Brief comments

For quite some time, insecurity and violence have been, or rather should have been the priority for the Nigerian public and for all three tiers of government in our federal republic. But these issues were somewhat eclipsed by the nationwide protests that followed the removal of the fuel subsidy.

Without commenting on the substance of the dispute (i.e. the fuel subsidy itself), it was interesting to see the Nigerian public broadly take positions on an issue based on the issue itself, without the intervention of the usual regional/ethnic political chess. Indeed, as I watched the protests, a part of me pondered the fact that we had wasted the 2011 Elections by casting our votes based on what we felt about the following question: Is it still "the North's" turn in the rotational presidency system, or has "the North" had enough turns and it is now the turn of the Niger-Deltal where the oil is produced?

In the context of our politico-economic reality, an issue like this one (i.e. the fuel subsidy) should really have been decided at an election, with the differing views on what to do with/to the subsidy marking the dividing line between political parties and between executive and legislative candidates.

Whatever it is you feel about the issue (and I have not expressed my own opinion), we can all agree that it is, and has always been, a politically very volatile issue.

President Jonathan had initially intended to end the subsidy early in 2011, and only included enough funding for a couple of months of it in the 2011 Budget. But having realized that he would lose the 2011 election (to be held in April) if he removed the subsidy at the end of February, the president decided to continue the subsidy payments through to the end of the year -- without adjusting the budget (expense side or revenue side) to compensate for it. So our deficit and debt went up in 2011 so as to maintain President Jonathan's reelection hopes, which is rather irresponsible.

But more to the point, if an issue is politically dangerous enough that you know you cannot win a democratic election after doing a certain thing, then it is even more important that you either make that thing subject to an election or referendum (obliging yourself to campaign hard enough to make your decision more popular before the vote), or if you are going to deceive people about what you intend to do after the election so as to win the election, then at the very least commit some time and effort after winning the election to persuading enough people to change their minds about the issue before you do it.

Sure, there was something the government pretended to be a campaign to explain the move to end the subsidy, but the thing about Nigeria is our political leaders have never really had to explain themselves to the people, nor have they ever really had to get the people's approval before doing anything ... so they don't really know how to do it, or what constitutes having done it. There was much talk of "transformation", but a "transformational leader" is one who is able to persuade the people to agree to changes which, prior to that point, they may not have agreed to.

I am almost tempted to hope that this issue stays alive until 2015, forcing the respective candidates to campaign on the issue. Whether my side of the issue wins or loses, at least it would be an election that was decided on the issues and not on regional/ethnic political chess.

Alas, with security a pressing and increasingly problematic issue, we can ill afford the distraction of the fuel subsidy debate.

Yeah, security should be the centrepiece of political debate. Unfortunately, the things we need to do to improve public security are, and sadly always have been, the sort of things our political leaders are loathe to do. Our leaders prefer to do enough to keep us from anarchy while not doing enough to get us to a plateau of stability and security.