The Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG) says it will no longer tolerate the impunity of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.

The group gave the warning in a Friday press conference in Kaduna State while reacting to the price hike of electricity tariff, petrol and food items nationwide.

Prices of goods and services have recently been on the increase, with Mr Buhari blaming middlemen for the spike in prices like he did in 1984 when he held sway as military head of state.

In his reaction, the spokesman of the CNG, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, admitted that the president has failed in his three campaign promises he made to Nigerians while seeking the top office and his alleged impunity will no longer be tolerated.

The group also threatened to demonstrate should the government fail to backtrack from the price hike.

“Whereas the present administration had upon inception identified economic revival and security as major components of the three pillars of its change agenda, its entire national economy and law and order assets appear incapable of arresting an imminent drift towards poverty and the likelihood of the setting in of anarchy,” Suleiman said.

“The government’s mismanagement of an economy already adjudged in a second recession, is characterized by significant loss of output, massive youth unemployment, a rising level of poverty, instability, and irregular migration of skilled and unskilled labour.

“Despite the administration’s claims to fighting a war against corruption, the entrenchment of mediocrity has left the country worse than it was five years ago in the global corruption perception index. That the present administration had been tolerated for too long even with its level of impunity in the dispatch of goods and services which gravely endanger the peace, unity and development of the country.

“The administration’s audacious impunity climaxed with hikes in fuel pump prices from an initial N87 to N151.50k per litre; electricity tariff from N22 to N66 ; and Value Added Tax (VAT) to 7.5% from 5%. These unjustified and unjustifiably indiscriminate increases with concomitant effects on life sustaining essentials like foodstuff and foreign exchange rates have resulted in exponential escalation of inflation, despair, crime and criminality.

“The government has lost the courage to assume sole responsibility for the regulation and control of market forces thereby abandoning Nigerians to the mercy of cutthroat multinational communication and sundry service providers, unscrupulous internal profiteers that infest the banking and other financial institutions and largely extortionist government policies of multiple taxation.

“We’ll put the public on the alert for a possible prolonged nationwide resistance in the likely event of government opting to grandstand.

“For the avoidance of doubt, government and all concerned institutions should note that the excesses and impunity by government have been tolerated for too long and the younger generation of Nigerians is no longer going to be disposed to their collective future destiny being taken for granted. We are strongly convinced that the President’s desperation to shift the blame for this hardship on some middlemen only confirms failure to provide leadership,” he added.

kikero:
I wonder where all the people protesting expect Nigeria to get money to pay to subsidse fuel to 90 per liter, when landing cost as well.as production cost is over 150 naira per liter.

Or how people.expect us to keep paying 30 naira per kWh for power that costs over 50 naira per kWh

Maybe they want Nigeria to keep taking loans

And keep taking loans.

(And yes, Buhari should have done more on raising income from solid minerals and agriculture which is what them Northern boys should be complaining about)

kikero:
I wonder where all the people protesting expect Nigeria to get money to pay to subsidse fuel to 90 per liter, when landing cost as well.as production cost is over 150 naira per liter.

Or how people.expect us to keep paying 30 naira per kWh for power that costs over 50 naira per kWh

Maybe they want Nigeria to keep taking loans

And keep taking loans.

(And yes, Buhari should have done more on raising income from solid minerals and agriculture which is what them Northern boys should be complaining about)

kikero:
I wonder where all the people protesting expect Nigeria to get money to pay to subsidse fuel to 90 per liter, when landing cost as well.as production cost is over 150 naira per liter.

Or how people.expect us to keep paying 30 naira per kWh for power that costs over 50 naira per kWh

Maybe they want Nigeria to keep taking loans

And keep taking loans.

(And yes, Buhari should have done more on raising income from solid minerals and agriculture which is what them Northern boys should be complaining about)

olisaEze:


Pls how did you arrive at these figures and why has the fixing of our refineries (which was an urgent campaign agenda) suddenly taken a backseat to borrowing to build railway lines that lead from Daura to Niger republic? I’m not trying to argue, just really want to learn.

bishop4life:
God knows I will never take this people too seriously.




Are you trying to say subsidy has been serviced by loan?

Amotolongbo:
Why were you not saying this in January 2012?

deantimes:


The Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG) says it will no longer tolerate the impunity of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.

Prices of goods and services have recently been on the increase, with Mr Buhari blaming middlemen for the spike in prices like he did in 1984 when he held sway as military head of state.
https://todaypoliticsng.com/price-hike-northern-coalition-threatens-to-protest-says-buharis-impunity-wont-be-tolerated-again/

@ bolded

Keep it coming.

This is one big issue everyone agrees on!!!

kikero:


I was.

And back then APC supporters were the ones calling me names

(Wasn't on Nairaland then, so I can't prove it to you)

kikero:


Keep in mind that our oil revenue is too low to sustain our population

How comes? Our crude oil breakeven price, the price we need for us to earn enough cash to pay for a sustainable budget is 140 dollars per barrel according to Fitch.

The last time oil was that high was briefly in 2008.

Oil right now is at 40 dollars per barrel. It has not been above 90 dollars per barrel since 2014 even.

That's why prices of fuel and power have to go up, Nigeria does not have the money to keep prices low.

And that's why we keep taking loans.Because frankly speaking we are not earning the kind of income that would prevent us from taking loans ( and why I am annoyed with Buhari for not diversifying)

(Figures for power were from Moghalu recent interview, figures for oil from various news reports over the years

olisaEze:



I don’t know how Moghalu arrived at his facts, but if i may share a piece of knowledge with you, one major factor that determines the landing cost is the exchange rate.

Given the high demand for foreign exchange accounted for by petroleum products’ importation, it is a potential destabilizing mechanism which underlies the domestic market.

To avoid this pitfall and it’s effect on our poverty ranking, it should be of paramount importance that domestic refining is resuscitated, and not inundating us with debts on rail lines that are have no immediate economic effects on the average Nigerian.

Nigeria stands out among OPEC members as the one who exports virtually all her crude and imports the bulk of refined products for domestic consumption.

PS: It is important to note that there is no established mechanism for determining adjustments to prices, adjustments in government administered prices have tended to be in quantum leaps.

The Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) determines the Expected Open Market Price (EOMP) based on a template agreed to by the stakeholders within the framework of the agency’s governing board. Which has resulted on a number of occasions, in which announced prices have had to be rolled back.

And also why corruption is rife within our nation’s oil sector.

kikero:


Yeah and that's why I don't back ppra setting prices.

The thing is, setting the price of petrol is why we don't have working refineries, and the problem started under abacha by the way.

When you set.prices of petrol, you drive away investment on new refineries since people aren't going to be spending money on building a refinery and selling petrol below the production cost ( and only getting the difference between the subsidised price and production costs). Unless your name is dangote and as such you have access to loans from banks who know that if worse comes to worse they can take over your cement business and recoup their loans.

Also , under our subsidy regime, because we set prices for petrol and pay subsides, it incentivised people to lie about how much petrol they import so that they can get more subsidy money, or import fuel at subsidised prices and sell in Ghana or Mali or Benin where there is no subsidy and where petrol costs above 200 naira. Because if they sold petrol at subsidised prices they would be broke in a minute ( that's why Buhari in 2017 made Nnpc the sole importer of fuel, forced them to sell below the price of importation to keep prices low as they are, and then paid them subsidy or underrecovery to cover NNPC losses . Of course it still makes NNpc more the locus of corruption )

That's why regardless of what you have said, the problem is we are still selling fuel below the cost of producing and importing it. If we ended price controls bu PPRA, and also ended subsidy payments and instead allowed the market to set the price, sure we would be paying 250 and above per liter of fuel. but

1. More people would get into the refineries business since there is a profit to be made in Nigeria, not from importing

2. NNPC would be incentivised to make our refineries better since they now have to work for their money

3..In several years,price of fuel comes down

4. We get more jobs

Same reasoning goes for power. And Moghalu is an economist who worked for CBN so he should know things

olisaEze:


I beg to differ on a few things you have stated here.

In many countries of the world, the pricing of petroleum products is regulated in one form or the other. There are a number of reasons for this.

First, the petroleum industry globally is not a competitive one. Rather, the industry is oligopolistic with a few major companies dominating the industry.
Under such a market structure, some form of price regulation becomes necessary to protect consumers against oligopolistic and monopolistic exploitation.

A second reason why petroleum products prices are widely regulated has to do with the nature of the products themselves and the important role they play in the economy and the lives of citizens.
An unregulated price regime could lead to very high prices of the products, which the economy and, particularly, the poor may not be able to bear.

Speaking on Ghana, prior to the 2003 reforms, importation of crude and refining were exclusively handled by the government through the Ghana National Petroleum Company (GNPC). Prices of petroleum products were heavily subsidized. In 2003, due to the heavy indebtedness of GNPC and near insolvency of the Tema Oil Refinery and under pressure from the IMF, a new pricing mechanism was introduced. The new pricing scheme which has come to be known as the Price Adaptation Mechanism involves the calculation of the ex-refinery prices using world market crude oil prices with mark-ups for insurance, transportation, suppliers’ commission, refining costs and other charges. A host of taxes and levies make up the other charges, depending on the specific product involved. These include Cross-Subsidy levy, Unified Petroleum Price Fund (UPPF) levy, Road levy, Social Impact Mitigating Levy, Exploration Levy, Energy Fund Levy, Debt Recovery Levy and Excise Duty. The cross-product subsidy and UPPF levies are particularly interesting in that they seek to provide cross products and cross regional subsidies respectively.

From developed nations like Canada to India and South Africa, petroleum products are subsidized to mitigate a negative impact on their citizens. Nigeria is a case in point were the ruling class seeks to enrich itself at the expense of the average man.

As for Moghalu, I would recommend the book 'Straight & Crooked Thinking' by Robert Thouless for u to understand that having a title or an impressive cv won’t stop a man from having a alternative agenda when interfacing with the public.

kikero:


Keep in mind that our oil revenue is too low to sustain our population

How comes? Our crude oil breakeven price, the price we need for us to earn enough cash to pay for a sustainable budget is 140 dollars per barrel according to Fitch.

The last time oil was that high was briefly in 2008.

Oil right now is at 40 dollars per barrel. It has not been above 90 dollars per barrel since 2014 even.

That's why prices of fuel and power have to go up, Nigeria does not have the money to keep prices low.

And that's why we keep taking loans.Because frankly speaking we are not earning the kind of income that would prevent us from taking loans ( and why I am annoyed with Buhari for not diversifying)

(Figures for power were from Moghalu recent interview, figures for oil from various news reports over the years

Aflix:
Stop with this stupid excuse. Is Oil the only natural resource in Nigeria?

kikero:


1. Developed countries don't have subsides for everyone. They have subsides for some people

2. Developed countries certainly don't subsidse power and petrol like we do

3. Again, we cannot be buying things at less than the cost we produce them. That's why we are seriously underdeveloped and why we don't have a strong private sector.

Tianamen1:
Kikero, you are clearly an intelligent person. I don't think anyone wants to argue with you. In fact, many of us had similar views to yours in the past, but we now understand that our country is dying because the same failed ideas have been regurgitated over and over at us.

Olisaeze told you to read a book for more knowledge. I advised you the other day to watch an interview for more knowledge. We may be both wrong, but what if we are right. Seek knowledge so you can contribute more meaningfully to making this country great.

In your write up, you never talked about the effect of the exchange rate on electricity and petroleum prices. This was my core message to you the other day.

You mentioned diversifying into agriculture and mining. Such ideas are 19th century ideas, a countries biggest resource is its people and investing in its people education is the only path to prosperity. Israel has no natural resources, but is an information technology giant. Norway has more crude oil per capita than Nigeria, yet it taxes its people heavily to ensure quality education and health care is provided to all its citizens.

Consider APPLE Computers which is worth more than Nigeria. One man's idea.

Nigeria has a continent to conquer. A continent begging for Nigerian flavored goods and services as our music and movies have already proven.

All we need is increased productivity and without the poor having quality basic education, this is impossible as the labor cost for quality workers is too high.

Only big companies like banks and insurance firms can pay quality workers so most businesses collapse within a few years because the founding entrepreneur is overburden by all the duties necessary to establish a successful business.

The other day, you mentioned socialism. Please is the United States a capitalist or a socialist nation? Why does the US give food stamps to its poor. I know I am ranting. I still have a lot to learn, but you certainly do too.

kikero:


And a big reason why the poor don't have good quality basic education is because we spend more on corrupt subsidy regimens than we do for education

The reason why a lot of poor people have phones, after David Mark said phones were not for the poor was because Nigeria did not subsidse GSM phones

Amotolongbo:
Says who?

kikero:


Says me. And I am telling the truth

kikero:
I wonder where all the people protesting expect Nigeria to get money to pay to subsidse fuel to 90 per liter, when landing cost as well.as production cost is over 150 naira per liter.

Or how people.expect us to keep paying 30 naira per kWh for power that costs over 50 naira per kWh

Maybe they want Nigeria to keep taking loans

And keep taking loans.

(And yes, Buhari should have done more on raising income from solid minerals and agriculture which is what them Northern boys should be complaining about)

kikero:
I wonder where all the people protesting expect Nigeria to get money to pay to subsidse fuel to 90 per liter, when landing cost as well.as production cost is over 150 naira per liter.

Or how people.expect us to keep paying 30 naira per kWh for power that costs over 50 naira per kWh

Maybe they want Nigeria to keep taking loans

And keep taking loans.

(And yes, Buhari should have done more on raising income from solid minerals and agriculture which is what them Northern boys should be complaining about)