Cooking gas: Punishing Nigerians

THIS is definitely not the best of times to be a Nigerian. On all fronts, Nigerians are daily assailed by the ravages of poor leadership, including widespread hunger and deprivation. With rising cost of living and pervasive insecurity, life has become a nightmare for most of the over 200 million population. In the last few weeks, in particular, the inefficiency and incompetence of the country’s political leadership have been put into bold relief via the difficulty encountered by Nigerians in meeting one of their most critical needs: cooking. The cost of cooking gas, a commodity used daily by millions of Nigerians, has increased drastically, compounding the misery of households. According to a survey carried out by the Global Financial Digest, the price of cooking gas jumped by a hundred per cent in December 2020. And things have gone progressively worse since then, as borne out by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).  According to the body, in August this year, the average cost of refilling a 5kg cylinder of cooking gas increased by 3.52 per cent month-on-month and by 8.64 per cent year-on-year.

The reasons for this terrible state of affairs are not hard to guess. The cooking gas that millions of households in the country rely on for their daily cooking needs is imported, not produced locally, and that means that it is affected by the foreign exchange market. The stronger the naira performs against the dollar, ceteris paribus, the better the opportunity for Nigerians to obtain cooking gas at fairly reasonable cost. Secondly, the drastic increase in the price of the commodity in question is also due to the 7.5 per cent valued added tax (VAT) that the Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government, against the grain of logic and humanity, imposed on the importation of the commodity recently. Indeed, the government not only imposed that prohibitive tax on the importation of gas, it also caused the policy to have a retroactive effect, putting importers in an impossible situation.

To say the least, the step taken by the government is unconscionable. The foreign exchange rate, as everyone knows, is substantially a function of governmental performance. If the government had done well, the foreign exchange rate would not have risen astronomically as it has in recent times. For a long time and against wise counsel, the government failed to address the issue of multiple exchange rates. Only last Thursday, the naira hit an all-time low, exchanging  hands with the greenback at N530 per $1. This translated into a N2.00 or 0.40 per cent devaluation from N528 rate recorded in the previous session last Wednesday. Similarly, the naira weakened further against the dollar at the official market as foreign exchange supply plummeted significantly. Data posted on the FMDQ Security Exchange where forex is officially traded showed that the naira closed at N411.67 per $1 at the official market.

Since the cooking gas misery in which Nigerians are mired is a product of governmental failure, what the the government should have done following the steep rise in the price of cooking gas is to put in place palliatives to cushion the effects on the populace. Sadly, it refused to do this. Instead, it chose to compound issues by imposing a 7.5 per cent VAT on its importation, backdating that law to exact maximum gain from the market and, by implication, the people whose comfort it is in office to ensure. To all intents and purposes, that action amounts to criminalising the people’s existence and survival. To borrow Achebean terminology, the government effectively put a knife on the things that had hitherto held households together, and they are now falling apart with deadly rapidity. Governance does not need to be decidedly draconian.

Besides, the stark contradiction inherent in the government’s action is borne out by the inevitable open invitation to deforestation. In recent years, the Federal Government has sought to actualise a paradigm shift in the use of energy sources in the country. It has harped on the need to address deforestation frontally in order to restore balance to the ecosystem. As a matter of fact, at a point, it even wanted to give out cylinders for free, in order to encourage the use of cleaner sources of energy and ensure that the country’s forests were preserved.  In encouraging Nigerians to adopt the use of cooking gas, the government harped on the fact that, compared to the traditional method of cooking with firewood, it saves time, involves less stress, is cleaner, and reduces pollution. Yet, the same government is now seeking to return Nigerians to the traditional cooking method through prohibitive cost of cooking gas. It is no surprise that, according to reports, many Nigerians are now returning to the use of firewood for their daily cooking needs. Pray, why impose VAT on what you want to encourage? Just how do you run governance in this obnoxious manner?

To make matters worse, the Buhari administration has carried on as if nothing is amiss. It has provided no justification for its actions, stoutly refusing to address the concerns of Nigerians. It is neither addressing the slide in the value of the naira nor committed to repealing the VAT on cooking gas.  Yet even the widely, and justly, derided Taliban junta in Afghanistan has been responding to public fears. The foregoing apart, it is apposite to ask the key question: Why does Nigeria, with all its endowments in crude oil, even import gas at all? Because of gas flaring. Pray, why not address that, so that the need to import cooking gas is vitiated entirely? All that Nigerians have heard for decades are mere empty promises in this regard. The conclusion is inescapable: the government is punishing Nigerians, making their lives a misery. This is a criminal violation of the oath of office.

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