This is coming barely a year after the president launched a similar
campaign and forcefully removed subsidy with the price of petroleum
product skyrocketing by more than 120 percent.
According to Jonathan, the total removal of subsidy on petroleum
products would attract investors to the oil sector and put an end to the
importation of petroleum products as it is currently being done.
His Excellency started the fresh campaign for a total removal of
subsidy while receiving the report of the graduating participants of the
Senior Executive Course 34, 2012, of the National Institute of Policy
and Strategic Studies, Kuru, near Jos, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
He said: “Why is it that people are not building refineries in
Nigeria despite that it is a big business? It is because of the policy
of subsidy, and that is why we want to get out of it.”
He noted that though he argued that while the total removal of
subsidy could be painful to Nigerians, they would be happier at the end
if they could bear the initial pains.
Jonathan said, “To change a nation is like surgery. If you have a
young daughter of five years who has a boil at a very strategic part of
the face, you either as a parent leave that boil because the young girl
will cry or you take the girl to the surgeon.
“So you have the option of just robbing metholatum on the face until
the boil will burst and disfigure her face or you take that child to the
surgeon. On the sighting of a scalpel of the surgeon alone, the child
will start crying.
“But if she bears the pains and do the incision and treat it, after
some days or weeks, the child will grow up to be a beautiful lady.
“There are certain decisions that government must take that may be
painful at the beginning and people must be properly informed so that
they will be ready to bear the pains.”
“I believe that you do not need a lifetime to change a nation. Under
10 years, Nigeria can change and people will not even believe that this
is Nigeria again. Immediately you come up with strong policies in key
sectors of the economy and keep it for 10 years, the change will be
astronomical,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Presidential Committee on Fuel Subsidy Payments has
further beamed its search light on some oil firms alleged to have
engaged in fraudulent and sharp practices that almost paralyzed the
nation’s oil sector, under the fuel subsidy regime.
The removal of fuel subsidy was indeed a gritty welcome to 2012.
After the fuel subsidy was removed within hours, exhilaration of “Happy
New Year” turned to elegies of ‘Hardship New Year’.
As the crazy hike took its toll, motorists bought fuel across the
country at differential prices that ranged from N140 to N250 per litre.
By the next day, whatever illusion anyone had about the year evaporated
in the face of the grim reality on the street.
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