'SORRY ATIKU,WE DON'T NEED FUEL SUBSIDY'

While ADC Presidential candidate,Atiku Abubakar promising to reinstate fuel subsidy may appeal to some,the honest truth is that he is proving he is everything Nigeria doesn't need at the moment.The late President Buhari's confusion was very clearly highlighted in an article i wrote 10 years ago bemoaning how we had been turned to lab rats for his subsidy removal and reinstatement experiments.If Atiku was promising to remove fuel subsidy in 2023 and is now promising to reinstate it then the man doesn't quite understand the problem which is the very first step towards solving it.We can't afford to allow anyone gamble our destinies away.At least not now.

The fact that prominent nigerians are now owning refineries in obscure countries abroad should be enough illustration of how lucrative fuel importation is to those involved (directly or indirectly) and the magnitude of the forces that will sabotage any genuine effort to fix our refineries or get Dangote to refine and sell our oil to us at a reasonable price.Fuel subsidy may have existed since the '70s in Nigeria but the economic reality now is different from what it was then.India,Brazil and even our African brothers Morrocco are good examples of countries that have removed subsidy and are much better off.

In some cases it was gradual and structured but they never got confused and lost the plot like Mr Abubakar is already doing outside office.Subsidy has primarily existed in these times for us because we have become a fuel importing nation despite being oil-producing.To put it less subtly,we have become a huge joke.

Professional analysis puts current fuel price if our 4 refineries were operational amidst the current global oil price shock at N750-N950 per litre instead of N1,100-N1,300 which in effect means we would be buying fuel at about N500 under normal circumstances.The emphasis should be on refining fuel in Nigeria and eliminating astronomical costs in the form of heavy vessel freight charges,marine insurance,foreign port demurrage and import duties.It is really that simple.

Politicians always wax righteous and express eagerness at solving this 'little' problem but they get into power and realize the easy billions of dollars to be made by importing fuel and allocating money for 'maintaining' perpetually non-functional refineries.Going by what Tinubu said when he became President,all of our refineries should be up and running by now.So far he has spent $2.8bn on 4 refineries that refine a total of 445k barrels per day to zero effect.A 400k barrels per day refinery can be built today at an average cost of $6bn which simply means what he has spent on our 4 refineries is roughly half the sum needed to build a single refinery with just about their entire refining capacity.

The problem in 2026 Nigeria is not subsidy,it is why we are still importing fuel.What makes what Atiku has said totally out of order is the fact that in this same country,there is a 650k barrels per day Dangote refinery which is fixated also on refining and exporting to other nations.What that means is that we have a lot of leverage.If we pass a new law governing private refineries today preventing him from accessing crude being shipped in and also hinder him from exporting petroleum products in addition to drowning him in taxes,as a businessman he would have to agree to selling fuel to us at an affordable price.That is what any government truly concerned about the welfare of its people would do and primarily why President Tinubu has failed us inexcusably.That also should be the main talking point for Atiku not subsidizing fuel.

Though unsubstantiated reports indicate we save up to N10trn annually due to subsidy removal,the official figure given by the Ministry of Finance is that we have saved N15.8trn from June 2023 to December 2025.That is a whole lot and it is only truly a matter of whether or not that money has been deployed to good use.No doubt the merits of fuel subsidy removal far out-weigh its reinstatement.Governments are supposed to be performing optimally with much less borrowing but it is sad that in Nigeria today we are being subjected to immense suffering simply because government is deliberately choosing to over-look the simple reason why fuel is too expensive in the first place which is importation costs.

CELIA ALBUM REVIEW: CONSERVATIVE TIWA MAY HAVE SHED SOME WIDTH BUT SHE STILL HAS CLASS

There are pop divas that get left behind for no other reason than they stay true to themselves.The older they get,the more mature and less commercially appealing their music gets.The ones that dare to be inorganically adventurous usually have to deal with the problem that you can't be anyone better than you.

Creative flexibility has always been one of Tiwa's main attributes so that certainly isn't the problem considering she recorded the out-of-the-box 49-99 less than a year ago.Miss Savage perhaps just wanted to sing and not worry about anything else on Celia and its a really good thing that she can sing.The album-opening Save My Life is the highlight of plain and simple Tiwa; a classy mid-tempo track you can vibe to on your seat or on the dance floor.Temptationand Dangerous Love were pre-album singles that already prepared us for a Tiwa more inclined to slow things down and lean towards her sonorous side.Though Pakalamisi with London singer,Hamzaa and Attention are unmoving and raise reasonable doubts as to the sustainability of this version of her, Park Well featuring Davido reiterates why no version of her should be written off.Its effortlessly classy and easy on the ears.

Fans of the jumpy and sassy Tiwa might say Celia is a mid life crisis for the most part they hope she will overcome in no time but 2 personal and to quite a degree,introspective songs therein suggest this Tiwa is here to stay.Rather than a mid life crisis,it may very well be a 40 year old lady no longer keen on stretching as far she used to.Us is an emotional lady looking back at the experience with her former husband and accepting that perhaps they just weren't meant to be without blaming anyone for it.Celia's Song is a song thanking God for her mother and all she has been through.(Celia is her mother's name incase you haven't heard already).

Koroba may not be razz Tiwa at 100 but she hits the bullseye on Ole featuring Naira Marley.A soft yet cheeky and absorbing song rendered on an inch-perfect Rexxie beat.She also comes correct on Bombay where she solicits Burna boy's beau, Stefflon Don and Otedola crooner, Dice Ailes.Tiwa lives up to her African Bad Gyal moniker here.She talks the talk and has Stefflon Don spitting pidgin for the very first time ever.

Tiwa's range has always stood her out from the rest and though we see a more conservative version on Celia, she goes for the extraordinary in Glory and to great effect i must say.

She may lack the intensity she had in 2015 when she released the R.E.D album with guests like D'Prince,Dr Sid,Iceberg Slimm,Busy Signal and Olamide to help produce a rich and commercially correct album but she still gets the job done.