 Yn ymwneud, yn 2021, y Ffeddiol Gwfennidol yn ydy'r ffordd yn ddod o'r ffwyl drwsgwyddiol i'r cynhyrchu gyda'r 5,000-nyrhaf transbwynt ffwrdd o'r Llywodraeth Llywodraeth. Y Llywodraeth Llywodraeth Cymru yn ymdano'r ffwyl drwsgwyddiol yn ymdano'r ffwyl drwsgwyddiol yn ymdano'r ffwrdd yw 22 yma, ac mae'n ddod. Gweithio'r iddo yn cyfrifiadol yn gyfweld o'r hyffredig o'r cyfrifiadol yn gweithio'r ysgol iawn yn gweithio'r gweithio'r llwyth. Mae'r hyffredig yn gweithio'r gweithio'r llwyth gael gweithio'r llwyth, mae'r ffrifredig sydd yn ydyn nhw'n ysgrifes cyffredig. Mae hyffredig yn cyfrifiadol yn gweithio'r llwyth gan 65 niirau a 141 niirau. Mae'r hyffredig yn gweithio'r llwyth yn 2000 o'r cyfrifiadol, o'r Lwyaigon o'r Basaint-joe, that attempted to remove fuel subsidies, which he said cost the government $2 billion annually then. However, the fuel-pop price is currently at about 167 naira, which would be the new price. Is it the right move for your country at the point to go ahead with the fuel subsidy removal? Well, joining us at this class list is Ruchyt had i no yw h sniphenn yn oes and Andy at Portevee. Fodd y public affairs analyst. Thank you very much Richard for joining us. Richard, can you hear me? Great. Let's start by you know the situation, I mean we have laid a foundation for the fuel subsidy removal but then a lot of people like me are still stuck at the 5,000 naira monthly grant for poor people. How does this add up to the average Nigerian who's trying to understand what this means and why government has come up with this 5,000 naira grant? Well let me start by saying that the government seems not to care about economic arguments and that those of us who believe that the argument is not about voice subsidy, the argument is about refinery. Okay this is a country with over 70 billion barrier of crude oil beneath our soil and water and yet we don't want to have function as refineries and that is just quite sad okay. So the argument is not about voice subsidy, the argument for those of us on the other side is how well have we been able to develop our refinery and to ensure that they're efficient. So this whole idea of voice subsidy and the so-called grants for transportation for me is just a distraction okay. It's like someone having his roof leaking and then someone is saying that you have to blame the rain for falling. So I think the argument being made by the federal government is invalid and it's sad because if we pull the parts in which the federal government wants this country to tow, in a country where you don't have constant electricity, where you have to rely on voice to be able to power your commercial industrial and residential assets, that simply means that you have to rely on voice and if the price goes up people will not be able to drive the business objective and that will force them to leave. So if not for anything our focus should be how can we build our refineries and how can we build more refineries and not the whole idea of linking increase in price of voice to voice subsidy. So I think right now it looks to me that voice subsidy is not a metaphor to increase in the price of voice, not necessarily addressing the fundamental reason why there's a voice subsidy in the past instance. If we have refineries working we'll be discussing about voice subsidy. So for me the policy is just anti-Nigerian and it's raconal to the business environment and it's dangerous for the economy future of this great country. Now a lot of people are saying that this if the fuel price is raised to about 314 era which is somewhat the proposed price that it might worsen and shrink the GDP of the country. Can you say that to us in plain English? Well practically that is just the facts to be honest with you because one when you increase the price of voice what you're doing is that you're basically increasing the cost of doing business across the country especially where your energy proof as a portfolio is very very poor. Currently there's no as a state in Nigeria that can actually boast of generating sufficient energy to drive the economy within the state and that simply means by increasing the only one thing that everyone relies on to be able to drive industrial and commercial objective that simply means you're going to be increasing the cost of operation and people would want to leave the country to countries like Ghana where inflation raises around 10.6% and export where they can get cheaper as an energy for their industrial plants that's one too. By increasing the price of voice what you've done is to increase the cost of transportation and we all know that for you to move I could try to produce from let's say Kano to let's say a city like Calabao Lagos what's that when implies that you're going to increase the cost of transportation so people want all to do business so they'll be forced to leave the business environment and to stay idle so that in itself will impact negatively on the GDP of Nigeria. So the last thing we honestly want right now is to be talking about increasing the price of voice that's the truth about it okay and it's sad to know that we have a president that seems to think otherwise and seems to be determined to frustrate the entire economic sequence of this country so it's a big problem we have those of us who are saying no to voice they were saying that because we know that we don't have constant energy in Nigeria the electricity supply is still very in as an efficient non reliable and by targeting four and increasing the price that simply means that people run business will be able to produce and it costs that it's cheap and what else simply I think that we lost that connection we're quickly going to bring Richard back so we okay we lost you for a second Richard but I have a quick question because of time now economists have also warned the presidency can you hear me yes the economists have actually warned the presidency about the fact that we risk a social uprising of sorts but before we go into that before I let you go into that we have seen a lot of hardships lately the cost of living is continually skyrocketing I know many people who were unable to afford meals while we were celebrating the yield time we've seen a lot of economic migration from Nigeria to different parts of the world I've heard people say anywhere but Nigeria and the government is still saying you need to tighten your belts you need to you know brace yourself for what is to come but the question is where is the conversation on our refineries we we heard about the issue of modular refineries but all of that has gone cold what's happening to all these moribund refineries is what exactly is the issue why can't we all of these monies that we spend to exports the crude refineries and bring them back into the country which is making it a lot more expensive for us apart apart from the benchmark worldwide why are we not having these conversations well let me start by saying that we live in a country where accountability is a big issue and people those seems to think that for the fact that they're elected they're accountable to the people let me be frank with you I happens to be one of those who fought for the protocol to refinery to get a 1.5 billion dollars needed to revamp that refinery sadly a few days ago we heard that a section of that refinery went up in flames so the truth here is that it's clear that we are not even serious about revamping our existing refinery and building more so that in itself is a very big problem but in a second direction I used to think that it's very important for us to sustain the conversation around building more refineries sometime last year we had the vice president talking about modular refineries suggesting that by building similar refineries across as in the 90s region that we enable us to increase our supply and address the issue of voice subsidy and the rising cost of oil unfortunately what we've seen is just what I call betterics we've not been able to see practical commitments stores that ideology that ensures that we can actually kind of refine our oil locally without necessarily sending that road and then losing for an exchange ending so I think first accountability is the thing secondly I think the major problem here is that we don't seem to have a little shift that is committed to dressing some of this issue we are discussing currently until then I used to believe that Nigerians may just need to leave with this very sad situation of refineries where argument is shifted from building more refineries into discussion around voice subsidy transportation grants that basically will meet and finally I mean a lot of people had hope in the PIA which is now the PIB hoping that you know with the proposed regulation we now hear that of course the government is about to spend 900 million nair for subsidy in 2022 just as you have said there's a lot of window dressing in a time where the rest of the world is moving away from crude and going to renewable energy and green energy was still even finding it very hard to even produce you know and refine something that we have here free of charge it really bothers me what the future holds now don't forget the nlc is going to be protesting on February 1 this might cause a delay of sorts but how long can we hold this off if the government is saying they're being burdened they're spending too much money if we now decide that we're going to have to pay this much for our fuel what happens to the other things because don't forget I mentioned the cost of living is still pretty high transportation in this country is purely powered by these you know by fuel and crude energy so where do we go from here is life going to be worse and getting worse and worse for the average Nigerian well let me start by saying that uh I believe Nigerians would rise to pose it because the truth here is that what that simply means is if we all don't come together to pose this policy of governments what that simply means that you you're working for just the oil merchants and that simply means you've been taxed heavily to get uh the four you need to drive your vehicle or to power generator or to ensure that you keep as in yourself in business so I suspect that Nigerians will rise and I don't like to think that uh we get to the point where the government from listing and then our ship would increase okay so I would suggest that uh what the government needs to do right now is just to suspend our policy and I see Nigerians coming together this is not just about NLC or the the the other trade union denying to confront this policy and to defeat this policy it's about all Nigerians coming together to unite and oppose this policy because it is not in the best interests of Nigerians it's not in the best interests of economy it's not in the best interests for energy development and just like you rightly said the world is my great interim uh toxic energy which we refer to as positive energy is green alternated and yeah we can't even just address the issue of energy as a poverty so I'm of the view uh Nigerians will unite uh to defeat this policy and to force the government to keep up on this policy because the policy serves none well we have to go thank you so much Richard I know your is a financial analyst and of course he's been speaking to us about the fuel subsidy removal thank you so much for speaking with us Richard well that is where we say our goodbyes but before we do that we'd like to bring to you what Nigerians have to say about president Baharist's fight against corruption so far I will see you tomorrow I am Mary Anna Cohn have a good evening I would say in my own opinion he hasn't that is the truth because corruption is everywhere even before he came though there was corruption but even now you literally find it in places you can't even think of to tell you how bad it has become so to me I would say no he has not he has corruption well so far so good he had tried to some extent you know um he's just one person out of many or numerous people so he has actually tried his best and I believe um what we are experiencing is the best he could offer so far but in terms of all that hard sweat and other area he has done remarkably fine probably in terms of um projects and infrastructure I think he has been doing fine but when it comes to anti-corruption war I'm just going to score him like um on the skill of 10 I will score him like four basically and I believe it's um it's basically because of the um the group of people that has been working with him you know when you are the head you cannot come down and do everything yourself so you have the people you put in place determine your success the level of success you must have achieved at every point in time anti-corruption so what is not tackling anything we are facing challenges corruption what is corruption but you hear the language Osomole said it's a way you join apc all your sins are forgiven so what so what is it tackling I'm asking you is tackling but you had what when Osomole was a chairman what did he say it's a way you join apc your sins are forgiven