 Okay, it's still the breakfast on TV Africa, and we're looking at NLC and their tender strike or the impending strike from NLC and other trade unions, and what the subsidy removal is doing to our economy and to our people. And we are glad to have joined us this morning, Ibrahim Grit, a public affairs analyst. Good morning and welcome to the program, Ibrahim. Hi, good morning, nice to be with you again. Okay, well, strike will happen unless something happens between now and the day proposed for the strike. But before the strike happens or before the call for the strike, something else happened. That is the fuel subsidy removal. The announcement was made in the inaugural speech of the president, that is President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, that fuel subsidy is gone. Now, we've been told over the years that fuel subsidy is a scam. Fuel subsidy is enriching a few and so many other things, and it has to go. Now it has been removed. The money has not only been removed from the pockets of the people, they told us we're the ones enjoying it, now the people are the ones who are suffering. The ordinary masses in Nigeria, citizens of Nigeria are the ones suffering. And we seem not to understand how some people will be enjoying the money and then will have some kind of relatively good life and then that money is removed from their pockets and we are the ones to suffer. So we've been told through the process of this fuel subsidy and how harmful it was first of all to the Nigerian economy that made it such an urgent thing to remove it even when no other measure was put in place to make sure that Nigerians have a good life after it's been removed. Tell us the dangers of that fuel subsidy that we couldn't and still can't understand. You see, every good thing has a lifetime and every bad thing has an expired date. Also, if you recall that this whole thing was put in place by the then-president of Ushakon Basuja when he was a military leader. I think that was in 1979 on Gerabal when he helped to put in place the pricing act at that time. Now, this thing has taken its course and it's not beginning to affect Nigeria because of our rates, the parity in the rate of forex. Now, we've known this that even though the masks are suffering this thing, the subsidy actually works. So as with Nigeria, everything else, maybe something is supposed to be costing government 10 naira for example, you'll see that thing is being cost or costing at 300 naira. That's what we are having here in terms of the people or the marketers or the people that put a bill forward and say, look, we're bringing in PMS, we're bringing in fine products, this is how much it costs. In some cases, some people are just bringing in empty vessels and they're claiming money. And when you look at the impact of that on the revenue of the country or on the asset of the balance book of the country, it is something that at some point eventually has to go. Now, the president has said this over and over since the beginning of his campaign that it was going to deal with this and if he actually meant his word, but he said he would hit the ground running, this is one of the ways he has hit the ground running. Having said that, some will argue that the manner of implementation has been cruel in terms of, we're having like 300% increase in price fuel. That is almost tantamount to us immediately crumbling our economy. So economy activities will reduce, even government revenues will reduce. This can lead to so many other agitations in the country. So with care, this in my opinion could have been better implemented and scaled maybe over a period of time. But then I want to give the president a benefit of the debt. I'm a big fan of it and I hope that I'm not wrong that the team know what they're doing and will have some palliative, will have some strategies. If we want to discuss that further, we look at some of the strategies that we can have to make this work for the country and for the people. Okay, I don't know if this analogy will work, but it's like you have a supermarket and you find that your employees are stealing from you and you suck every one of them and you're not replacing them because another set will come and they will steal. Instead of installing maybe CCTV cameras or having a working plan so that these leakages, these things that have been giving your employees opportunity to steal are no longer there. That is what I seem to see in fuel subsidy. Fuel subsidy was good for Nigerians because they could get this fuel for a reduced price. It was good for the economy. It needed to go because people were stealing from it and inflating figures and all that. Is this not laziness on the part of government that they couldn't find ways of blocking the leakages and blocking the wastage and blocking the fraud that was in it except to just remove it? Are there no other ways that could have been used? Yes, you see, it is often said that there are many ways to skin a cut and in many ways one of the best ways is for you to take a very decisive measure. The Nigerian system is very reactive to automating it. So there are many bottlenecks and impediments that is slowing down the growth of Nigeria, the development of Nigeria. I give you an example. When you bring an idea to try to automate the country, like, you know, when this current president was the governor, for example, there are so many ideas that were being brought to automate the country like bringing in Oracle and stuff like that. Many of those things were opposed. And even now it's going to take time to make sure that the country works in such a way that is systematic, that it's automated so that you'll be able to spot and normally you should be able to spot fraud. Now, if those systems are not in place and we're talking about generating revenue in order for us to be able to build infrastructure, in order for us to be able to build roads, we have to curb our expenses. And if they're saying that this is a major part of the expense, then if it has to go, it means that you are looking at their strategy to look for revenue to be able to implement bigger stuff that can help the country. So some of those things, for example, look in the case of Lagos, you know, big countries like ours and big cities like ours, we should not really rely on individuals, you know, driving so much on the road. We should build our public transport infrastructure, like the train. So in Lagos, for example, you see the BRT system, I would expect that this government should have put in place at the federal level a system such as the BRT, like more train systems. And even if they're not done that, we are seeing and I would want to expect that the money that they'll be saving will be helping us, not just to talk about Blue Rail or Red Rail. Every part of the country should be industrialized. Train system everywhere. Bus system. Electricity, 24 hours electricity. People should be able to travel 24 hours and feel safe. One of the factors that you may not look at, that this falls subsidy and people may not be able to see the costation between insecurity and, you know, the subsidy. Now, a lot of the insecurity in the country are tied to a lot of the bad businesses and clandestine businesses that are going on behind the scenes. And if we really want to move this in the pot, we have to take a decisive step such as the president I've just taken. You might find that if we're able to address issue like the subsidies and those who are taking the pump cream, our food oil and stuff like that, you might realize that we're actually invariably helping the country to be more secure. I can't go into details with the costation between those two links. But is there no fear that if the solution to fuel subsidy is to remove it entirely, it could also be used in other sectors? Like you've just mentioned, bunkering right now. Because of the fact that oil is being bunkered, it's being stolen, the government just wakes up one day and say, okay, we will not pump oil through our pipelines anymore because it is being stolen. In other countries that I know of, every drop of oil is accounted for, where it goes from, where it goes to and everything. Everything is, technology is deployed to make sure this monitoring is done and all that. Now, why can't that be done in Nigeria as well? And when it is done, then you remove whatever you want to remove. Because if this monitoring with technology and every other thing or other solutions can come, you wouldn't need to remove subsidy. Because if it is a hundred Naira that is being used to subsidize fuel, a hundred Naira will be spent. But right now, we do not know how much fuel is consumed in Nigeria, how many filling stations are dispensing, what amount of fuel we do not know, no data to that effect. And nothing was done to get these statistics so that any policy can be done. Fuel subsidy was just removed. So, will this always be the solution that you want to remove the nose to spite the face? You see, the dichotomy of the Nigerian politics or the system is the fact that there are so many encumbrances to our development. Is it coincidence? I don't know if you can... Are you able to hear me? Yeah, I can hear you loud and clear. Okay, so there are so many things about the development of an Indonesian called Nigeria. Now, is it an error that just about a few years, a couple of years after Nigeria got independence and then we have war, the Biafra War started. I'm saying this to say if you have watched and pay attention to Nicolas Cage's movie, The Lord of War, you would understand how the world runs. You use the example that in most of the countries that you know, so many countries in the world including Russia, oil and crude oil businesses, there are many clandestine moves behind it. But some of these clandestine moves are worse in Africa and particularly Nigeria. It really interests you to know, and I'm sure you know somewhere within your mind, that there are many foreign interests in Nigerian crude. And it's also interesting to know that Nigeria has suffered for so many years that in some cases what international communities just need is just a few of us, a minority of us, sometimes some of the people in high places. And then they are able to, in fact, it is shocking if true to know that we might actually be selling more of OPEC than we are sending in OPEC. That is to tell me that there is so many things going on in this country that has been from the foundation even dating back to before we got independence or find oil. This is why, what is going on right now and one of the reasons why people like myself are backing a president like the one we have is that I've known them or I've known the team, I've known him from when I was young when they worked on Nadeko. I had the privilege of working with one of them that are foundational to Nadeko in the 90s when I was, I mean outside of Nigeria. And since then I've seen their passion, I've seen their understanding. They changed my paradigm about how to be African and how to be Pan-African and Nigeria because they do not just think that we should be subservient to the foreign nations. They believe in the sovereignty of our nation and of our resources. Now, if they will be able to do as that time that I've met them, I pray that they will be able to do so. But from their policy that I'm reading, I can see that Nigeria want to have control of its own resources. Nigeria want to have control of its own destiny. So this is why you will see that we don't need to be campaigning, parading international community. It is a time that opposition, you know, NLC, every form of opposition in this country should do what China did. China and opposition government by creating presidency in a lifetime are not suggesting that point for Nigeria. I'm saying democracy is a secrecy of supremacy. And we've got to understand that democracy in itself is killing many African countries. We need to sit down, opposition ruling government and form a government of unity that is focused at least for the next 50 years to develop our country. And that means a consensus for equity, a consensus for prosperity. We need to give poverty the red card, black card, chase poverty away. And to do this, we have to be decisive, we have to be ruthless, we have to be evolutionary. Ever have just a moment, we're rounding off, we're rounding down. Our time is up anyway, but we're really talking about NLC under pressure. That's where it started and we needed to establish what we really mean when we talk about NLC. NLC is going on strike. We'd like you to just talk to that strike that they are going. NLC is under pressure because they are threatening to go on strike and all that. So just give me your thoughts as brief a moment as possible before we wind down. Okay, number one, it is the test of character for the new administration because it is the right of NLC to protest. That's what they are there for. They are there to be able to agitate on behalf of workers. So the way that the administration deals with this is going to, you know, is a test of their character. Number two is also a test of character on the leadership of NLC. We are hoping that NLC have not been infiltrated by opposition to agitate. In my own opinion, since it's something that almost all the candidates campaign for, it is too early for NLC to be going on strike. The government is just coming in one week and they have strategies to come in to implement. I think NLC should consult very well before throwing the country on that chaos if those two points would help. But NLC needs to be careful, but government also needs to manage this well. Okay, thank you very much, Abraham Gray, for coming on the show and giving us your thoughts. It's been a pleasure having you. Thank you very much for having me. We've been talking with Abraham Gray, a public affairs analyst on the fuel subsidy removal, all the issues around it and also the fact that NLC is planning to go on strike. Well, we'll be right back with our next topic. Stay with us.