It is quite unfortunate that the issue of fuel subsidy has become a recurring dilemma in our dear country.
It’s a common knowledge that in the past, oil marketers and some corrupt officials of the oil and gas sector see oil subsidy as a means to enrich themselves.
Up until 2012, many Nigerians do not understand the concept of fuel subsidy. Fuel subsidy in the context of Nigerian situation, refers to the diffrentia payment by the government to oil marketers for the importation of fuel, in order to keep the price of fuel below the landing cost of petrol product.
The current administration announced the removal of petrol subsidy in 2016 and imposed a pump price increase to #145 a litre, with the promise that government resources will be channeled into getting the refineries up and save the trillions of naira the previous government squandered on fuel subsidy payment.
Barely two years down the line, the NNPC Group Managing Director disclosure that fuel subsidy is back into play in the troubled oil sector has left Nigerians confussed.
The federal government in a bid to manage this situation do not want to admit and also cannot deny the resurrection of fuel subsidy in the oil sector, systematically shifted the reponsiblity to the NNPC, which supposedly is an organ of the goverment.
The question now is, if at all the NNPC is responsible for subsidizing the petrolieum product which no provision was made for in the budget, where then is NNPC getting the money and aproval from? .
I must admit that whenever i commit myself to understanding what goes on in this country, the more discovery i make, the more confuse i become. I am sure am not alone in this.
Oladiti Timilehin
Timedia 