The ease with which comparisons are made about the price of petrol in Nigeria and other countries fails to interrogate the differences in the economic circumstances of Nigeria and other countries. Without befuddling the issues, incompetence, corruption and un-national affiliations of interests that have privatised our mineral assets (so much attention on oil) and see to it that confusing arguments continue on the pricing of petrol, are our challenges.
In 26 questions, the uneconomic forces amassed against Nigerians are more obvious.
a. How much is minimum wage in the countries we compare with Nigeria?
b. Do they have alternative means of mass transportation?
c. Buses? Trains? Taxis? Tramps? Speed trains? Ferries?
d. Do individuals generate their own electricity?
e. In which of those countries are individuals’ generators the main source of electricity?
f. Do individual provide their own water, usually from borehole that relie on fuel-powered generators?
g. Is education free at any levels in those countries?
h. Are individual providing their own security?
i. Are they without social welfare services?
j. How much do their nationals pay as ransom?
k. What is their interest rate?
l. Do they have refineries that are perpetually under repairs?
m. Are billions of dollars spent maintaining their refineries without results?
n. How many of these countries power their economies with imported fuel?
o. How many of their nationals are killed annually?
p. Do their governments do nothing about such killings?
q. Does their national oil company make a profit when it is owing $6.8 billion?
r. Do their governments throw open the borders for petrol they imported with borrowed money to be taken over by smugglers?
s. Do their governments guess or know the quantity of fuel the country uses?
t. Do they have inefficiencies, delays at their ports that result in demurrages that add to the “landing cost” of petrol?
u. Would their national oil company spend N127.326 billion as annual salary for staff of three refineries that produced nothing in 2021 and nobody was sanctioned?
v. Can their national oil company’s expenses rise within one year thus: entertainment N11 billion from N1.8 billion, legal and professional fees N46 billion from N24 billion?
w. Or spend N15 billion on postage and telephone from N5 billion without any concerns?
x. Do other countries shut down their refineries, and spend billions in subsidising imported petroleum products?
y. Which countries produce the millions of barrels of crude oil Nigeria produces and are still committed to importing petroleum products?
z. How many countries run businesses, whether big or small, on generators?
No explanations suffice for the high prices Nigerians are paying for petrol. In the same way, statistics cannot accommodate these “Nigerian issues” often implicated as economic or market forces.
ISIGUZO is a major commentator on minor issues
