CAPITALISM THROUGH A MORAL LENS BY 'LANRE OLAGUNJU

Let me first of all draw attention to the words of a remarkable economist and moral philosopher, so I can fetch more insights from his arsenal of thoughts and imperishable wisdom? Adam Smith wrote and I quote

“As every individual…endeavour as much as he can both to employ his capital in the support of the domestic industry, and so direct that industry that its produce may be of the greatest value; every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.”

Confidently we can refer a butcher, brewer, tele-communication provider and the baker as industrialists or entrepreneurs. But for the sake of this discuss I would prefer to refer to them as capitalists. The subject of discuss is that it is not from the goodwill of these capitalists that the public expects its means of livelihood and sustenance but, from the regards of these capitalists to their own personal interest. To query the morality of this sentence is akin to querying the morality of capitalism.

Certainly the principal aim of every investor is to make maximum profit, therefore, he has to decipher and work out how to either train or find quality workers who will produce durable product; he must discover to cut cost so as to make affordable products; he has to develop strategies to market and distribute his product so it can reach as many potential buyers as possible, he sure must also figure out ways to finance his business so it can successfully meet up with future growth. All of these largely depend on the mind of the businessman, and are mostly powered by his quest for security and personal interest which practically isn’t immoral as long as he doesn’t violate the laws of justice.

The aggregate product of the dedication of the capitalist to thoughts, persuasion, and strategic reasoning is the virtue that our lives and prosperity depends on. In other words, it is truthful that it is not from the benevolence of the capitalist that others expect goods or services but from the regard of the capitalist to his own interest which in another sense is also a demand for product or service by consumers. This is the moral meaning of the law of supply and demand. It should be noted that producers make bigger than life losses when the demand of the consumers are not adequately met, thereby leading to consumers looking for alternatives. The demand of the consumers is also the interest of the producers. For what reason under the sun will a baker bake bread that consumers won’t and never consume?

In a free market system everyone is morally compelled by his own ambition to achieve personal goals. The market system advocates that no one demands the labour and wealth of another without willing to offer or trade something valuable as an exchange. If any party to the trade doesn’t gain or achieve anything in return, in terms of product, goods, or service; that will be immoral.

The rule of capitalism according to Adam Smith is that trade occurs by mutual consent and to mutual advantage. It has been observed that the most important recipe for building and advancing the human society isn’t out-rightly love like we religiously say, or even friendship, rather mutual benefits and team work.

The sole aim for production is for consumption. This is a sort of exchange between the producer and the consumer, people engage in exchange simply because they desire what others have that they don’t possess. Exchange is achieved without coercion; rather it is built within the structure of justice and morality. The baker must bake the bread that suits its patron else they won’t come back and every business person knows that his continuous profit lies in his ability not just to make customers, but also in his canny ability to make them come back again and again else, he won’t be long in business.

“Though the earth, and all inferior creatures, be common to all men, yet every man has a property in his own person: this nobody has any right to but himself. The labour of his body, and the works of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property.”

By critically analyzing the words of John Locke, an ace philosopher, it becomes clear without any iota of doubt that nobody has all the rights to himself. In the same way a producer has the right to reason logically and then produce, but whose right is it to endlessly depend on aid or the benevolence acts of others like many African nations do? No man or state gains independence of any sort by always depending on others. To tell the truth, to depend on the benevolence act of others is to shortchange oneself from personally creating unlimited wealth. Or with what prism of morality are we going to justify that some should get something for nothing? That would be a gross act of injustice and also the peak of immorality.

When we erroneously misconstrue the chase of a man’s interest or goal to produce and become wealthy with “selfishness”, then we become dishonest. There is little or no reason to think so and many reasons to think not. Though we may rightly say that the primary purpose of those in markets is to make profit which in itself is a purpose of self, didn’t even the great law of Christianity say a man should only love his neighbour the measure he loves himself. In spite of that, is it practically possible for anyone in business to achieve this so called “self interest”; without meeting the needs and interest of others, either by providing goods (be it bread, meat, gas or wine) or services, without employing workers thereby creating wealth and alienating poverty? Come to think of it, besides that Bill Gate’s utmost goal was to put goods and accessible computers on the tables of many made him one of the world’s richest that also engendered him to give massively to the interest of the underprivileged-who probably were not a part of his initial goal. What can be more moral? Just as two blind men can’t help themselves, the same, two waiters of benevolence act can’t.

Capitalism is a market system based on moral philosophy and justification. Capitalism supports the universal law of sowing and reaping. It is not morally wrong to put your money where your mouth is, or to have dreams that provide the needs of others and pursue it for the sake of personal interest that no one else can properly attend to. No one feels the pain of another except for the bearer of the pain. It would be rather ruthless to reap where one did not sow.

References
Extract from The Wisdom of Adam Smith, Benjamin Rogge (Ed) 1976. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.

Rand, Ayn. What Is Capitalism? In Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (1966). New York. Signet (Accessed from the IPN’s Ideas For A Free Society CD).

Rogge, Benjamin A. (Ed) 1976. Monopoly versus Free Trade {by Adam Smith}. In The Wisdom of Adam Smith. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund. 129-142.

An interview with Adam Smith Professor Edwin West (1922 – 2003).

Twenty Myths about Markets by Tom Palmer, Senior fellow Cato Institute. Delivered at conference on The Institutional Framework for Freedom in Africa, 2007 Regional Meeting, Mont Pelerine Society , Nairobi, Kenya. (Accessed from the IPN’s Ideas For A Free Society CD).

Two Treatises of Government (1824 ed.) (Accessed from the IPN’s Ideas For A Free Society CD).

Wikipedia. www.wikipedia.com/capitalism.

The Moral Basis of Capitalismby Robert W. Tracinski. www.capitalismcentre.org

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YOU LAZY (INTELLECTUAL) AFRICAN SCUM! A MUST READ FOR ALL!

They call the Third World the lazy man’s purview; the sluggishly slothful and languorous prefecture. In this realm people are sleepy, dreamy, torpid, lethargic, and therefore indigent—totally penniless, needy, destitute, poverty-stricken, disfavored, and impoverished. In this demesne, as they call it, there are hardly any discoveries, inventions, and innovations. Africa is the trailblazer. Some still call it “the dark continent” for the light that flickers under the tunnel is not that of hope, but an approaching train. And because countless keep waiting in the way of the train, millions die and many more remain decapitated by the day.

“It’s amazing how you all sit there and watch yourselves die,” the man next to me said. “Get up and do something about it.”

Brawny, fully bald-headed, with intense, steely eyes, he was as cold as they come. When I first discovered I was going to spend my New Year’s Eve next to him on a non-stop JetBlue flight from Los Angeles to Boston I was angst-ridden. I associate marble-shaven Caucasians with iconoclastic skin-heads, most of who are racist.

“My name is Walter,” he extended his hand as soon as I settled in my seat.

I told him mine with a precautious smile.

“Where are you from?” he asked.

“Zambia.”

“Zambia!” he exclaimed, “Kaunda’s country.”

“Yes,” I said, “Now Sata’s.”

“But of course,” he responded. “You just elected King Cobra as your president.”

My face lit up at the mention of Sata’s moniker. Walter smiled, and in those cold eyes I saw an amenable fellow, one of those American highbrows who shuttle between Africa and the U.S.

“I spent three years in Zambia in the 1980s,” he continued. “I wined and dined with Luke Mwananshiku, Willa Mungomba, Dr. Siteke Mwale, and many other highly intelligent Zambians.” He lowered his voice. “I was part of the IMF group that came to rip you guys off.” He smirked. “Your government put me in a million dollar mansion overlooking a shanty called Kalingalinga. From my patio I saw it all—the rich and the poor, the ailing, the dead, and the healthy.”

“Are you still with the IMF?” I asked.

“I have since moved to yet another group with similar intentions. In the next few months my colleagues and I will be in Lusaka to hypnotize the cobra. I work for the broker that has acquired a chunk of your debt. Your government owes not the World Bank, but us millions of dollars. We’ll be in Lusaka to offer your president a couple of millions and fly back with a check twenty times greater.”

“No, you won’t,” I said. “King Cobra is incorruptible. He is …”

He was laughing. “Says who? Give me an African president, just one, who has not fallen for the carrot and stick.”

Quett Masire’s name popped up.

“Oh, him, well, we never got to him because he turned down the IMF and the World Bank. It was perhaps the smartest thing for him to do.”

At midnight we were airborne. The captain wished us a happy 2012 and urged us to watch the fireworks across Los Angeles.

“Isn’t that beautiful,” Walter said looking down.

From my middle seat, I took a glance and nodded admirably.

“That’s white man’s country,” he said. “We came here on Mayflower and turned Indian land into a paradise and now the most powerful nation on earth. We discovered the bulb, and built this aircraft to fly us to pleasure resorts like Lake Zambia.”

I grinned. “There is no Lake Zambia.”

He curled his lips into a smug smile. “That’s what we call your country. You guys are as stagnant as the water in the lake. We come in with our large boats and fish your minerals and your wildlife and leave morsels—crumbs. That’s your staple food, crumbs. That corn-meal you eat, that’s crumbs, the small Tilapia fish you call Kapenta is crumbs. We the Bwanas (whites) take the cat fish. I am the Bwana and you are the Muntu. I get what I want and you get what you deserve, crumbs. That’s what lazy people get—Zambians, Africans, the entire Third World.”

The smile vanished from my face.

“I see you are getting pissed off,” Walter said and lowered his voice. “You are thinking this Bwana is a racist. That’s how most Zambians respond when I tell them the truth. They go ballistic. Okay. Let’s for a moment put our skin pigmentations, this black and white crap, aside. Tell me, my friend, what is the difference between you and me?”

“There’s no difference.”

“Absolutely none,” he exclaimed. “Scientists in the Human Genome Project have proved that. It took them thirteen years to determine the complete sequence of the three billion DNA subunits. After they were all done it was clear that 99.9% nucleotide bases were exactly the same in you and me. We are the same people. All white, Asian, Latino, and black people on this aircraft are the same.”

I gladly nodded.

“And yet I feel superior,” he smiled fatalistically. “Every white person on this plane feels superior to a black person. The white guy who picks up garbage, the homeless white trash on drugs, feels superior to you no matter his status or education. I can pick up a nincompoop from the New York streets, clean him up, and take him to Lusaka and you all be crowding around him chanting muzungu, muzungu and yet he’s a riffraff. Tell me why my angry friend.”

For a moment I was wordless.

“Please don’t blame it on slavery like the African Americans do, or colonialism, or some psychological impact or some kind of stigmatization. And don’t give me the brainwash poppycock. Give me a better answer.”

I was thinking.

He continued. “Excuse what I am about to say. Please do not take offense.”

I felt a slap of blood rush to my head and prepared for the worst.

“You my friend flying with me and all your kind are lazy,” he said. “When you rest your head on the pillow you don’t dream big. You and other so-called African intellectuals are damn lazy, each one of you. It is you, and not those poor starving people, who is the reason Africa is in such a deplorable state.”

“That’s not a nice thing to say,” I protested.

He was implacable. “Oh yes it is and I will say it again, you are lazy. Poor and uneducated Africans are the most hardworking people on earth. I saw them in the Lusaka markets and on the street selling merchandise. I saw them in villages toiling away. I saw women on Kafue Road crushing stones for sell and I wept. I said to myself where are the Zambian intellectuals? Are the Zambian engineers so imperceptive they cannot invent a simple stone crusher, or a simple water filter to purify well water for those poor villagers? Are you telling me that after thirty-seven years of independence your university school of engineering has not produced a scientist or an engineer who can make simple small machines for mass use? What is the school there for?”

I held my breath.

“Do you know where I found your intellectuals? They were in bars quaffing. They were at the Lusaka Golf Club, Lusaka Central Club, Lusaka Playhouse, and Lusaka Flying Club. I saw with my own eyes a bunch of alcoholic graduates. Zambian intellectuals work from eight to five and spend the evening drinking. We don’t. We reserve the evening for brainstorming.”

He looked me in the eye.

“And you flying to Boston and all of you Zambians in the Diaspora are just as lazy and apathetic to your country. You don’t care about your country and yet your very own parents, brothers and sisters are in Mtendere, Chawama, and in villages, all of them living in squalor. Many have died or are dying of neglect by you. They are dying of AIDS because you cannot come up with your own cure. You are here calling yourselves graduates, researchers and scientists and are fast at articulating your credentials once asked—oh, I have a PhD in this and that—PhD my foot!”

I was deflated.

“Wake up you all!” he exclaimed, attracting the attention of nearby passengers. “You should be busy lifting ideas, formulae, recipes, and diagrams from American manufacturing factories and sending them to your own factories. All those research findings and dissertation papers you compile should be your country’s treasure. Why do you think the Asians are a force to reckon with? They stole our ideas and turned them into their own. Look at Japan, China, India, just look at them.”

He paused. “The Bwana has spoken,” he said and grinned. “As long as you are dependent on my plane, I shall feel superior and you my friend shall remain inferior, how about that? The Chinese, Japanese, Indians, even Latinos are a notch better. You Africans are at the bottom of the totem pole.”

He tempered his voice. “Get over this white skin syndrome and begin to feel confident. Become innovative and make your own stuff for god’s sake.”

At 8 a.m. the plane touched down at Boston’s Logan International Airport. Walter reached for my hand.

“I know I was too strong, but I don’t give it a damn. I have been to Zambia and have seen too much poverty.” He pulled out a piece of paper and scribbled something. “Here, read this. It was written by a friend.”

He had written only the title: “Lords of Poverty.”

Thunderstruck, I had a sinking feeling. I watched Walter walk through the airport doors to a waiting car. He had left a huge dust devil twirling in my mind, stirring up sad memories of home. I could see Zambia’s literati—the cognoscente, intelligentsia, academics, highbrows, and scholars in the places he had mentioned guzzling and talking irrelevancies. I remembered some who have since passed—how they got the highest grades in mathematics and the sciences and attained the highest education on the planet. They had been to Harvard, Oxford, Yale, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), only to leave us with not a single invention or discovery. I knew some by name and drunk with them at the Lusaka Playhouse and Central Sports.

Walter is right. It is true that since independence we have failed to nurture creativity and collective orientations. We as a nation lack a workhorse mentality and behave like 13 million civil servants dependent on a government pay cheque. We believe that development is generated 8-to-5 behind a desk wearing a tie with our degrees hanging on the wall. Such a working environment does not offer the opportunity for fellowship, the excitement of competition, and the spectacle of innovative rituals.

But the intelligentsia is not solely, or even mainly, to blame. The larger failure is due to political circumstances over which they have had little control. The past governments failed to create an environment of possibility that fosters camaraderie, rewards innovative ideas and encourages resilience. KK, Chiluba, Mwanawasa, and Banda embraced orthodox ideas and therefore failed to offer many opportunities for drawing outside the line.

I believe King Cobra’s reset has been cast in the same faculties as those of his predecessors. If today I told him that we can build our own car, he would throw me out.

“Naupena? Fuma apa.” (Are you mad? Get out of here)

Knowing well that King Cobra will not embody innovation at Walter’s level let’s begin to look for a technologically active-positive leader who can succeed him after a term or two. That way we can make our own stone crushers, water filters, water pumps, razor blades, and harvesters. Let’s dream big and make tractors, cars, and planes, or, like Walter said, forever remain inferior.

A fundamental transformation of our country from what is essentially non-innovative to a strategic superior African country requires a bold risk-taking educated leader with a triumphalist attitude and we have one in YOU. Don’t be highly strung and feel insulted by Walter. Take a moment and think about our country. Our journey from 1964 has been marked by tears. It has been an emotionally overwhelming experience. Each one of us has lost a loved one to poverty, hunger, and disease. The number of graves is catching up with the population. It’s time to change our political culture. It’s time for Zambian intellectuals to cultivate an active-positive progressive movement that will change our lives forever. Don’t be afraid or dispirited, rise to the challenge and salvage the remaining few of your beloved ones.

Field Ruwe is a US-based Zambian media practitioner and author. He is a PhD candidate with a B.A. in Mass Communication and Journalism, and an M.A. in History

Via Mindofmalaka.wordpress.com

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THE POPULAR WILL by MALLAM NASIR ELRUFAI

Any discerning reader that is familiar with this column will have by now been able to see a common thread that runs through this column in the past 30 weeks or so. This week’s column must of necessity be on a subject of popular will with respect to the political turmoil with which the country is currently bedeviled. Let me first commend and salute the people of Nigeria – young, old, middle aged, labour, civil society, employed, unemployed, market women, and youths for summoning the courage to do that which is perhaps unprecedented in the struggle to make Nigeria better and greater during our lifetime.

 It was only a few weeks ago that President Jonathan dared Nigerians by publicly boasting that he was ready to confront mass revolt rather than defer the removal of subsidy on petrol. It is self evident that no well meaning government would affront us all that way when the foundation for the legitimacy for governance derives from the people. It was George Bernard Shaw that aptly stated that “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. Most people only know this much about this popular quotation but for those who are able to dig deeper, the above represents, at best, only half of the full quotation which ends with “Except for those who learn from lessons of history” and is read in conjunction with the first part of the quotation.

Thus President Jonathan would not have allowed power to get to his head if he had learned anything from the lessons of history. Some have argued that Nigeria is different and as such the Arab Spring has no place in Nigeria. Do they still think so? To be sure, the ongoing struggle between the executive arm of President Jonathan’s administration and the people is, in the view of this column, for all intents and purposes the Nigerian equivalent of the Arab spring. It is the popular will which shall and must prevail at the end of the day.

So what really is at stake? Is this just about the removal of the fuel subsidy, when to remove it or is it about what a good government should be?

First, let us examine the economics as well as the politics of the fuel subsidy.

As stated in one of our previous articles on this column on the subject of the petroleum industry, there are 2 schools of thought: (1) That of ‘Buhari and Tam David-West’ that believes there is no subsidy if actual cost of exploration, local refining and transportation are the constituents of the pump price for refined petroleum products, and (2) The ‘government’ school that is based on the opportunity cost, i.e., the international quoted price for petroleum products.

Clearly, if domestic refineries are functional and producing enough to meet domestic demand, as the 7th largest exporter of crude oil should do, the difference between the two schools of thought would narrow as it is simply because the actual cost of delivering a litre of petrol to the pump head would have been about N40 that no one in the executive arm of government has yet been able to refute or disprove. Therefore the fact that the government has to resort to the opportunity cost basis as a rationale for justifying the existence of an “import-based” subsidy is indeed a self induced burden that the Nigerian people are being forced to bear.

This brings to mind a fundamental principle of common law that no one should profit from his or her wrong, which when applied should preclude the government from seeking to pass the inefficiency and incompetence on its part in failing to ensure that our domestic refineries work and jobs are created. Indeed the economic cost to the nation is not just a subsidy element that the Nigerian people are having to suffer but also foreign exchange, well paying jobs and skills that have gone down the drain with importation of refined petroleum products. We can therefore conclude that the economic justification for the withdrawal of the fuel subsidy is self induced and should not stand.

Secondly, even if the Nigerian people should decide that refined petroleum products should be sold at the opportunity cost which is the international benchmark price, the popular will remains that the cost and size of government today is unwieldy and unacceptable. In 2011 nearly 75% of the entire budget was spent on recurrent expenditure. The people have complained time and again that the salaries and allowances of the executive and legislative arms of government are neither affordable nor sustainable. Why has the government shied away from tackling 75% of the problem whilst devoting energy to the remaining 25%?

The bloated overheads are not only real but have been carried forward into the 2012 budget proposal such that only N1.3tr out of the total budget of N4.75tr is available for capital expenditure. Meanwhile the presidency is budgeting N1.8b to maintain ‘existing furniture, office and residential quarters’, N1.7b for travel (N724m domestic, N951m international), a ministry has budgeted N2.5b for ‘citizens call centers’ whilst the ministry of agriculture has budgeted N1.2b to incorporate commodity marketing companies. Stationery, refreshments and snacks in the presidency will consume about N2b, miscellaneous spending by the presidential villa alone totals about N1.7b for food, honorarium and something called welfare packages. The SGF and head of service will also receive over N2.5b for miscellaneous expenses including about N300m for welfare and N270m for security votes. These are nothing but misplaced spending priorities!

Moving on to the components of the so called N1.3tr fuel subsidy (by end of October 2011) the government is bent on removing, we can ignore the fact that no one in government has been able to analyze and substantiate how the amount of the subsidy ballooned or skyrocketed from the earmarked amount of N240b or between of N300-N500b in the last four years, to the N1.3tr now and focus on the fact that both the government and the people have agreed that the process and system of subsidy payments are corrupt and fraught with fraud. So the question is why this government is not as anxious to investigate and charge all those found to have abused the system as it is determined to remove the subsidy.

Meanwhile government has also budgeted about N1,147 billion (not N922 billion!) for the security sector. Ordinarily, given that security of lives and property is arguably the most important function of government, no one will quarrel with the magnitude of this provision for national security per se but for the fact that like everything handled by this administration, it is riddled with secrecy, lack of transparency and corruption. People are demanding for the so called security votes to be made more transparent and for competitive bidding to be the norm for all national procurements in accordance with the Public Procurement Act. So at a time when the entire country is under siege from attacks by insurgents, religious fanatics, armed robbers, kidnappers and militants alike, including the unfortunate and condemnable massacre of innocent citizens in sacred places of worship, the government chose to worsen the mood of the nation by unilaterally removing the fuel subsidy.

In response to the widespread anger, the government in yet another show of insensitivity and incompetence, announced a so called ‘SURE’ package to ostensibly alleviate the suffering of the citizens but if truth be told, the so called ‘SURE’ package is founded on unsure, unsound and uncertain grounds. But for the fact that it may not be politically correct to accuse the government of embarking on a grand 419 scheme, the SURE program is close to being a mirage if only because not a single naira provision has been made in the 2012 budget for the program in its entirety. So it is bad enough that the government blatantly violated our constitution by admittedly expending more than N1.3tr on fuel subsidy without legislative approval or appropriation, but it is taken to the point of absurdity that the government will now openly announce and publish an elaborate program of spending as detailed in the SURE program without any appropriation whatsoever.

This is why the people must see the Jonathan administration for what it is. The excuse that the government plans to submit a supplementary budget is clearly an afterthought that should be out rightly dismissed. In any case, the 2012 revenue projections already assume zero deductions for subsidy and still contains nearly N1 trillion as deficit, so where will SURE get the revenues to fund it? We should cross that bridge if and when we get there if only because a bird in hand is worth 10 in the bush.

For the government to offer a so called palliative that has not even been submitted as a budget proposal is as deceptive as it is a case of medicine after death given that the people’s suffering started as far back as the 1st of January when those that travelled for the holidays were and are probably still stranded. The unaffordable price increases that were occasioned by the removal of the subsidy with which necessities such as transport and food were immediately affected are present and continuing and no one knows how many will not be alive to benefit from the so-called palliatives.

The government needs to apologize to Nigerians and go back to the drawing board. Nigerians, including this writer, are not against deregulation per se and if any example of shoddy government is needed, it is to be found in this current impasse of subsidy removal. Deregulation is a package of transition from public monopoly to competitive market. Necessary ingredients for this transition include at the barest minimum; (1) Well articulated policy review (2) Enabling legislation to de-monopolize the sector (3) A regulatory agency that will supervise the sector and implement the program (4) Attracting and licensing of private sector providers in the sector. That is what we did in the BPE with the telecommunications sector, and now the electricity industry.

Clearly when the Jonathan administration’s approach to this issue is measured against the foregoing minimum 4 ingredients, it is glaringly obvious that what we have is, at best, a knee jerk approach rather than a well thought out deregulation program. If not, who is the regulatory agency for the deregulated downstream petroleum sector? If the answer is PPPRA, is the agency well equipped and ready for this task? And where are its program? And why was the petroleum industry bill not enacted prior to the subsidy removal? Who are the private sector competitors that will replace or augment the moribund publicly owned refineries? Are we to continue to depend on the imported refined products as a substitute for local value addition and job creation? These and more are the reasons why the people have embarked on the peaceful protest against subsidy removal.

As can be summarized from the foregoing points, there can be no rational economic justification for the subsidy removal until the wastages in government have been curtailed if not eliminated, those that abuse the system have been penalized or sanctioned; just as there can be no political or social justification until a consensus has been reached by the people that petroleum products should be priced at the opportunity cost. It only remains to also state that the legal issue of whether or not the ongoing protest is legal is an issue of semantics simply because the injunction that the government procured from the National Industrial Court is only to preclude organized labour from calling for or embarking on a national strike. It is submitted that this is not just a strike but a peaceful protest that goes beyond organized labour.

This in essence is the thesis of this submission that the right to protest in support of the popular will is an inalienable, fundamental human right that can never be abridged or abrogated by any court; such that were organized labour to recall their members from the national strike, this nationwide peaceful protest will continue unabated. The government is duty bound to protect its citizens and see that no protester is harmed, so a situation where thugs are attacking and vandalizing the NLC offices or attacking unarmed youths in Abuja should be looked into by the government. Overwhelming majority of Nigerians are not just protesting against the removal of the fuel subsidy but against bad governance that manifests itself in the pervasive insecurity of lives and property, widespread corruption and unacceptable huge cost of running the government.

In conclusion, both houses of the National Assembly have called on the executive arm of government to respect the popular will and not only reverse its position on removal of fuel subsidy but to also begin to address itself to the urgent pressing issues of corruption, insecurity and bloated cost of governance. This is the popular will that cannot be wished away. President Jonathan was wrong to have dared the people’s resolve. Now that he has been confronted with mass protests, it is in the collective best interest for him to begin to show that he is a democrat and a leader by respecting the popular will. The sooner the better. Worse still, the government sought to save about $7b from subsidy removal whilst the country is losing between $1 – $2b daily by way of lost GDP from the nationwide protests. Is this not a case of penny wise pound foolish? The answer is President Jonathan’s call and not that of his cabinet and advisers.

Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai

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BETWEEN YOUR LIFE, THE LITTLE THINGS AND 2012 by 'Lanre Olagunju

All of life’s good and ugly experiences are like tiny sand particles that eventually accumulate into a well built castle. At the end, it would be evidently clear that all that ever happened along life’s trip, including some of the inadvertent ugly occurrences that naturally wouldn’t have gotten a space in our to-do-list, was needed for the actualization of our utmost dream. Some of this unpleasant experiences will be responsible for refining, some of the failures will be the reason to return to the drawing board to re-strategize and consult with deeper wisdom, hence, discovering more ways of how to do things, and in some other cases, how not to.

It is at such times that we are forced to dig deeper, try harder, and also discover gift we never knew we possessed. It’s at such times that our eyes of understanding are opened to the limitless streams of opportunities that lie fallow all around seeking to be potentiated. Moreover, God hides things by putting them all around us. The little and minor achievement here and there would be a pointer that gold lies somewhere ahead. The sum total of all we pass through is the building block to our break through including the unpleasant experiences, most especially if you don’t relent and then throw in the towel. See how Steve Jobs explained it in his ever fresh and alive commencement speech in Stanford University “It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith”.

Just as there are certain things that are beyond man’s ability and control. In like ways, there are numerous things that man is saddled with the sole responsibility to manage and tactically perfect how to control, such that those things we can’t control can eventually work for our benefits.

For instance, a farmer has no ability to control the weather. He can only predict when the rains will come. Yet he can’t ascertain, no matter how hard he tries! Not in present days of global climate change. But a wise farmer must make him himself available during the planting seasons, he’s got to be committed to that, else, the only thing he would have to harvest when others are harvesting will be the best of nothing.

Just like we can’t manage time in the real sense of it, but we have all it takes to ensure that we manage our daily plans so as to ensure that time brings the result we desire. Consequently, any forceful or dogged intension to control things that are absolutely beyond ones power is to give oneself freely to frustration.

It’s abundantly clear that life is all about chances and uncertainty, therefore the most rewarding thing is to follow ones heart and inner instinct. The decision to follow ones inner craving doesn’t necessarily have to be approved by others as we most times feel. The most important things is to check if there’s a very positive feeling about what you’re doing. The love of what you’re doing is what gives the push to carry on when it’s not out-rightly clear what kind of result it would yield.

It’s of great importance that you trust that the series of past and present events will somehow, someday, connect in your future. Everyone trusts in something! But it is of great advantage that you trust in yourself, your gut and your inner ability and stuffs that your heart describes as meaningful. The study of weather makes it clear that to make weather forecast or prediction, the previous weather data of years back would be a major prerequisite. Hence, it is worth noting that despite life has a fair share of uncertainty, yet, to a considerable extend, things don’t just happen. If we take time to check, we would realize that things have a way of connecting.

Life is short, so in that regards, you will agree that it’s absolutely pointless to waste life living on the results of other people’s thoughts and opinion. It’s a waste. A colossal waste! Finding ones voice is a major task that requires so much discoveries that must be done. To avoid the noise of the crowd burying ones inner voice will require a million watt size of courage.

Courage is needed to follow your heart and intuition. Courage is needed to question conventional wisdom, therefore putting their validity to test. To achieve goals that will help others and make a difference in our world, so much courage must be mustered. Courage and more courage would be needed because we would unavoidably, be faced with despair. Albert Camus and Jean Paul Sartre are of the opinion that courage isn’t the absence of despair, that courage is the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair. Courage is the foundation that underlies and gives reality to all other personal values. What is the essence of interest combined with passion without courage? See, with courage commitment is easier. People attain worth and dignity by the multitude of decisions they make day by day. Taking decisions require courage. It’s also been discovered that courageous people take more decisions than others, and they are better for it. Courage is the crystal clear indication that something is far more important than fear.

Many great achievers were not born with the greatness that they suddenly display. While they were busy preparing for the unknown task ahead, by trying their hands on many things and making errors repeatedly, unfortunately, no one saw them. If truly the end must count, it simply implies that each day must count, the decisions and actions of today must count, therefore, at the end the sum total of everything will count.

As the remaining days in 2011 gradually folds away, it is without doubt that the remaining hours too will count because without them the heavily pregnant 2012 will remain in the future.

Happy holiday!

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OIL AND GAS: THE SUBSIDY CONUNDRUM By Nasir El-Rufai

In 1962, according to Alhaji Adamu Wazirin Fika, the Government of the Northern Region faced a shortfall in revenues from falling world commodity prices. At a crisis meeting of the regional ministers, the first decision agreed on was that the salaries of the ministers should be cut by 50 per cent.

Today, even as the polity is becoming more heated due to worsening economic conditions and plans by government to remove the subsidy on petroleum products, President Goodluck Jonathan in his wisdom led a retinue of three executive jets and a contingent of some 120 people to Australia for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM); the Head of the Commonwealth of Nations, the Queen of England, went by British Airways (BA).

This scene should set the tone as to whether the fuel subsidy exists at all and if government is justified in its plans to remove it. Does the Federal Government truly provide a subsidy on petroleum products consumed? If there is, should it be removed at this point? Why not? These are just a few of the myriad of questions bothering the minds of most Nigerians on this issue. What then is subsidy? Does it exist? If so, is it justified? In what ways can the interest of the ordinary Nigerian be best protected as far as the subsidy conundrum is concerned?

Broadly speaking, any mechanism that is designed to reduce the cost of an activity (input and/or output) below market prices can be referred to as subsidy. The policy of subsidy by government may be to keep prices low, to maintain incomes, or to preserve employment and to influence investments and consumption patterns in an economy. There are two approaches to this fuel subsidy debate – one saying subsidy exists (Opportunity Cost – the government’s view), while the other (Resource Endowment or Aluko- Buhari view) denies its existence.

According to the Aluko-Buhari Approach, there should be no reason why Nigerians should pay import-parity prices for petroleum products since we currently pay more than the actual cost of producing and refining the product. The position nor subsidy in whatever form. But as local demand grew, there was some justification for government intervention in the process especially after the civil war when local consumption continued to grow and demand outstripped supply leading to shortages.

The Oputa Panel of Inquiry which examined the root causes of the nationwide shortages of petroleum products made wide-ranging recommendations which laid the foundation for the present involvement of government in the importation, refining and management of local consumption of petroleum products.

Though government intervention sorted out the problems in the short term, inefficiencies in the system began to manifest. At the time, the issues that were to later change the management of the local consumption of petroleum products thus bringing forth subsidy were not envisaged. For instance, there was no conception that Nigeria would be unable to meet domestic consumption. And even if we had to rely on importation, as it later turned out, the devaluation of the naira was not considered. The naira was at par with the dollar. But today, the naira seems to be on a permanent slide, and at the last count exchanged at N160 to one US dollar With the continual rise in the price of crude oil at the international market, the fixing of pump price of petroleum products became difficult to manage because the prices of imported products were at a bench-mark determined internationally – and in dollar terms.

So in real terms, it would be right to state that subsidy exists on the petroleum products consumed locally in Nigeria. As at year 2000, it was about N1.5 billion annually but has risen to a whooping N1.2 trillion in the first nine months of 2011 – nearly the size of the capital budget for 2011!

Beneath the surface of these facts lies the complication on the issue of subsidy. Given the fact that we are an oil-producing country and the level of corruption in the refining, importation and distribution process, is it justified to give away so much money to a few? Is the interest of the ordinary citizen better served with a subsidy regime, or are we better off without one? Although it is ascertainable that there is a subsidy – the point remains that it would not have arisen if not for cumulative inefficiency and corruption within the petroleum sector over the years.

Facing the reality of impending subsidy removal, the question that comes up is: “why now?” Since government is a social contract between the government and citizens, it makes sense to demand to know if removal of subsidy on petroleum products was part of the campaign manifestoes of President Jonathan in the run-up to the 2011 presidential elections.

On one hand, can Nigeria afford to spend so much on subsidising fuel importation? On the other, if government proceeds with plans to remove subsidy, there would be inevitable consequences for most Nigerians. This would have been a simple issue had government made adequate provision of effective intermodal transportation system – in form of metro, bus or urban taxi system. But this is not the case. And since most Nigerians rely on petroleum products to power their individual generator sets, and kerosene for cooking, the effects of the subsidy removal would be far-reaching. That points to the fact of already existing poverty and the result is better imagined.

A government seeking for belt-tightening among her citizens should be seen to be prudent. What we have instead is a regime that keeps an avalanche of presidential aides – with more appointed just two days ago. Why should ordinary Nigerians bear the burden of government insensitivity? Where is the legitimacy for a government that keeps its recurrent spending at least 70 per cent seeking to pass the burden of 360 new cars for legislators to the ordinary citizen? Where are the specific projects to which the proposed savings would be committed? What sustainable implementation plan exists for such projects? Where is the blueprint to increase capacity to refine what is consumed locally? Who knows how much petrol we really import? Who can tell us how much of it is smuggled while the cost is added to “subsidy”?

How many Nigerians know that the country now owes more than we did at the time before our exit from the debt trap in 2005? Does a government that has shown no sense of sacrifice deserve to further burden the impoverished populace with a large number of unemployed people? Can we trust this government to use whatever savings it may get from the removal of oil subsidy to develop critical infrastructure, stimulate the economy and create jobs? Your answer to these questions should be your answer to whether government is justified to remove petroleum subsidy.

Under an administration that exhibits some prudence and sacrifice, that is disciplined and fiscally-responsible, and led by people of integrity, I would bear the initial pain of subsidy withdrawal while our domestic refining capacity is revamped and expanded. Under the current leadership addicted to spending all its earnings on recurrent expenses, any more sacrifice from us for them will only encourage Australia-like junkets and tenure elongation! More partying for them, more pain for us.

Culled from www.thisdayonline.com

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