By Felix Oboagwina
Comrade, Congratulations ooo!
What’s up, Man? Why are you congratulating me? It’s not my birthday till September.
You should also tell me congratulations nevertheless!
I really need good news. What happened? Why are we exchanging congratulations?
Petrol price has dropped from four digits to three digits. Shame on doubting Thomases like you! Petrol is no longer N1,200; it is now N925.
Continue to be self-delusional! News flash: All petrol stations in this our neighbourhood are still displaying N1,045 per litre.
They will adjust their meters downwards, latest, tomorrow morning. Hooray!
Hooray kill you there! You know what is worrying you and most Nigerians?
Tell us o, Mister Doubting Thomas. What is “wronging” with us?
Stockholm Syndrome! You have been raped for so long that you have fallen in love with your rapist.
Asusu beke! Oyinbo! Mister Grammarian: Which one is Stockholm Syndrome? Let me Google it. Here it is: Stockholm Syndrome is a psychological theory that explains why hostages or victims may develop positive feelings towards their captors or abusers. This can lead to the victim defending or identifying with the captor, and may also include negative feelings towards authorities attempting to rescue them. The term originated from a 1973 bank robbery in Stockholm, Sweden, where hostages developed an emotional bond with their captors instead of being hostile.
You Nigerians will celebrate a little gain from your oppressors when you have lost so, so much. Before your hero took over power on May 29, 2023, the price of petrol was N195. Then, someone opened his big mouth, waaaah, and said: SUBSIDY IS GONE! No strategy! No modus operandi! No incentive! No structure! Nothing! Before you could say JACK ROBINSON, predictably, the price reacted and fuel skyrocketed to N550 per litre. Today they sell for N1,045 minimum! Then these same Shylocks shave off less than N100 from that bogus price and you wave your tails like starving dogs handed a meatless bone.
What is wrong with celebrating what you call “little gains?”
Tokenism! Somebody worsens your life by robbing you of…. Okay, do the maths! Tinubu’s new price of N1,045 minus the N195 it was when Buhari left. N890! Somebody robs you of N890. He gives you back N100, and you go mad with ecstasy. Come on, wake up! The same amount that fetched you 5 litres before May 2023 now fetches you 1 litre! Pardon me if I don’t share your euphoria.
Anyway, God bless Dangote for the fuel price crashing.
Dangote!
We are enjoying the benefit of a truly free market economy, thanks to the Dangote Refinery (and to BAT) that helped break NNPC’s monopoly. Compared to what other countries pay for fuel, BAT has not done badly REALLY.
Name those countries.
All our neighbours buy fuel costlier than we pay here. Cameroon. Niger. Cotonou, Benin Republic. They use Nigerian fuel that is smuggled across our borders and sold to them at twice, thrice our pump price.
To discourage such smuggling is why Nigerians must pay cutthroat prices for fuel, not so? Illogical logic! A government that cannot police its porous borders ends up punishing its citizens for its own security lapses and irresponsibility.
You sceptics were screaming blue murder when the price climbed upwards. Can’t you praise the President when the price is dropping too? The man told you: “E lo f’okan bale, a ma gbe wa le!” Calm down, we will reduce the price. And he is doing just that! Praise him!
When did Tinubu utter that statement? Let me remind you: Before he became President. It was during the era of the man he helped into office, Muhammadu Buhari. When the price hit N195 per litre and Nigerians were screaming, Tinubu as a good party chieftain pacified them with those words. Instead of decreasing, the price simply developed wings and flew away to an unprecedented N1,045 per litre under “President A-Ma-Gbe-Wa-Le.”
But I still maintain that we are paying less than most countries.
How?
Nigerians buy fuel at an average of N1,184 per litre, while the average price in the world stands at N1,902. In the US, for example, stations dispense at ₦1,460 per litre. Britain is N2,626.
Stockholm Syndrome! When you do comparative pricing, you don’t do so in isolation. What is the fuel price in these countries relative to their minimum wage? For the USA, price per litre is ₦1,460, while minimum wage there is ₦1,900,000 per month. Minimum wage oo! In the UK, fuel per litre is ₦2,957, and monthly minimum wage is ₦3,500,000. In fellow oil-producing Saudi Arabia, the range stands at ₦986 per litre to ₦1,700,000. Our South African brothers buy at ₦2,000, with their monthly wage standing at ₦357,000. In Nigeria, we pay ₦1,100 per litre while earning ₦70,000 per month. So when comparing other countries’ liquid energy bills, take their minimum wage into account. Nigerians are being raped!
Dangote and his kinsman at NNPC, Mele Kyari, plotted a coup against all of us 240 million Nigerians. I put it to you that all the price increase (and Tinubu looked the other way when it happened) was NNPC deliberately manipulating the process to satisfy Dangote’s usual quest for a huge profit margin.
Calm down! Make me understand!
Look at it this way. When did they say the $20 billion facility Dangote Refinery in Lagos would begin to roll out fuel for Nigerians’ domestic use originally? They first gave a roll-off date of the fourth-quarter of 2022. Then they said 2023. President Muhammadu Buhari commissioned Dangote Refinery on 22nd May 2023 –the world’s largest single-train refinery and the biggest refinery in Africa, with capacity to produce 650,000 barrels of petroleum products a day. They began with diesel. After that, nothing happened. They began to export jet fuel in May 2024. Then they shifted the petrol supply date from June to July to August. Then we had the crude for Naira swap deal endorsed by Tinubu. Was the naira-driven, non-dollarized crude supply deal with NNPC not supposed to lessen the price?
Relax Mister, with Dangote as a key player and without an NNPC monopoly, we will soon begin to enjoy the fruits of a deregularised oil sector.
Dangote? That hyper-monopolist who holds no prisoners? Can you guarantee that Dangote will crash the price of fuel? His history points in just the opposite direction. On the 31st of October 2023, Dangote’s rival in cement and CEO of BUA Cement, Abdul Samad Rabiu, paid a visit to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in Aso Rock. Rabiu assured Tinubu that BUA Cement would sell at N3,500. Why didn’t that happen? Africa’s Elon Musk singlehandedly manipulated the market to frustrate that resolve by a “junior player” like Rabiu. Immediately, the price rushed to N7,500. Today, if you can’t pay N10,000 per bag, forget cement. Is it not the same Dangote whose sugar and spaghetti are the costliest in the food market? Because it comes to petrol, you feel the man has suddenly become BORN-AGAIN and turned to SAINT DANGOTE who will sell fuel to his countrymen at rock-bottom price? Keep dreaming.
If you like kill yourself on top Nigeria matter. All your negativity has made me hungry; what do you have at home?
OBOAGWINA IS AN AUTHOR, JOURNALIST AND PUBLISHER, REACHABLE VIA: foboagwina@gmail.com
