CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
For some number of years, Nigeria enjoyed subsidy on petroleum products. This came to an end on January 1st, 2012, after a declaration from President Goodluck Jonathan that afterwards, the subsidy was to be removed (Zaccheus, 2011). In Nigeria, the issue of appropriate pricing of petroleum product has always been a controversial policy issue. Successive governments have dealt with this problem to no avail. Suffix to say that in Nigeria, subsidy removal implemented by governments had always yielded negative effects on the citizens. According to Centre for Public Policy Alternatives (2012), a subsidy by definition is any measure that keeps the prices consumers pay for a good or product below market levels for consumers or for producers above market. The essence of having subsidy in place for products and services is that it has direct positive impact on poverty reduction in the lives of the poor masses who could not afford high prices (Nwaoga and Casimir, 2013).
Subsidies were introduced in the Nigerian energy sector in the mid 1980‟s. Something of a creeping phenomenon, the value of the subsidies has gone from 1 billion in the 1980s to an expected 6 billion Dollars in 2011. In this period the specific products targeted for subsidy have changed. Diesel oil has had its associated subsidy redacted while petrol, gasoline; kerosene continues to enjoy a 54.4 % subsidy over the international spot market price at the Nigerian pump. Economists believed that social welfare is maximized when the price of each good and service is freely determined by the interaction of buyers and sellers in open competitive markets. In practice and especially in developing countries however, policy is often driven more by political consideration than rational economic theory. The risk of social unrest, street riots, and threats of civil war very easily make introduction of market distorting policies justified. Nigeria as a case in point is under increased pressures to grow its economy. Yet countervailing forces of corruption, mismanagement of public resources and poor governance conspire to frustrate efforts to sustain growth in the face of rising population numbers and demands for a democratic dividend by the citizenry (Centre for Public Policy Alternatives, 2012).
According to Centre for Public Policy Alternatives, the justifications for introduction or removal of subsidies vary markedly. In developed economies Environmental issues, international trade and maintaining competitiveness are the main drivers of policy. Whereas welfare, poverty alleviation and election cycle politics largely underpin the reasons for which subsidies are introduced in developing countries. A new factor in the current mix of policy drivers is the renewed emphasis on governance reform championed by the Bretton woods institutions-The World Bank, IMF and the donor community. Lending urgency to this scenario is the global economic downturn and consequent rationalization by lenders, aid granting countries. As domestic demand for funds increase in these countries amounts available for aid, FDI and subsidies diminish. The consequence is a demand for greater efficacy in the economies of the aid receiving countries of which Nigeria is one.
Furthermore, the issue of fuel subsidy removal has torn this nation into two factions, the government and the economic experts on one hand and the masses on the other hand. The last fuel subsidy removal on 1st January, 2012 sparked an uprising that almost led to a revolution; this attracted a lot of public debate, opinions and reactions leading to NLC strike and demonstrations in various states. Therefore, the major focus of this study is to investigate audience perception of federal government removal of fuel subsidy in Nigeria on January 2012.