Fuel Subsidy: A Government’s Dishonest Justifications and Why it must stay.
I recently reread the inaugural address of J.F. Kennedy which was delivered on the 20 th of January 1961. Of the one thousand three hundred plus words written on the paper, nineteen still resonate in my mind with a clarity only words of profound wisdom possess: “If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich”. The unilateral and abrupt removal of fuel subsidy on New Year’s Day of 2012, without having first put in place effective palliative measures to cushion the inflationary impact of the removal policy on the mass of poor and already impoverished Nigerians, makes it appropriate to remind Nigerian policy makers of those nineteen words and the dangers inherent in continuing to build a paradise for the rich and powerful on the withered backs of the poor and disenfranchised. While most of the rest of the world was getting ready to bid farewell to a momentous 2011 and welcome the arrival of a new year with all the hopes and expecta...