Arewa Economic Forum Seeks Fuel Subsidy Reversal
- Demands accountability from Tinubu, Govs on savings
- Backs sanctions on those hoarding dollars.
BY EDMOND ODOK – Flaunting complaints that Nigerians are facing daily hardship and paying more for everything without commensurate increase in their income, the Arewa Economic Forum (AEF) has challenged President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to seriously consider reversing the fuel subsidy removal policy.
Additionally, the AEF, which is an economic think-tank of intellectuals and business entrepreneurs of Northern Nigeria, is urging the President to stop disbursing excess allocations to State governors for obvious lack of accountability and transparency in resource management for the overall hood of their people.
According to the Forum Chairman, Alhaji Shehu Ibrahim Dandakata, lack of accountability and misplacement of priorities by governors are the reasons poverty and hunger have become so biting across the country.
Dandakata, who addressed a press conference in Abuja recently, however said if the President insist on sustaining his subsidy removal policy, the administration must work on ensuring the State governors become more accountable and transparent in managing the excess allocations accruals to positively impact the people.
The AEF Chairman also said the Federal Government cannot continue on the helpless trajectory where the Naira slides daily against the dollar and other currencies of the world, even as he wondered why the dollars always skyrockets in worth immediately after every monthly Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) meeting.
Explaining the reasons behind the Forum’s position, Dandakata said;
“Today’s address is coming at an auspicious time for the people of our great nation as they can hardly feed once a day, buy drugs and other essentials. Due to hyperinflation caused by fuel subsidy removal and the free fall of the Naira, our people have to pay more for everything with money that is not even there.
“At the risk of sounding alarmist, things are assuming the Hobbesian State of Nature in Nigeria where “Life is Brutish, Nasty and Short.” In line with our tradition at the Arewa Economic Forum (AEF), we are here to proffer solutions, not to heat up the polity or add to the tension already brewing in the land.”
Further defending its call for the subsidy reversal, the AEF said “We are therefore calling on President Tinubu to reverse the subsidy removal policy and use the extra money FAAC has been giving to the states to resume paying subsidy on PMS. The President should do this urgently if he knows he can’t find a way within the limit of his constitutional powers and political influence to make the governors more accountable to the people.
“A check we conducted on recent FAAC allocations has shown that some of the states have had their allocations increased by up to 90 percent with little or no improvement in the lives of the people. The percentage increase in the allocations to states after fuel subsidy removal is humongous.
“We are also calling on the government to put together a proper social register that can be used to distribute food items to Nigerians without the involvement of the state governments. If the government can put together a voter register, it can also give us a credible social register”.
However, in tasking the government to urgently address the country’s forex situation for positive impact on the economy, the AEF acknowledged efforts being made by the current administration, saying; “To be fair to him, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu made it unambiguously clear during the electioneering campaign that he would remove fuel subsidy if he won the election. What he didn’t however warn Nigerians of is the unprecedented hardship this singular decision will cause for our people. But fuel subsidy removal is not all about bad news. It has at least caused massive increase in the monies shared at the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) meetings with states going away with humongous figures on a monthly basis.
“But how has more money for governors to play with affected the lives of the masses? How? We at the AEF have found out that the huge sums of money available to state governors are not trickling down because the governors are not investing in areas that will reflate the state economy and are not committed to providing palliatives for the people.”
Pointedly addressing issues around the current forex crisis, the Forum said the Federal Government must summon the political will in arresting Naira’s free fall by banning the practice of keeping dollars at home or in offices.
Also demanding stringent measures against all those hoarding the dollars and their sponsors, the Forum stated thus; “The government should investigate why dollars go up after every FAAC meeting. Relevant government agencies should also ban the practice of paying for goods and services online in dollars.
“Dollar is not a legal tender in Nigeria. Every transaction must be in Naira as far as it is the country. If we don’t stop our obsession with the dollar, our Naira will never rise”.
Joining the ongoing national discourse around State Police, the Forum rejected the idea, arguing that it would ultimately be prone to abuse by the State governors for political reasons.
For the Forum, the best option will be for State governments to support and empower the existing Police Constabulary with funds and logistics, stressing that such measures would assist the security agencies to tackle and check the worrying level of insecurity nationwide.
The Forum also want priority attention on education, emphasising that teaching our young ones both the hard and soft skills can give them real sustenance and make them useful to the economy, adding; “Skills rather than mere certificates should be the priority”.
On food security, the Forum charged State governments to make irrigation facilities accessible to farmers, while the Federal Government work on promoting semi-mechanised farming that creates job opportunities for the unemployed as against fully mechanised farming that would render the “people jobless and redundant”.
