Owners Of Filling Stations Now Use Tricycles To Drop Their Children in School—Ita Enang Laments High Petrol Price

A former Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Niger Delta Affairs, Ita Enang has advised the President, Bola Tinubu to invest the $800m World Bank loan and the N800bn estimated to be saved in the first two months of fuel subsidy removal to build emergency local refineries.

Enang said the hardship induced by the fuel subsidy removal is enough to declare an emergency on small-scale local refining.

The former Senator made the proposal in an interview on Arise.

Ita Enang said, “What we need to do to manage subsidy removal well is that we can only succeed by starting domestic refining. We have to mobilise and the Dangote Refinery is going to come on stream.

“I worked with some refineries and some interest groups outside Nigeria who own decommissioned refineries. Most countries who believe in zero carbon emission are decommissioning their refineries that are producing petrol for them and so we worked on the possibility of bringing them to Nigeria and installing it in Nigeria.

“The Federal government may have to declare an emergency on domestic refining and use the money that it has saved thus far. We understand we have been spending N400bn a month on subsidy and I believe that 25th or 26th of this month, we would have saved about N800bn from that subsidy and the governors of our states are already scrambling for the money to be shared.

“I will urge the President and the Vice President to approach the National Economic Council with the kind of proposal that President Obasanjo did under the power emergency. They should use the N800bn which has been saved in just two months, add to the $800m that the World Bank has given for the purpose of palliatives to use it and construct emergency small-scale domestic refineries.”

After subsidy removal, prices of commodities rose to 22.2 per cent while it is estimated to rise above 30 per cent according to Bank of America.

The effect of the subsidy removal has also been complicated by the floating of the naira which currently trades at N800 per dollar.

Enang argued that irrespective of their sufferings, Nigerians do not need to be given palliatives. He argued that unlike previous palliatives that were shared, the $800m will better serve the country if it is invested in building refineries.

He said, “I want to apologise and I stand my ground that we don’t need palliatives now. Palliatives will just be one, two, or three meals in one, two, or three days and you return to the situation but if you invest this money on a small-scale refinery, you completely reverse the situation that is leading to the suffering of the people.

“I am not happy filling the tank I used to fill with N18000 or N19,000 with N67,000 and small cars and utility vehicles that I used to fill with N8,000 now cost N22,000 to N24,000.

“I feel it. All of us feel it. In Akwa Ibom, even petrol station owners use tricycles to drop their children at school. Many companies have reduced working hours to two or three days a week, that is man hours lost. That is money lost and that is productivity decline.”