Of empathy, public policy and government preferences

The current policy crisis rocking Nigeria tends to affirm the belief that often governments are the architects of the problems that engulf their nations. From improper timing of policies to failure to confront the powers behind specific problems, governments sometimes miss the opportunity to deal with policy issues at the prime time. This imposes costs on the economy, and this is what Nigeria has been experiencing.

Their officials are the ones who make decisions on behalf of the entire populace. And, acting with the know-it-all posture that characterises public officials’ pronouncements, they sometimes broach no alternative views, choosing to go ahead with their paradigms as agreed upon in their chambers.

Unfortunately, when the troubles come, it is often the people, the ordinary citizens, who are asked to bear the burden. When governments box themselves into tight corners where solutions do not appear in sight, it is the people who are called upon to tighten their belts, to brace up for the tough days ahead.

At such times, governments resort to framing the situation in ways that help them to win the support of the citizens. Citizens are told that their troubles are necessary sacrifices to secure a better tomorrow. The government empathises (or sympathises?) with the helpless citizens over their sufferings, but consoles them that it is of temporary duration and for their good going forward.

The trouble with this is that the crises usually follow periods of profligacy on the part of the government and its officials. It comes after governments have followed the path of policy indiscretion and consequently incurred the inevitable backlash. Governments sometimes, in pursuit of ill-defined objectives are ready to pursue programmes that lack definition or meaning in the context of the needs or direction of the economy at a given point in time. Sometimes, governments take action in response to problems long after such problems manifest, making the late responses irrelevant or ineffective. When social and economic problems have existed for some time, such lagged policy responses lose their potency in tackling the challenges.

The actions could have been taken by the current or immediate-past administration, but all the same, the state is usually responsible for these distortions in the policy space. It really does not matter much, some people would argue, since the government is a continuum.

This whole brouhaha that has enveloped Nigeria emanated from one single policy: the pricing of petroleum products in the country. For all the time it was in place, petrol subsidies suited the powers that be; those who matter in society were beneficiaries, one way or the other. And this itself was possible because of the height to which corruption in the oil and gas sector has been elevated.

Up to now, most Nigerians are still wondering: who controls the oil industry in the country? It is not a secret that in Nigeria this industry is still shrouded in secrecy, which made it possible for the subsidy programme to last for long. Yet, everybody in government says they do not know who was benefiting from it.

Nigerians were some years ago treated to melodramas on our national television as we watched revelations on how our commonwealth was being appropriated by a few highly placed individuals in the name of oil subsidy payments. They accumulated so much wealth without being part of its creation. That is why Nigeria has some wealthy people who have not in any way been wealth creators! It is so because the system has permitted it, but what we are experiencing now is the ultimate price that we have to pay for official sleaze and inefficiency.

Therefore, whichever way we look at it, oil subsidy smacks of policy failure. When it was in place, it did not benefit the ordinary Nigerian people; now that it has been removed by official fiat, it is the same poor Nigerian people who are wounded. So, both its method of implementation and removal represent policy defects.

This policy failure perspective should have been evoked long before now to tackle the problem created by oil subsidies in a way that would have had a less disruptive impact on our national life. Public policy is certainly not for the benefit of a few, and since this was not the case, collective action should have been taken against it. But the powers that be chose to play to the gallery; they chose, in effect, to play politics with it, therefore giving the sore time and space to fester.

This is why Nigeria’s current crisis is a prophecy foretold. The fact that it has finally come upon the nation shows that those who should have paid heed to warnings refused to do so.  

Policy timing should be accorded its rightful place in Nigeria. It’s not just the magnitude of variables that matters; the change’s timing is equally important. While the oil subsidy was discovered to have been hijacked by powerful groups, there was no real plan to end it in a systematic way.

This policy lethargy was at its peak during the last administration. While the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari identified subsidies as a drain on the budget, the government kept dragging its feet over its removal. Several times, his administration told Nigerians how subsidy was eating into the national budget so much that it had become a threat to the real issue of running the government without borrowing so much.

We entered the new dispensation and moved to the other extreme, with subsidy removed by a single sentence. Removing subsidies was clearly inevitable, but some of us believe that it could have taken a different route.

The costs we are incurring now, including the social dislocations being experienced all over the country, are the consequences of the route we have taken. Someday, the cost-benefit analyses of this route and other possible approaches would be done. For now, the president told Nigerians on Monday that we have already saved a trillion naira since the death of the subsidy on May 29 this year. At the same time, we have incurred and are still incurring costs. The net between the two is what matters, in the end.