickly deregulated their oil sector the moment they heard Nigerian was about blocking the 419 oil subsidy of waste?
• Do you know that for the first time in 30 years our neighboring countries have place orders for oil from the international oil market because they will be no longer see diverted fuel from Nigeria?
• Do you know our president is from humble background like you? He will always work for the interest of the common man that is why the big man is fighting to finish.
If you love Nigeria, support President Jonathan, he is out to save us.
It is time that we stop arguing blindly, the President is not a fool, he knows what is going on underground, he is aware of the great diversion of this subsidized funds and this is what he is trying to stop. The reason why all eyes are on the president and the federal level is because that is the only level of government that is well exposed to the masses. It declares its budgets and affairs openly which therefore, gives room to criticism. Dear Nigerians, it is time to look beyond the federal Government, and probe all other tiers of government. Let us ask questions of what is going on at the state and local levels. What are they all doing with our money? What are the senators doing with our money? Think we should also wonder why the house of rep are not in support of the President’s move, they cannot, because they know what the consequences would be on them if it works. Nigerians let’s not be miss informed
Most Nigerians are fighting against the President’s move largely because of ignorance of what is going on secretly in the glass house. Corruption is the most difficult to fight in any system, let encourage Mr. president for taking this bold step, many more on the way, Nigerians must be librated, if we miss it now it may hurt us for decades to come give Mr. president,ngozie Iweala a woman of integrity the benefit of doubt, let not forget her achievement in saving Nigeria from debt crisis in a hurry, she is not the type that would mess up her name.
Pass this message to your neighbor.

Fuel Voucher supported! Reason? Not every body wld be affected by the reinvestment program. nigerians have the best brains in the world. But come to think of it. how many citizens does nigeria hav? no national ID. U think some crazy pple wont collect the fuel voucher for their cattle?

I would be in favour of every Nigerian contributing N200 each to revamp our refineries to cut importation down to maximum of 20%.

If most of our fuel is refined locally, the cost of a litre of petrol would not be more than N40 per litre.

Can N200 X 168 million (the official revised figures) not do the trick?

N33.6 billion! Can this figure not revamp all our refineries? In six months?

^^^ Isn't this slave maths you have there? Upon all the money wey dem don steal from even your papa and mama, you still want Nigerians to pay more out of pocket?

@Seun, Honestly speaking, I've thought about it and come to the conclusion that the entire subsidy idea for fuel should go completely. It's far better for the investment to go into rapidly transforming the power and transport sector. With efficient rail services running plus a 24hr power supply, the poor can survive better. The FG should just pull out of this completely. We as a nation should start looking beyond oil into d future. Ie What other energy sources are there? What can we do with Agriculture, etc.

efisher:

@Seun, Honestly speaking, I've thought about it and come to the conclusion that the entire subsidy idea for fuel should go completely. It's far better for the investment to go into rapidly transforming the power and transport sector. With efficient rail services running plus a 24hr power supply, the poor can survive better. The FG should just pull out of this completely. We as a nation should start looking beyond oil into d future. Ie What other energy sources are there? What can we do with Agriculture, etc.

seconded!! I nearly got e-mobbed in a chat room for supporting deregulation.  I support the protests against corruption as well. But the bitter truth has been told and we've all gotta pay (hopefully temporarily) for wasting our opportunities in the 70's through 90's. The protests should not be targetted against GEJ only, but to all LG chairmen (of whom most dont even have a written budget!) , councillors (who only collect salaries), state governors and house of assembly members (who are significantly bloating our budget), Reps, Senators, (who must slash 70% of their income)

Even though I think the idea is a bit far-fetched if Govt's fiscal recklessness and corruption are not tackled headlong.

However, the for workability, it could be for tax payers only. You receive vouchers if you show evidence of tax payment?

Honestly, apart from a few flaws I see in it,  the @op's suggestion actually raises one of the fundamental questions about Nigeria that has not been answered. Why dont we have a national database? This is the single most important problem with Nigeria. More important than the power and transports problems combined. Once we have a real national database, then we are ready to move into the 21st century. Until then, we are still living in the 20th century. A national database will fight corruption, help fix the power and transportation problems, help fix to a large degree the security problem. Also jobs, education and many other sectors will benefit. I think those who dont want the national database to work are our biggest enemies.

@poster, that's good but u talk as if u are not in Nigeria. That ur idea is better imagined than implemented. Come to think of it, how do u know who is up to 18yrs or less?, how do u share the voucher without issuing more than one voucher to one person?, how do u check the people that would share the voucher to make sure they did not hawk it or stock it for their family and friends?. How do u convince the bus driver that he will get his money back from govt after returning the voucher to them and also that he will not go through stress before getting his money back?. My friend we have a lot of things to put in place before u start talking of vouchers. The institutions in Nigeria is not working so it will be difficult to achieve

kill this idea.its has more holes than the subsidy we are fighting over.who knows how many nigerians actually exist.what stops our neigbours from invading and claiming to be nigerians.no database to confirm identity and check fraud,how will the vouchers be distributed,would GOVT do it or would we leave to the "CABAL".do we hav any national proof of age/citizenship certificate or would it be by "sworn affidavit"how would it be funded.PLZ do not open another avenue for corruption."KILL CORRUPTION ALONGSIDE FUEL SUBSIDY"

This idea is as bad as the subsidy itself.

The problem with Nigeria is we keep looking at what is done in other countries without taking our own peculiarities into consideration. A nation that has not been able to deal with the issue of ghost workers will now start issuing vouchers to over 18's. Fast forward to 6 months time as Nigeria starts issuing vouchers and the result?

Nigeria will have the largest population in world with more than 500Million over the age of 18.

I dey laff oh.

The registration system required is almost the same as was required for voter registration.

Seun abeg kill the topic,we all saw what happened with voter reg.i had a friend who registered more than 500 fake voters nd sold the voters card during the registration.how many fake voters were caught and how many were charged.imagine wat wil happen wen u have a 9k incentive.

Seun:

The registration system required is almost the same as was required for voter registration.

Seun, I admire your attempt to seek a solution to the problem but it will NOT work in Nigeria.


In the UK, they have a well documented birth and death registration system dating back to the 15th century. The system seems fool proof yet I know many still beat the system. Voters registration model you suggest, but how do you handle the almajiris who will definitely go into fuel business.

Each year, hundreds of thousands clock 18 everyday, thousands are born too without records.How do you handle this?

Many die daily. What stops Mr A from taking his late grand father's voucher and conniving with the sales attendant to collect the petrol.

How will you handle the huge black market for vouchers that will rise because of this? I can go on and on.

How do you guarantee that the registration will not have multiple entries amounting to millions? Biometrics? Do not even go there? Costs! fraud! security! name it.

I guess one key conclusion we can draw from this thread is that there is an urgent need for us to develop our national population database. If you know the level of detail the govt of US & UK etc have of their citizens, you will shiver. I don't even want to go there.

Everything ties into it: Tax, allocation of resources, Security, Social services, you name it.

This one na Seun's plan

I will not support outright condemnation of the idea but urge contributors to find a way to 'refine' the idea or come up with a better one. To get the best result, I think anyone identifying loopholes in successive suggestions should profer solution. By so doing, we might come up with not only cost effective but also corruption-proof idea. I trust d intelectual capacity of nigerians when put to use.

The idea is good in that it will kind of spread national wealth evenly.Nigeria must start embracing the culture of distributing her wealth evenly as against the current structure that only puts the wealth on the table of quite a few.Although there is still room for refinement of the idea.These are the kind of ideas our president should appoint technocrats for while at the same time building infrastructure to sustain spending by creating opportunity for jobs and diversification of our economy away from oil.

Seun:

Fuel is primarily consumed in productive activities. It's consumed when you go to work every morning and return home every evening. It's consumed when you run a generator to power the equipment needed for your business. It's consumed when any product is transported from the point of production to where it's needed, e.g. veggies from the north to the south. It's consumed when you manufacture things. It's consumed by tractors during the practice of agriculture by farmers. You can't produce anything without consuming power, and most power comes from fuel.  

Subsidizing fuel consumption subsidizes the production of almost anything you can imagine. Even when fuel is used for pure consumption, like powering your generator to watch a Nollywood movie, or a Fan so you can sleep at night, it contributes to your mental health, which also helps your performance at work. So subsidizing fuel consumption is much smarter than you would initially think. Fuel subsidies are smarter than many other forms of government expenditure, because people will use the subsidized fuel for activities that benefit them most, whether productive or otherwise.

Good points. Yet Sanusi makes this hair splitting difference between subsidy for production and consumption.

Implementing this your idea in Nigeria will be a herculean task. I can see every govt official/civil servant becoming "mekunu" (poor man) in order to get more fuel vouchers. The bureaucratic cost alone will be too high

simple task for Jonathan, deal with the cabal or resign. or does he think the title GCFR is a royal title for some ediot from Bayelsa.
i don't think the burden of subsidy should be transferred to the citizens, teh govt has been borrowing money to feed 1bn annually, they should do same to fix our refineries

@occam

Why u dey call my name?

hercules07:

@occam

Why u dey call my name?

with a heavy name like that, na only u fit do the job

A very good idea. It should however be temporary. only for a year or so.! before another cartel develops

Nice suggestion but then how do you implement in a country without accurate census figures, no identity system, corrupt people? Will 9k voucher sustain a family with just an 18 year old for a year? I guess we just have to think well before preferring solutions. We've heard cases in the north of day old babies on govt pay roll , wat stops them registering fictious 18 year olds or giving out vouchers as complimentary issues?

Subsidy mean different things to different people. To the poor work , more money to be spent commuting to work daily since he can hardly afford a 900K - 2million Naira plus car. To the rich , extra money for the booze, enuf fuel to go round several fuel guzzling cars, fuel for babes, oppress the poor. May be fuel tax on those buying certain amount of fuel above un taxable limit would do the magic. A fuel card is maintained with vehicle particulars to record consumption. I guess it may be difficult to implement cos of corruption. Why then don't we fight corruption?

My comment is inspired by a comment from a business associate this evening that through ServeNigeria I would have communicated some position on the fuel subsidy debate.
Please I want to deal a policy conversation. And pls don't ask me to come to Ojota cos I have developed sore throat due to this harsh weather and my stomach is aching too.

Currently, If everyday I use 30litres of petrol(Car/Generator), at N65/Litre, I am benefitting N85/Litre daily. This means that the government is spending N2550/day on me. This accrues to N930,750.00 annually spent on me from subsidy.
Meanwhile the 60% unemployed guys in yobe state who do not own cars, do not own generators all are cheated in this subsidy.
However myself and these unemployed buy food at the same costs(including conveyance/transportation costs), so you can see that I am getting 930k extra which I don’t need from the government which they will never get as long as they are unemployed dont own cars and dont own generators.
Please think about it, who needs the 900k more between me and the unemployed?
Is it a fair way of sharing the country’s wealth?

Let us be fair to our brothers who have no jobs!!!!!!!!!
Also for those poor 60% unemployed in Yobe state, they would prefer a health center with their money equivalent or a graded village road. Remember they have already been surviving on expensive kerosene for their fire woods and the food increases barely get to them cos they live quietly in their farms but either way the increment is across board but the excess money spent on people like me and more excess on the wealthy who spend more petrol on their numerous cars, is thrown into the society for the benefit of the less privileged.
It is beta to subsidize mass transportation since the poorer people use mass transit than keep giving money to those who don't need it.
Some people will never enter Lagos are BRT buses or PH mass transit buses no matter the cost, but there are people who will genuinely not be able to accomodate a fare difference of N10.

This policy is for the poor and we should really consider its benefits in addition to the job opportunities.
NNPC will neva work. All over the world, companies 100%owned and 100%run by the government neva works.
When celebrated personalities like Femi Falana, NLC, Okonjo iweala, TUC, Lamido Sanusi, Pat Utomi and Tunde Bakare speak, people should check their comments on google atleast.
There is no global corporation in the size of NNPC and I will give some stats;

Petrobras: Brazil government owns 64%
China Mobile: chinese Government owns 74.22%
Indian Oil – Indian Government (78.92%)
Neste Oil – Finland Government ( 50.1%)
ONGC (Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited) – India Government (74.14%)
Eni – Italian government (30%)
France Telecom – French Government (27%)
Saudi Aramco – Saudi Government operated BOT system and their intial stake was 24% before increasing it to 60% etc.
Venezuelas PDVSA – Venezuela’s gov started withbuying 50% of Citgo before completing a takeover and renaming it to PDVSA.
Kuwait oil - BP and Gulf had been running the project since December 1934 before government took over in 1975.
QP – (Superior oil Qatar, and Shell company Qatar) and even then government started with a 24% stake before increasing to 60% etc.
Even British Airways was privatized in 1987 even though it still answers British airways.

The Government has realized that NNPC downstream will never serve us, so the best thing is to deregulate the sector allowing for the emergence of private refineries knowing that NNPC refineries will die a natural death like NITEL died but then we have MTN, Airtel, Glo, Etisalat etc.

From a humanist perspective, a single 100,000barrel working refinery can create 3-5000 sustainable jobs. Here I am referring to averagely 30k jobs($30,000 annual salary). How many of our banks and etc companies generate these types of jobs?
Out here we are also looking at 1000regular employee jobs of averagely 50k for each refinery.
Imagine how many refineries we will need to serve the entire 150million Nigerians and another 3.2million barrels daily serving an African population of 500million which will grow to 2billion by 2050 because of Africa's highest birth rate in the world.
Opportunities like this is the reason why countries like Iran are coming to west Africa to survey the possibilities of buildng refineries while we are protesting subsidy.

Also, refineries will produce byproducts which are capable of supporting other industries;
Alkenes (olefins) - plastics industry
Lubricants
Wax - Used in the packaging of frozen foods, etc
Sulfur or Sulfuric acid.
Bulk tar.
Asphalt
Petroleum coke,
Paraffin wax
Aromatic petrochemicals
Also, we need to consider shipping companies who will be distributing our products to other African countries. Rail shipping, road shipping, sea shipping companies will be necessary.

This policy is the fastest route to Six(6) million SUSTAINABLE jobs in ten(10) years, and it will not be government created companies. These will be PRIVATE SECTOR OPPORTUNIST powered.
This oil subsidy is the single most potent policy that can transform our nation within the shortest possible time frame and that explains why every president tries to remove the subsidy.

And also when people use the word “Cabal”. Its fallacy. These guys are doing nothing wrong. Atleast nothing provably wrong. If the inspectors at the port say they saw the supply of 15 or 20MT of petrol, you cannot say they didn’t see it. And its not like its stored as it is supplied, Nigerians are consuming it daily as it is supplied.
Eg. XYZ is given a contract to import 1000MT, instead he supplies 200MT and tips the officials to sign off 100MT. the books are balanced becos everybody at PPMC is tipped. And the profits are so much that the tipping is too significant to turn down.
Now, when the 200MT enters Nigeria, the guy who own a a filling station around the border states recognize that if the fuel sell across the border for N180, then why sell at N65. the margin of extra N115 means that If he uses a 10k petrol tanker, that N1.2million instead of his paltry 100 or 200k profit If he sells at his local filling station.
Nigeria has 14 border states and If you have been to some of these states, you walk on a street and you are asking where the border lies. Some borders are in farmland. So when you decide to invest on tighter border control, it means chasing every motor cyclist who has tied six(6) jerryry cans and every guy who is carry 20litres of petrol in rubber across the farm border.

Also people say the figures went up fron 400billion to 1.13Thrillion.
Part of the answer is that the cost of subsidy depend on oil price and we should start be checking oil price for each of those years during the period of increase. Also, we should acknowledge that we have been paying subsidy for all the neighboring countries too and reverting to N65 means we continue subsidizing for them.
And even if the refineries were producing, we will still be producing and subsidizing for these countries.

Also remember that when the marketers are selling direct to the people, they have to convince us to by the petrol and then our true consumption will be clear because we are in No way consuming N1.13Trillion annually. Its like government deciding to put the money in people's hands and saying pay for the fuel as you buy except that the only way government can give out the money is infrastructure hence the infrastructure listing on the SURE document and the sharing of the funds to the LGAs.
Some Nigerians have argued that they don't trust their states and LGAs but my perspective is that we also dont trust the federal government, but people are closer to their states and LGAs and it is easier to harrass your LGAs for accountability than to harrass the federal government since we live closer to the people running the LGAs.
Those in remote areas don't need to start travelling to Abuja for answers to their immediate complains If the LGAs are collecting money monthly.

As regards timing, If this was done 10yrs ago, by now most of us won’t be working where we work at the moment. Maybe we would have been the ones running one of the new companies If we understood the opportunities in time.
Also regarding time, we seem to be telling the gvernment that transformation should start after one(1) yr or that we should grow slowly.
So when we say Government should negotiate, we are saying we are not ready for massive progress right now.

I admire the likes of Occupy Nigeria, Campaign for Democracy, NLC but I tell people to ask every NGO for their policies on education, economy, politics etc before joining them in any campaign rally be it pro or anti.

They should rather tell the senate to cut down their salaries by 75% instead of telling the federal government to revert to N65.
Another thing the NGOs could ask for is Tax recovery.

obasy09:

I will not support outright condemnation of the idea but urge contributors to find a way to 'refine' the idea or come up with a better one. To get the best result, I think anyone identifying loopholes in successive suggestions should profer solution. By so doing, we might come up with not only cost effective but also corruption-proof idea. I trust d intelectual capacity of nigerians when put to use.

Fine but here's my thought. I think the idea is silly at best and makes no sense considering the argument we were given for the removal of fuel subsidy, the condition our economy is in today as a result of our government's spending, the overall condition of the country as a result of our Government's incapability to handle even the simplest of tasks, let alone schemes(for Pete's sake this is the same government that could not handle the former subsidy program), and the fact that the government does not seem ready to move the country forward in the right direction as instead it still seeks ways to dig itself digger into situations very similar to those we are quite aware it is still unable to handle.

I will not proffer any solution because I believe you, like the thousands over the years before you, are more interested in telling people what to do than actually take to heart what new knowledge they have for you, and so I deem that practice a waste of time and space. And I believe your request is insincere because there are common sense solutions all over the place on how to tackle corruption . . . there is no secret plan to this. There are just millions of Nigerians who are dragging their feet when it comes to implementing the common sense plans freely available to em.

Thumbs up revolt. I'm happy a few Nigerians like u who can see the big picture are still out there.

I think the topic should be Electronic fuel vouchers-a way to subsidize fuel. Imagine buying fuel online and redeeming the fuel without having to go to the fuel station with cash, card or paper. Also all your reconciliation(fuel consumption rate) is done in your profile account online. This saves the cost of printing paper vouchers or using card, and this platform is totally free. I saw this efficient means online and am proud to be using the system. its www.fuelvoucher.com.ng

This system is efficient because one can generate voucher remotely(from anywhere) and allocate it to a user via sms code. A lot of nigerians are registered on different telecommunications so their details can curled up from the telecom company.