Last week, President Goodluck Jonathan was rattled out of his cocoon by the federal government’s decision to increase electricity tariff next month to narrate how he was betrayed by the governors over the fuel subsidy crisis early this year. But despite the warning by the president that Nigerians must be enlightened before the tariff increment, the governors seem to be adamant on the June 1 date, George Agba reports.?
Judas, one of the apostles of Jesus Christ, may have kicked in his grave penultimate Monday when President Goodluck Jonathan recounted how state governors contributed to his ordeal during the fuel subsidy episode last January. His worry might be that in the Christendom, the world over, whenever the word betrayal is mentioned the first person whose name readily comes to everybody’s lips is Judas Iscariot, whereas the manner in which Jonathan said the governors betrayed him in the fuel subsidy removal saga would make even Brutus in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar green with envy.
At a one-day Presidential workshop on Power at the Banquet Hall of the Presidential villa, Jonathan said after he pressurized to remove subsidy from petroleum product, the same governors who pushed him into the act shifted ground and abandoned him to face the all the attacks and incisive vituperations from the Nigerian populace.
This kind of broad daylight betrayal was one ugly experience the president will not want to repeat itself again. At least, once beaten, twice shy. Quickly, he directed that Nigerians should be well informed and enlightened on federal government plans to increase electricity tariff on June 1, 2012 to save him the bitter experience he passed through in January, following the fuel subsidy removal.
Chairman of the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) who had last Tuesday at a meeting with electricity generation companies in Nigeria, said the commission will introduce new electricity tariff on June 1, 2012 had assured that the? new tariff, tagged Multi-Year-Tariff-Order, would not affect low income earners.
?But Jonathan said, “On the June 1 date for the increase of electricity tariff, I do not think we have had a robust advocacy and this happened to me during the deregulation. At a point I wanted to send a team to the states to work with the Governors and Benue state Governor said no, that if we do that, there could be crises and that the Governors should take charge.
“At the end of the day, by the day we announced the deregulation, almost everything was on my head. Everything was on Jonathan to the extent that even the House of Reps? met on a Sunday to discuss it and it became an issue. At a point some of the Governors who participated in pressurising me, started shifting back. All what I am saying is that we do not have a robust advocacy. The Civil Society may come and tell you that they never heard you. We want enough communication so that we do not get to that june 1st and Nigerians have not been sufficiently informed”.
On Thursday, after the National Economic Council (NEC) meeting, the governors unanimously endorsed the increment of electricity tariff across the country by June 1, this year without recourse to the president’s warning that Nigerians must be well sensitised before the exercise begins.
Briefing State House Correspondents after the NEC meeting presided over by Vice President Sambo, Governor Peter Obi of Anambra State who maintained that the take off date for the new electricity tariff remains June 1 said the governors endorsed the hike in electricity tarriff because they were convinced that Nigeria is due for it, compared to countries like Ghana and Chad. Even when he was reminded that Nigerians may be warming up to fight the increase of tariff because already, they have been paying for what they have not consumed, Governor Obi promised that there was going to be a decrease and increase-? a decrease for the low users and the poor people within the cities and the rural areas and an increase for the high users.
He said, “But in the end, nobody is going to invest like they are investing in Ghana, in Chad and everywhere unless we do something because if you are a business man and you are being asked to put money where you are going to lose money, you are not going to do it. Overall, if we get the power issue right, Nigerians will pay less than 20 per cent of what they pay today, generating their own power. And we want to ensure that like the metering he mentioned, there will now be accurate metering and no longer estimated metering.
“These were issues we looked at, let’s have the real thing Nigerians will be ready to pay but you have to demand for the real thing. I know the agitations from Nigerians because when they see things like this they are always agitated but in the long run, what we need to do is to hold everybody responsible that they deliver the correct result. And I assure you that what is coming now if we get it right, the average barber shop, vulcanizer everybody will have less than 20 percent of what he is spending today in generating his own power and there will be increase in job creation.
Asked about how possible it would be to differentiate the poor in the city and rural areas, Obi said, “The quantity of usage; you cannot say you are poor and be using air conditioner and everything. That means you are no longer poor. To differentiate will be very easy”. The structure, Obi added, has N50 billion subsidy components for the next two years free full metering of all customers between 12 and 16 months to ensure that every customer is billed according to use, even as the scheme will “provide access to energy-saving bulbs which can reduce cost of consumption by 40 percent.”
Good a thing the president has come out vehemently to warn that Nigerians must be consulted before the increment is done. He will certainly have a reference point to fall back to before the heat is turned on him. The good aspect of this development is that Nigerians can have cause to smile to the fact that they have a president who respects their position and is ever ready to consult them. He has demonstrated that he was able to learn a lesson the hard way from the fuel subsidy debacle.
But for those governors, if they think they can trick the president again, they are in for a shocker. This time, it might just be a case of something bigger than a rat being caught in a rat’s trap, as Jonathan has indicated clearly that if a man beats him once, shame on that man; but if he can beat him twice, then shame on him (Jonathan).
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