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An Editor's Burden and Dilemma-A feedback

An Editor's Burden and Dilemma - A feedback
by Madaki O. Ameh

Dear Editor,

Your above titled piece today was a masterpiece! You took time to address all the issues and criticisms and acquitted yourselves quite well, in my view. I read every alphabet in your editorial, and agree largely with them. Having been an avid follower of NigerianNews and having also published most of my articles on your site these past years, most of which are rather critical of government, I cannot agree that your editorial posture is biased towards any government, Obasanjo´s inclusive.

My major point of disagreement however is on the issue of subsidy on petroleum products, and the dislocation it always pervades for the Nigerian people whenever government takes the ill advised decision to `remove´ it. Since OBJ came to power, it appears the only means he knows to shore up government revenue is by increasing the prices of petroleum products, such that he can now almost pass for the appellation of `The Fuel Price Increase President´. Nigerians would have expected him to be more ingenious in sourcing other ways of creating national wealth, without dislocating the lives of Nigerians the way he appears to be doing all the time, in such ill advised manner.

I agree with you that subsidies need to go to those who need it most, and that is the real masses in the villages. However, the pain of Nigeria of today is that subsidies do not go to anybody at all, except those in government offices, whose lives are fully subsidised, even in absurd ways. If you take a look at the breakdown of budgetary allocation for 2005, and realise that several Billions of Naira was voted for frivolous maintenance of lifestyles of government officials at all levels, then you will agree with me that we really have a long way to go. Full details are contained in the Budget Office website at http://www.budgetoffice.gov.ng/ You will discover that most of the national income goes to sustain the bogus lifestyles of government officials, and those who should enjoy the fruits of that income get nothing. And even when there appears to be a semblance of some of that income trickling down to the ordinary Nigerian, the government starts crying out loud, as if money spent on Nigerians is money wasted! So at the end of the day, when the government cries wolf over subsidising the lives of Nigerians, and complain about such expenditure as if National income is not for the well being of the people, it gets me really worried. So they want to use the income to subsidise themselves, and leave Nigerians to suffer.

I find it difficult to agree with you when you say that the majority of Nigerians living in the villages do not feel the direct impact of the incessant increases in the price of petroleum products because they cook with firewood, do not own cars, and hardly have need to travel by road, as they rely on their time honoured `Legedes Benz´. Petroleum products permeate the lives of everyone, because, obscure as it may seem, the prices of soap, cream and other basic items used in the villages go up by substantial factors whenever the prices of petroleum products, and hence the cost of road transportation, which is the only viable means of transportation in Nigeria, go up. Moreover, those poor people in the villages and the cities have to transport their children to school, feed them, pay their school fees, and also rely on food produced in other places, which need to be transported to their remote villages on bad roads. So the economics of petroleum prices is a lot more complicated than the government will like the people to believe.

Much as I agree with the need to shore up resources and conserve funds for the future, those who are alive today must also be kept alive to be able to reproduce the children that will form that future. When the schools are not functioning, there is no power, the roads are bad, the police murder and maim innocent people at will, the government demonstrates high handedness and disobeys court judgments, even from the highest court in the land, and the ruling party members quarrel to no end over board appointments, as if the country belongs to them, it is very clear that all is not well with such a place, and no matter how hard it is to sing to the deaf, people must continue to shout out loud!

On this petroleum products pricing issue, government is simply punishing innocent Nigerians for their inefficiency, and this should stop. No one asked them not to fix the refineries and get them running. No one is even seriously opposed to privatisation of the refineries, if that will solve the problem of inefficiency. No one asked them to import fuel, when Nigeria produces more than 2.4 million barrels of crude oil a day! Nigeria is a laughing stock before all countries of the world for being a major oil producer which cannot refine enough for local consumption, and OBJ does not seem to care, even as he junkets from country to country in the name of seeking better visibility and perception for Nigeria. He was in Brazil last week on one of such missions where he sees it all but learns nothing. Brazil produces about 2 million barrels of crude oil per day and refines more than enough to meet local consumption fully, either through their refineries, or foreign refineries owned by Petrobras. Brazil also generates 137,000 Megawatts of electricity for its 180 million + population, leading to 24 hours stable power supply, whereas Nigeria struggles with power output of between 2,600 MW to 3,400 MW for its 130 million population. Yet government keeps deceiving Nigerians about taking steps for tomorrow to be better, when there is nothing in the horizon to suggest that we are getting anywhere.

A sensible option the government would have adopted, if they are genuine in their motives, is to adopt a deferential pricing policy for crude oil refining, as is practiced in Saudi Arabia, where the cost of crude oil for local consumption is much less than the international price. That way, Nigerians don't have to pay for increases in the international price of crude, which should be a blessing for producing countries, but is now being made by government to look like a curse. Under this policy, the government will aim at full cost recovery for crude, add a mark up for profit and refining costs, and the pump price of the product will still be much better than what obtains today in Nigeria, considering that the cost of producing one barrel of crude oil is far below $5:00, whereas it is selling currently at over $60:00 per barrel. So even if government marks the production cost up by 150% and sells to refineries at that cost, the landing cost will still ensure that Nigerians pay a decent price for the product locally, even if they must continue to inefficiently refine abroad. But the defeatist economists in government will argue that such a policy will encourage smuggling of products across the boarders, as if the ordinary Nigerians are responsible for policing the porous boarders or the monumental corruption and embarrassment of the Nigerian Customs Service and other agencies that man the boarders.

At the end of it all, head or tail, the Nigerian citizen loses, and increasingly, it is becoming a major challenge to be proud of being a Nigerian, as the country does nothing for its citizens, and forever researches into ways of making their lives miserable. In other sensible countries where incomes are much higher, government subsidy is seen everywhere, in Agriculture, Healthcare, Education, Public Transportation, etc, but not in Nigeria, where any expenditure on the citizens is seen as a waste of money.

I agree with all your other views on Atiku, Obasanjo´s son, etc, except that the young man has to provide answers on how he, who passed the New York Bar in January 2005 and has not even been called to Bar, can afford a $500k + house in New York for which he paid cash down, as there is no evidence of a mortgage as hastily offered by his uncle. Even if there was a mortgage, he would still need to put down a percentage of the mortgage as down payment, and such monies do not come in handy to the ordinary person, and I want to believe that even if he is Obasanjo´s son, he is an ordinary Nigerian. It has also been established that the claim by his uncle that the young man earns over $200,000.00 per annum is completely false, as no fresh graduate earns that kind of money in the US, even if you are Obasanjo´s son. A salary offer of $100,000.00 to Chelsea, Bill Clinton's daughter about two years ago even caused eyebrows to be raised in the Western press.

I trust that you will treat this as a frank feedback from a genuine admirer of your site, and find space to publish it at the appropriate time.

Best wishes,
Madaki Ameh.
A Legal Practioner, is currently a Chevening Scholar at the Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy, University of Dundee, Scotland, U.K., He is also a regular and treasured contributor to the NigerianNews

Editor's Response

Dear Mr. Ameh,

Reading through your feedback, there is no doubt you made the same points some Nigerians are making about the seeming nonchalant attitudes of most officials in Government. The complaints seem to center on the perceived activities of these officials feeding fat on the nation's resources without regards to the welfare of the people they serve. We believe privatization and true resource control can take care of most of the points contained in your arguments (Especially in your later email not included). We have written in the past on what we consider non-hypocritical resource control in our editorial piece of August 09, 2005 Of Resource Control and Hypocrisy. We do not believe that because the president of the Senate gets an unusually big annual vote for example that we should stop doing the right thing which may also include countering such excesses. This new accusation about the President of the Senate and the Speaker on their annual large vote for their office would have to be looked at to see whether their performance with that kind of votes measure up with the reason why the money is voted. And this new point you made (On separate email), as good as it maybe should not be mixed up with the current topic, unless what you are saying is that the people are suffering because of such votes. However, our assertions at the NigerianNews is how we can make Nigeria to work for all. This is the crux of our original editorial.

Our disagreements with you Mr. Ameh are clear and have to do with the methods used in making observations, and can be likened to two observers in the application of Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity.

Using two observers to explain Einstein's Theory of Special relativity, one observer standing at the train station, and the other inside a train traveling in a straight line and at constant speed towards the one at the station. The one standing at the train station observing the train in which the other observer inside the train was traveling, on checking the clock inside the train saw a different time which disagrees with what the observer inside the same saw of the same clock in the train. Such is the arguments contained in this feedback by Mr. Ameh and the NigerianNews, both of us are very convinced of our righteousness, but as Einstein would prove in the Special Theory of Relativity, not even "time" is spared in the relativistic nature of things! It turns out that there is another component involved in the correct measurement of time, and that component is the speed of light!! So, we believe debating our differences will eventually throw the light on the reasons for the disagreement in the way we all observe events. Maybe then, we can correlate the final agreement with the refined theory, The General theory of Relativity that is applicable under any condition!!

Again, these are some good suggestions we can all ponder upon below:

We agree that some subsidies are necessary to resuscitate and sustain the life of people bearing the burden of poverty.

Starting from petroleum subsidy, since there is a disproportionate and imbalance distribution of this subsidy as currently practiced, and since some believe that petroleum is an all-Nigerian birth right, we should take the money for petroleum subsidy and distribute it to all Nigerian families provided we can account for the true population, and whoever wants to use their own portion to buy gas can then do so. This way, there will be no doubt who benefits, and there will be no assumption about who spend theirs on soap, and some other commodities like you suggested. We believe there are just too many Nigerians who still use the Nigerian locally made black soap and "soda" for all purpose washing and cleaning and will continue to do so if given the choice we are suggesting. We believe also that the use of the Nigerian Soaps can also lead to the improvement of this product. You will agree with us Mr. Ameh that this is a better and fairer way for all to enjoy this "birth right"

The alternative to point number 1 is also to take this money and use it for a development everybody can enjoy. Agriculture and Transit system come to mind. Whatever the option adopted, it must be all embracing with no assumption made. We prefer using the money for capital intensive purpose and not subsidy of petroleum with a conjecture and dubious assumption that everyone benefits. Please Mr. Ameh, think about these.

We never mentioned in our editorial that money should be conserved, however, we have advocated conservation of mass like non-paper money in exchange of value. Like Mr. Rothschild in the 19th century, we say, give us your properties, and we will give you your so much desired money (In Ghana-Must-Go?)! Money is liable to manipulations, however, values like petroleum, minerals, and all other form of properties are not subject to devaluations and manipulations. Rothschild was an avid expert in getting his exchange of commercial values in materials, while he gave you the paper currency. The story goes that he usually turned around and manipulate the currency that he gave you, to your chagrin headache. We wonder whether you can check what happened after the battle of Waterloo. It was said the Rothschilds (Note this clan have roots all over Europe, and in America through JP Morgan) gave money to both France and UK to prosecute the war, speculating they would gain wealth from whoever won. The communication system at that time was not that good. So the story goes, when the British General Wellington defeated Napoleon at Waterloo, the Rothschild rushed to Britain to announce that Napoleon had won, enough time to collect their booties from both sides of the campaign. We all know who won that battle!! They gave funds to both sides to prosecute the war and received non-currency values in exchange.

What we are saying is that we must conserve this non-renewable commodity, and one of the ways you do this is through maintaining the price that will make people think twice before they waste the commodity. Does this stop the government from taking the profit and distribute it in one of the two ways we suggest above?

Mr. Ameh, from your vantage point, what happens to Nigeria after the depletion of this our birth right, we ask again? You know it will one day be depleted, you agree? You have suggested it is inexhaustible, however, if we develop as we hope we will and more crude is needed domestically as a result of industrial success, we doubt if your assertion will hold.

It is sad the government officials are feeding on this one commodity, but does that remove the fact that this is a non-renewable commodity which will be depleted one day? Don't we have to address that now or we have to wait until the whole Delta region is destroyed and no more oil left? If the government privatizes and receives its own share through taxes generated by efficient private hands, will you have to worry about this government anymore? We mean privatization of all areas we know the private sectors can run best, and the retention of provision of guidelines, regulations, and other essential services by the government which we know the government can do best. Will that not change our political landscape? We assert that when the politicians realize there is no more profit waiting for them in government, only good people will then be attracted to government and the ethnic cause of friction in our census and other reasons while people quarrel with each other can be eased.

You also did not address the fact that USA, though uses more oil than everyone else (and that China and India will soon join them), she tries as much as possible to anticipate the future by buying our oil perhaps till depletion before opening up all their remaining known reserves. You do not also address the fact that Nigeria, the way some people may not think right now, will soon consume her ways to the point where she also starts importing crude because there is no more crude enough for the domestic use. You may think this is impossible considering that we at the moment consume 450,000 barrels a day, and some of these are for industrial use, but that is exactly the point! That was the way it started in China and India. Now they are scrambling to anticipate the problem they may face in the future by trying to buy refineries in the West and more crudes anywhere they can find it using their National Oil Company. If you agree that Nigeria will also grow very soon if the labor people allows the establishment of private economy, then we must start anticipating the possibility in future that this crude is exhaustible. Should a labor Union or the civil society not think about this? Should the labor and civil society not concentrate on the corruption you mentioned rather than adopting the myopic views of the future by not addressing it? Is this corruption only in the oil industry? Does the same corruption not permeate all aspects of Nigeria's life? The bottom line is that when Nigeria is ready to stamp out corruption, it will be stamped out or minimized.

Corruption in Nigeria depends on who is being accused of corruption. A governor is caught in London by the economic crime unit of the Metropolitan police. We understand that some Ijaw group are planning the sabotage of the British and Federal Government interests in their area. It does not faze them that if this governor is proven guilty, he would have been caught carting away a collective treasure of their ethnic group. To us, it does not matter if Obasanjo was responsible for this governor's dilemma, we hope someone will also find a way to trap Obasanjo as well. It is sad the elders who ought to know better are planning meeting to "resolve" the problem. If you do not steal, no entrapment can get you into trouble. The problem is, an average Nigerian does not seem to care if anybody connected to him is a thief, the only thief he worries about is the one from outside of his ethnic group or anyone whose face he does not like.

Of the two suggestions we made above, we at the NigerianNews prefer the second, (and don't tell us the Government will simply share the money, the Government would if you let it). Our reason being that some will use the distributed money each time they are given for non-productive purpose, while others will enhance the economy with it. Whereas, the alternative builds what everyone can use; Agriculture, Transit system, etc. Is it not a sin to strike on our "birth right" but fail to call a strike on corruption? Where was the labor and the civil society when the elections were rigged? Are some of these people not friends of the riggers? Do they not share food and drinks with some of them? We all know what happened in Ukraine when the labor and civil society called the bluff of election riggers. Can the same not be done in Nigeria? Why has it not been done? In your further communication with us, you have insinuated that demonstrators could be killed by the police. Is death and eternal vigilance not worth the prize of freedom especially when someone rapes your God-given freedom by rigging an election for which your life depends? Why are they willing to die for petrol subsidy but not for rigged election? We dare to say that some of these people benefit from the riggers and the attendant confusion. Instead of waiting for the next election and plan how to fight the riggers employing the Ukraine or any agreeable model in the next election, they seem to be making a call for what the undemocratic element of the members of the armed forces will take as a call for another coup! One would think that having gone through what we went through with the military, we would not wish another 30 plus years of military oligarchy on ourselves. The "rigged" 2003 election is done, a good democrat waits for the next election with eternal vigilance as the basis for his preparation. The system of government we run is not the parliamentary type, so calls for resignation of elected officials outside of impeachment shows lack of knowledge of how the system works. We at the NigerianNews believe corruption can be stopped but not by our current zigzag methods. Zigzag because we zig during the day making wild accusations about corruption but by night we zag by wining and dining with the same corrupt people. We choose night time to zag because most of the poor people who are not on highway robbery missions are already asleep in deep sleep induced by hunger.

Assumption of corruption does not translate to corruption conviction. How many of these people have turned-in a corrupt official? Isn't the only vocal thing we hear about corruption is what, in our opinion, tantamount to pepper soup cafeteria talk that can pass for libels? Gov. Kalu must know, given Obasanjo's nature, that if Obasanjo has things on Kalu, he would use it at the appropriate time. Unfortunately, why is Kalu not rising to the occasion by striking first with the information he purportedly has? Our believe is that Kalu is a saber-rattling governor who stands behind immunity to make wild allegations. We say this because the same UK law that Obasanjo used to get Alamieyeseigha (and we happy here at the NigerianNews he Obasanjo did) can also be used with proper documents in the UK to get Obasanjo in trouble by a person willing to fight corruption wherever it exists. If the UK police fails to act on such documents, the UK press will never let it go. We dare Kalu to spill the beans and let us clean the aegean stables of corruption in Nigeria right now. Meanwhile, we at the NigerianNews will continue to play our gadfly role of not getting everybody mad but prodding everyone to think.

Where (a question for some Nigerians who live abroad) has any Mafia member ever been prosecuted without a proof? Have those with knowledge of official corruption provided any proof in Nigeria? We at the NigerianNews have urged all cowards to turn in any proof and we will do something with it, but all we get are libelous and unsubstantiated insinuations. There was a guy, who knowing that we wanted documents, would send us lots of emails telling us the accumulation of fraudulent deals he has on Obasanjo. We spent months begging him to give them to us, until we eventually decided he was just taking advantage of our "gullible" minds. We eventually told him to put up or shut up. Meanwhile he sent us articles that can never be substantiated, which we printed for a while, but when we started seeing the manipulations of even the Bible in these articles, we decided to drop him as a writer. Yes, we are unbridled and unafraid, however, we are unbridled in the service of the truth and we are unafraid of lighting the lamp and putting the lamp on the lamp stand, not under the table.

Turning to Brazil as you articulated so well with figures, can you possibly tell us who controls the means of production in Brazil, government or private? Please can you also tell us from your vantage point in Dundee, what is the future of publicly managed economy? Mr. Ameh has since provided us with an answer on one of these two questions, and the answer he gave clearly was what we were expecting since we know most means of production in Brazil are privately held. Will the labor union allow that to be in Nigeria? The future of the world is in privatization. The greed of a capitalist is born out of the the Third Law of Thermodynamics put in another way by a material scientist. The general tendency of a pure material is to become impure. It is the knowledge of this that encourages the greed in an investor or a capitalist. He wants more profit, but somebody pays for that greed of more profit with smiles. Then he comes up with more other things he knows you will buy, and you buy them, all along taking advantage of the law he knows he cannot do anything about but he engages in a way that makes everybody happy, that is, everybody in his or her greedy state!! All the corruption Mr. Ameh mentioned were brought upon by the public holding of means of production that ought to be private, pretending to right the wrong things in the material scientist's explanation of the Third law of thermodynamics - in the way ordinary people can understand it. The capitalist investor, instead of getting involved in futile attempts, devices a better way of achieving a position of stable equilibrium, he knows the best state the public holding proponent can achieve is that of meta stable equilibrium like a bottle rolling on its side non-stop. Public holdings are in general corrupt and inefficient. We canvas privatization of some of these areas of the Nigerian economy which are currently run by the parastatal boards. From the constitution of these boards to their day-to-day running are nothing but compendium of corruptions, nepotisms and inefficiencies.

As for the amount of oil Brazil refines abroad, the reason for doing so to us is irrelevant, however, most countries today refine abroad or buy refined products abroad to compliment their needed shortfalls in whatever form. The important point here is that building a refinery is an expensive proposition, the President's cronies who received licenses to build refineries found out this fact in an eye opening way. Some people complained and asked then why he only gave licenses to his friends to which we say everyone who can, should be allowed to build one.

Is Saudi Arabia not an accident waiting to happen? For how long will they use oil in bribery to keep her fellow citizens quiet? Saudi Arabia will have to eventually follow the trend and allow her citizens to participate in the economy through privatization or the same tide sweeping the whole world may consume her current arrangement in the way the Royal family does not contemplate. Subsidy dictated by a single family will soon attract many adversaries. What is the future of oil subsidy worldwide? The Alaskans benefited in the booty of their newly found oil wealth in a subsidy similar to our point 1 above. Do you remember that booty was given to all Alaskans the way we mentioned in our first proposition above? Would you not agree that when money is so distributed as in point one above, it provides spending flexibility to an individual and also puts a brake on reckless burning of the hydrocarbon since not everybody now contribute to the subsidy? The most important point is that everybody without doubt benefits.

Refinery is capital intensive and no investor will ever invest in building refinery in Nigeria where he knows sabotage is possible, and that these saboteurs will never be found and prosecuted. You made our point when you said Petrobas, a privately owned company (note the word private) refines some of its crudes in their refineries abroad, but you did not tell us how they acquired those refineries abroad except for the heavy crude explanation. You could simply could have said that Petrobas acquired the refineries abroad without the rabble rousing interference from some of Brazilian citizens a publicly owned company would have experienced, especially when it involves creating job abroad for non-Brazilians. And in your opinion, should government continue to build refineries? If so, how do you curb the potential for more corruption and even deliberate sabotage?

We believe we implicitly address the problem of double pricing. We have advocated one pricing with the attendant additional profit, and the money redistributed in one of the two ways we enunciated above. These methods allow us to start our own conservation program in anticipation of the future dearth of oil which seem not very possible to some right now.

So Mr. Ameh, we are not against subsidy if that is what Nigerian people decide, however, we advocate that all Nigerians should benefit from it. Let the lady in your village or any village in Nigeria who prefers her own locally made soap make her own soap, but let her use her own share of the subsidy distribution for anything she wants to use it for. We believe however, this money is better utilized for something everyone can benefit from, not gas for our car or your car. It is time for new methods in Nigeria.

If we are not happy the way our elected officials go about their businesses, when we are ready, we can throw the rascals out. There are many examples of how to do it all over the places, and we can assure you, we do not have to invite the military, the way to do it is to throw away our cowardice and follow the Ukraine model. If we do not want our faces to be rubbished like the Prime Minister of Ukraine in other to free ourselves of tyrants, maybe we do not deserve any freedom at all.

We thank you very much

Editor

[back to Editorial page]

"On this petroleum products pricing issue, government is simply punishing innocent Nigerians for their inefficiency, and this should stop. No one asked them not to fix the refineries and get them running. No one is even seriously opposed to privatisation of the refineries, if that will solve the problem of inefficiency. No one asked them to import fuel, when Nigeria produces more than 2.4 million barrels of crude oil a day! Nigeria is a laughing stock before all countries of the world for being a major oil producer which cannot refine enough for local consumption, and OBJ does not seem to care, even as he junkets from country to country in the name of seeking better visibility and perception for Nigeria. He was in Brazil last week on one of such missions where he sees it all but learns nothing. Brazil produces about 2 million barrels of crude oil per day and refines more than enough to meet local consumption fully, either through their refineries, or foreign refineries owned by Petrobras. Brazil also generates 137,000 Megawatts of electricity for its 180 million + population, leading to 24 hours stable power supply, whereas Nigeria struggles with power output of between 2,600 MW to 3,400 MW for its 130 million population. Yet government keeps deceiving Nigerians about taking steps for tomorrow to be better, when there is nothing in the horizon to suggest that we are getting anywhere.
- Mr Ameh
Using two observers to explain Einstein's Theory of Special relativity, one standing observer at the train station, and the other inside a train traveling in a straight line and at constant speed towards the one at the station. The one standing at the train station observing the train in which the other observer was traveling, when he checked his wrist watch saw a different time which disagrees with the one on the train observing his own time inside the train. Such is the arguments contained in this feedback by Mr. Ameh and the NigerianNews, both of us are very convinced of our righteousness, but as Einstein would prove in the Special Theory of Relativity, not even "time" is spared in the relativistic nature of things! It turns out that there is another component involved in the correct measurement of time, and that component is the speed of light!! - NigerianNews"