Well tomorrow we got Houston and Dallas, let the world know what is going on in Nigeria enough is enough!

One placard reads "UN STOP GENOCIDE AGAINST CHRISTIANS IN SOUTHERN NIGERIA".

I rest my case.

UN know that there is no any genocide against christians in southern nigeria. Are these asylum seekers to be taken seriously?

Well tomorrow we got Houston and Dallas, let the world know what is going on in Nigeria enough is enough!

And Sunday we go to protest in Mecca and Riyadh

Monday in Kinshasa and Bujumbura
Tuesday in Dakar and Nairobi
Wednesday in D'jamena and Harare

Nigerians in other countries of the world should keep the fire burning,it is fight against corruption not against subsidy.
Even after they revert the price to N65, let the protest continue

The pictures of those kids killed by boko-haram, has just broken my heart. God will surely expose all those boko-haram and their leaders, the blood of those kids are crying out, OH GOD OF HOST, JUDGE THEM. JUDGE THEM ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The pictures of those kids killed by boko-haram, has just broken my heart. God will surely expose all those boko-haram and their leaders, the blood of those kids are crying out, OH GOD OF HOST, JUDGE THEM. JUDGE THEM ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OK lil girl, I have heard your crying, and I will judge them all.

So impressed by our diasporians, keep it up guys. Let the whole world know about our struggle, from Alaska to New Zealand and from Siberia to Chile. One Love

Ezeufi:

One placard reads "UN STOP GENOCIDE AGAINST CHRISTIANS IN SOUTHERN NIGERIA".

I rest my case.

Confused set of people

@Kizito96

Thank you fellow brothers. We are in Canada with no organized group. Our Leaders here are out dated and lack sense of direction

javascript:void(0);
What about[b] NIDO[/b] (Nigerians in Diaspora) - Canada branch
"Men-of-the-belly" like Dr. Ola Kassim have turned that organization into an avenue for rent-seeking from Government! You need to read the trash he said on subsidy! At least, he is also trying to curry government appointment by voicing support for subsidy removal. If Nigeria was good, his type should not be playing second-class citizenship in Oyinbo-man's country!

Lastpage

Kudos to u guys. impressive turn-out. now is the time to speak our minds.

Ezeufi:

One placard reads "UN STOP GENOCIDE AGAINST CHRISTIANS IN SOUTHERN NIGERIA".

I rest my case.

dumbass! that was a typing error.

Una do well. God bless.

nigerians in finland?

surprise surprise - where is babe! in the pictures?

Wow , nice


Good seeing Nigerians in london,finland,new york and other countries protesting , though they are not on the streets of abuja or lagos or any nigeria city
they show they care and want change and do not support the current policies

Ezeufi:

One placard reads "UN STOP GENOCIDE AGAINST CHRISTIANS IN SOUTHERN NIGERIA".

I rest my case.

bilaya:

Confused set of people

@ ezeufi, bilaya,. U N  means United nation. pls  stop expressing your ignorant while trying to make others sound foolish. it is not fair .

  UNITED NATION STOP GENOCIDE AGAINST CHRISTIANS IN SOUTHERN NIGERIA".

Some of them seem out of touch with Nigeria. Saw a placard saying stop killing Christians in southern Nigeria.

Thursday, 05 January 2012 13:08



Central Bank of Nigeria Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi (SLS) responds to some Internet Inquiries on fuel subsidy and wrote: If you will patiently read this mail to the end you will understand my position. I won't be able to repeat everything I have said over the past few years on fuel subsidy, but in summary; Fraud like theft thrives not only because of the existence of greed and benefit but of opportunity. Place yourself in the shoes of the average Nigerian "businessman" or "entrepreneur"-polite euphemisms for rent seeking parasites.

You establish an elcee for importing 20,000MT of PMS and the PPPRA says this is at a landed cost of N145 for example per liter. So u know that for every liter in that vessel you will get at least N85 as subsidy. Now you have a number of "possibilities":

1. You can off load 5,000 MT and bribe customs and other officials to sign papers confirming u offloaded 20k MT. Then do the same across the chain with a paper trail showing you delivered 20k MT to a tank farm, and maybe even that u transported it to Maiduguri entitling you to a share of the price equalization fund. Maybe for N20-N30 per liter u bribe all those who sign the papers. The 15k MT you take to Benin or Ghana or Cameroon and sell at market price thus making an additional "profit" of N55/ltr on 15,000MT!

2 you can just forge documents and have them stamped without bringing in anything and collect the subsidy -PPPRA pays based on DOCUMENTS.

3 you can bring in the fuel, load on tankers, sell some at N65N some at 80 some at 100 some across the land borders.

You can do all this and no one can catch it or prove it because somebody was paid to sign off on docs. And with a high enough margin there is too much temptation to be resisted and firepower for bribing officials.

When I spoke to the house of reps I told them why I was suspecting fraud. It starts from PPPRA "allocations" based on "capacity". You will find a company like Mobil with capacity for say 60,000 MT and a relatively unknown name with a capacity of say 90k MT. Red alert number 1.

Although PPPRA is supposed to give license only to marketers with a national distribution network you see names of companies where you have never seen a filling station in their name.

I was a chief risk officer in UBA and in FBN for many years approving loans so I know the name of every big player in every industry that Nigerian banks lend to as these are among the biggest banks in the country. I see names on the list I don't recognize either from portfolios. I looked at or industry studies over the years. Red alert number 2.

I studied the papers presented to PPPRA in a short period in 2010 (I won't tell you how I got them!). And I was surprised that on some days over 10 vessels are said to have discharged cargo in Lagos on the same day-clearly the same officers stamping and "verifying" that the vessels were SEEN. Is it really realistic that on the same day 13-15 vessels can discharge in Lagos? Red alert number 3.

Why was I interested in fuel marketing. Because the two sectors that led to the near collapse of the banking industry were capital markets and oil marketing. I am not giving any confidential info out as AMCON MD has already disclosed publicly that two companies alone -Zenon and AP-owned by the same businessman owed the Nigerian banking industry N220b. And we all saw the amount of subsidy paid to those companies published by Business Day.

So money had been taken, subsidy had been collected but loans were not repaid, and we couldn't see the money either as product in tank farms or in fuel stations or credit sales. So I became obsessed with trying to understand how that industry operated and the more I saw the more I hated it and I started the war against subsidies.

It is actually better to do a direct cash payout or add a line item to salaries called petroleum support or transport allowance capped at say N300b p/a than to keep paying it. It goes to pay middle men, rent-seekers and corrupt officers and there is no amount of preaching that will stop this fraud so long as the policy is so badly defined.

Every time oil price goes up and every time the Naira is devalued and every time the quantity of imports increases the "subsidy" and thus the "rent" increases and there is more gravy to go round. So every year we "import" more and more and deplete our reserves, and the government borrows more and more to pay for subsidy and the beneficiaries are a small group of marketers, govt officials and neighboring countries which get fuel without losing Forex! And while a person who applies intelligence can see what is happening you can't prove it in a court of law. If the man says he sighted the vessel and it was 20kMT you have to accept it. It was a year ago!

So for two years I have been convinced that this thing is a scam and that it cannot be stopped because the entire controls have been compromised. NNPC sells domestic crude, Pays whatever subsidy PPPRA says and then gives the balance after JVC to the federation account. And while Fani Kayode is right to speak up, the truth is that it was Obasanjo who first subverted the process by allowing NNPC to make the deductions before paying into federation account. Because once money goes into that account it is to be shared among 3 tiers of government so strictly speaking the deductions have always been unconstitutional as the FG was paying subsidy on behalf of itself and state and LGs without their approval.

So yes, I am willing to take all the criticism and labels and be unpopular but this has to stop and govt can find other ways of alleviating pain. Iran removed subsidies and started cash transfers directly to the poor. It is up to fiscal authorities to figure out safety nets but from where I sit and what I know this decision is not only correct but necessary and overdue. I also confirm that I have revealed nothing here I haven't spoken about before in public and it is just that Nigerians never listen!

I am not complaining about insults I am used to that. I just believe that an insult is not an argument and when people resort to personal abuse they have run out of logic.

But to then go beyond me and extend it to my dead grandfather and his "descendants" ie my late father his siblings etc I think goes beyond the pale. As a Nigerian-and as an economist- I can take a position on economic matters and this position is one I have had for years even before coming in to the central bank.

I have also explained the position on several occasions and criticized government for not doing this before. In 2010 at a public hearing in the House of Reps on the 25% saga I alerted the nation of what I considered a potential big scam around subsidies and urged for its removal. No one paid attention. The economics is very clear to me. That it is unpopular is also understandable.

The British public is unhappy with Tory budget cuts. The Greeks went on riot over austerity. Italian parliamentarians came to blows before Berlusconi was thrown out of office. The US congress is yet to approve Obama's tax increases.

Economic decisions-by definition-ALWAYS must involve a cost or an opportunity cost since for them to qualify as economic they must involve a choice in resource allocation among competing uses. An enlightened debate is one that weighs the pros and cons of removing subsidy and continuing with it.

Removing it has costs in terms of Nigerians paying more for PMS-which by the way is not the fuel for generators, power plants, production facilities, heavy duty goods transportation trucks and even luxury buses.

It is fuel used by the middle class and car owners to drove around town and from city to city not to employ workers and produce goods and services. Diesel which is critical to manufacturing and employment creation is not subsidized as the subsidy was removed years ago by Obasanjo. Nigerians said nothing then because it was blue collar workers that got retrenched by factories.

Those speaking now on the internet and Facebook and twitter and newspapers are not workers but middle class elite who use PMS in their smart cars so let's stop all the ideological pretense. This is not about elite and masses but an intra-elite discourse.

I will summarize the issues and I write as a Nigerian economist and public intellectual not as a public servant:

1. I am a strong advocate for subsidies if they are for production and not consumption, and if they benefit the poor and not middle men and rent seekers. The US government subsidizes cotton and wheat farmers and Nigeria spends its reserves importing wheat from America and keeping American farmers employed. The OECD countries pay subsidies to cattle farmers. Today Promasidor imports powdered milk from New Zealand and packages in Nigeria using our foreign exchange while we have cattle. WAMCO imports milk from the UK and adds water and tins it and calls it "production" of Peak milk. We use our Forex to import petroleum products and keep refineries and jobs open in Europe. Meanwhile precisely because of market distortions there can be no private sector investment in refineries since no one can make profit selling at the regulated price unless we are going to provide private refineries with crude for next to nothing. Certainly no one can purchase crude at market price, refine it and sell at N65 without huge losses so this explains why there are no private refineries.

2. what I mention above is at the heart of the problem with government economic policy which needs to be changed. The economy since SAP is one that supports imported consumption and not local production, perpetuating dependency, non inclusive growth and insecurity. Why is it that the economy is growing at 7pct annually but the people are getting poorer. Because growth gains are not evenly distributed. Personal income is skewed towards people in the oil industry, telecoms, high finance, stock market, real estate and yes civil servants and politicians who feed on corruption. We produce crude oil but import petroleum products (today the UK's highest exports to Nigeria are petroleum products). We have a large cotton belt but import textiles from china (thus keeping their subsidized factories open and jobs in china). We are the world's number 1 producer of cassava but import cassava starch from Europe. We have a huge tomato belt in kadawa, jigawa and chad basin but are the world's largest importer of tomato paste-from China and Italy. We can produce rice but we import rice from Thailand and India-most of it from grain reserves that have been in stock for over 5 years.

3. If above is clear then it is evident that this trajectory can only lead to disaster. We will continue to spend our resources promoting growth and employment in our trading partners. Terms of trade shift against us, we can only have foreign reserves because by the good grace of God we have Oil which will be exhausted soon and with new discoveries may become so cheap it loses value. We don't create any value added jobs as the only real production is peasant farming. Oil, telecoms, finance and real estate are not employment intensive. So everyone becomes a civil servant as the economy cannot create jobs. Result? In 2012 budget out of a total N1.8tr recurrent expenditure for the executive arm N1.6tr is on personnel costs not overheads. To reduce this you have to cut salaries or pensions or retrench civil servants. This is the classic trajectory of underdevelopment, De-development and De-industrialization.

4. For the above reasons I am a strong proponent of structural reform and this begins from the fiscal framework. The limited resources of government should be allocated to supporting production-especially if we are running a budget deficit. We cannot keep borrowing to support conspicuous consumption. To support a job creating economy we need to fund power, transportation infrastructure, market infrastructure and access, technical and vocational education etc. We need to build rice processing plants, produce starch and cassava flour and ethanol, process our tomato and milk locally, regenerate our textiles firms (which used to employ 600,000 workers but now employ 30,000!), refine our own crude etc. We cannot even begin to do this if 30pct of govt expenditure is on fuel subsidy, if out of the balance 70pct is recurrent spending, 10pct is debt service, 10pct goes to the Niger delta and only 10pct is capital expenditure. So it is about a choice-what do we spend money on and how do we allocate resources?

5. We often compare ourselves to other oil producing countries like Saudi Arabia. What are the facts? With a population of over 160m we produce 2mbpd ie 1 barrel for every 80+ citizens daily. Govt share of revenues if like 50pct of every barrel so it is effectively a barrel for 160 citizens. Saudi Arabia with a 24m population produces over 8mbpd or one barrel for every 3 citizens. In fact in 2010 the nearest OPEC country to Nigeria in production per capita was Algeria with a barrel for 30 and Algeria is more gas than oil.

With one barrel for 3 citizens daily Saudi Arabia is able to provide infrastructure, education, healthcare and social safety nets and have huge savings. It can provide subsidized fuel at a total cost that is a fraction of its savings and even export refined products. It is paying for subsidies our od its fiscal savings and not borrowing to pay. We are like a poor man with a rich neighbor. The neighbor builds a good house, buys several cars, eat expensive food, travel abroad every year and still have huge balances in several current accounts. Then you choose to live that lifestyle and mortgage your house, take an overdraft from the bank to finance it. Next year it is time to repay the bank, u don't have the money so u go to another bank, borrow enough to pay the first bank principal plus interest and also fund the continuation of the lifestyle. It continues till u can't borrow anymore and the bank throws u and your family out of your house and you everything.

A responsible father would have long since faced reality and told his family he doesn't earn as much as his neighbor and expectations need to be moderated if they to keep their roof. Of course the children won't be happy at not going to Hawaii for summer and having to take public transport rather than own cars like their neighbor's children. Maybe they will even abuse the father behind his back and call him a miser. That is the cost of leadership.

Finally: removing subsidy is not a silver bullet that solves our economic problems. And there is a huge trust deficit that government has to address. Government needs to investigate subsidy payments and punish any violations of extant guidelines. It needs to cut on unnecessary and wasteful expenditure. It needs to fight corruption and show seriousness in that. It needs to deliver on capital projects, power and infrastructure including irrigation, farm-level storage and agri-processing. These are all valid issues that are to be taken IN ADDITION to and not in place of subsidy removal.

Since someone has decided to make insinuations about my grandfather I owe it to him to defend his record. it was my grandfather as emir that repealed an obnoxious rule started from the days of Emir Usman that disenfranchised women from inheriting property. It was Sanusi that built the groundnut pyramids to the point where Kano NA was contributing 40pct of the revenues of the northern region. It was emir Sanusi who built the Bompai Industrial Estate, and turned Kano into the industrial nerve center of the north. He was acting governor of the northern region, minister for pilgrim affairs, chief Imam of Friday mosque, judge and leader of the Tijjaniya order. As for his "descendants" my father was one of the very first batch of 12 Nigerians recruited by the British to set up the foreign service in 1957 and he remained in public service and rose to be permanent secretary before retirement. He set up in the 60s the research dept of the ministry- the present NIA so he was the first external intelligence officer in Nigeria. As permanent secretary he was the architect of Murtala Mohammed's policy on decolonization of Africa and oversaw the independence of Mozambique and Angola and the final push to liberate Zimbabwe and South Africa.

So yes Sanusi was not perfect. He was a feudal aristocrat. And my father was not perfect. He was also a prince and privileged to go to Oxford and LSE. But please if you want to abuse my grandfather and father kindly tell us what contributions your own grandfather and father made to the people.

Sanusi Lamido Sanusi is the governor of Nigeria's Central Bank

ronkebp:

The pictures of those kids killed by boko-haram, has just broken my heart. God will surely expose all those boko-haram and their leaders, the blood of those kids are crying out, OH GOD OF HOST, JUDGE THEM. JUDGE THEM ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

pdp = boko haram
boko haram = pdp
May the blood of all who have lost their lives so far through the activities of BH be upon the head of PDP politicians.

Nice one guys. God bless you all.

I'm sure the Finnish commissioner/whatever is already regreting his last visit to Nigeria by now, that's what happens when people poke their noses into matters they are half informed about.

Was BABE! there?

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.

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.

Ok now.

Did I see someone carrying "UN to stop genocide of christians in Southern Nigeria"?
is there any such genocide in southern or northern Nigeria?

These guys appear to me a bunch of uninvolved Nigerians carrying placards shared/handed to them!!

dumbass! that was a typing error.

True!!! typical error

My heart is filled with pride. Naija, keep the pressure on. Bad people don't get tired; neither should we!

Why Nigerians in the Yankee no wan protect?

his is very impressive. Who is the convenerof Occupy Nigeria? What are thecore objectives beyond these protests and what informas the name Occupy Nigeria?

revolt:

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.

I really like this. Sounds logical. I really think the issue here is TRUST between the people and the Government. The various Nigerian Governements probabaly have not earned the level of trust to take such a serious action at such a time when we are dealing with Boko Haram, possible tax/revenue increase in Lagos, and unfulfilled promises. Further, you are right in sasyig they should dal with the overpaid governemnt officials, corruption and refineries FIRST. You see, there are certain things that if the government does, we can bein trusting their analysis. A large majorty of the masses doesnt understand the economic theories and truth is that they may just end up being economic theories. You will agree that some of IMF's suggestions in the past might have been good economic theories (e.g. SAP) but when when you facto in the human elementin Nigeria (i.e. the corruption element), the theories might just not yield the intended results. This sudden subsidy removal amidst endless protests in a supposedly democratic nation may just be trying to solve a problem from the back door, .