Rising Oil Price: When a Blessing Turns to Problem

By Eddy Odivwri

This is a special day, so let me wish you a Happy Good Friday

What is good about this Friday? Not only does it remind us of the wickedness of mankind, in crucifying the messiah, it actually foretells what is to come to us as a people.

I don’t understand. What is to come to us?

You know this is April. If I am not sure of anything, I am sure that the price of petroleum products, especially petrol will be hiked this month.

Are you a prophet of doom?

You don’t even need to be a prophet to know this. Did you not hear the Group Managing Director, Mr Mela Kyari, grumbling the other day that the NNPC cannot continue to bear the burden of subsidising the landing cost of petrol? Did you not hear him say that the corporation has been spending N120 billion monthly to subsidise the landing cost of petrol? Don’t you understand the import of that lamentation? Don’t you know it is putting Nigerians on notice that the price of petrol will change?

What is this running lingo about landing cost?

It is the total cost incurred in getting petrol into Nigeria: cost of the refined product, plus freighting, plus clearing cost plus all other ancillary charges….. they all make up the landing cost. And so, when the price of crude oil increases in the global oil market, it affects the cost of refining and shipping and all such other charges…. Then we pay more to get the product. On the contrary, if the price of crude drops in the international oil market, the landing cost similarly drops and so the end users will have to pay less.

So are you saying we should pray for the price of crude to drop radically at the international oil market so Nigerians can have some relief of not paying more for petrol?

What a question! Shouldn’t we be happy to hear that our product is selling well and competitively in the global market?

But if the increase in price of crude will translate to more troubles for us, why should we not pray for the fall of crude oil?

That will be sabotage! Don’t forget it is an era of deregulation. The product has to suffer the whims of market forces!

(mimicking)…. Chat wii be shaboshage!

Don’t you know that the higher the price of crude the more money Nigeria earns into its treasury? And with more money in the treasury, the government will do much more: build more schools, build more roads, equip hospitals and generally be more responsive to the need of the people?

Look, we don’t believe all those packaged excuses from government. They have always recited these deceitful cathecism to lure us into supporting them. But year—in, year out, we do not see the roads, we do not see pipe-borne water, we do not still have common drugs in our hospitals, even as medical personnel are shabbily treated. Imagine all the stories and arguments right from the 1988 SAP riot. Nothing has changed. We are still an impoverished people, gnashing our teeth in anguish and lack. So, instead of making life even more brutish and nastier, let the price of crude fall indeed. After all, if the crude oil ceases to be a blessing to the people, it should not become an agent of punishment to the people. If in it rising, we cry, let it fall and let our tears be saved.

You know it is a budding economy. Don’t forget it is a global problem, so we need to exercise…

(cuts in) we need to exercise what? Did you say it is a global problem? How ? Go to Oil-producing countries that do not even have half the volume we export everyday… check out their living standards, their GDP, their facilities , their everything and you will weep for Nigeria. Do you realise that the N120 billion figure bandied by the NNPC boss, may just have been cooked figure? Do you know we don’t have the exact way of measuring production of crude? Do you know that those who benefit from the said importation will work towards ensuring that our local refineries will never produce, so the importation racket will continue?

Do you know that the continuous importation of refined products inadvertently provides job to the citizens of the exporting countries, while we languish in pain and dejection?

Do not forget Nigeria has Excess Crude Account, where monies from increase in cost of crude is saved. Nigeria has been saving those monies. They shall be used to grow the economy. Just watch and wait. You know Mr President himself is the substantive Petroleum minister .

That is if he knows what is happening at the ministry.

Look, all Nigerians are saying, is that whether the price of crude rises in the international market or not, Nigerians back home should not be pummelled further with any increase on the cost of petrol. The so-called subsidy belongs to Nigerians too. That is the crux of the matter!