If I were still a young person starting an academic career I would have found research into conduct on social media fascinating. Different people come to social media and public conversation with different motives - some for a good laugh, others in search of scandal and a scintillating titillation of goings-on. I come for rational public conversation to help create a market place of ideas that can advance democratic policy choice. I plead therefore for pardon when I look away from details that add little value to conversation.
When I tweeted about petrol subsidy, the work I have done exploring policies that have gone wrong in Nigeria provide me with things I can say that will burn up social media but my goal is not scandal. That would be diversionary of effort needed to genuinely save Nigeria.
About 6yrs ago I began, through CVL, the Nigeria History Series to enable sober non-journalistic or sensational reflection, retrospectives on policy sectors, and what policy makers of the time could have done differently. They are still there on You tube. In each sector I convoked a discussion of all living former ministers I could reach, as well as other policy makers The podcast went out every Sunday evening for years until I was exhausted. My favorite was Healthcare in which we featured about six former ministers and other professionals. In manufacturing we not only had former ministers and former MAN presidents we had global experts like former UNIDO DG Yumkella and Oxford’s Director for the Centre for African Economies Prof. Paul Collier who commented that few countries are so fortunate to have someone leading such retrospectives. When it came to Petroleum we featured sector founding fathers like Chief Philip Asiodu, 1st MD of NLNG Dr Godswill Ihetu and impactful GMDs of NNPC like Funso Kupolokun and NLNGs Babs Omotowa. I drew from my being reviewer of the manuscript of the autobiography of the first MD of NNPC Chief FRA Marinho to root the conversation. It is with this background and treasure throve of information that I enter the subsidy conversation. To seek sensation rather than truth would be a great disservice. The truth is that much of what we call subsidy there is outright corruption. If you remove the corruption and have competition with players like Dangote the price of fuel will crash like GSM telephone rates did. To store subsidy will be to recreate the mother of all corruption
@Big_Mck When a hospital is not built, a road is not constructed, a school is not built, etc na CIA cause am abi? Bro, in as much as we acknowledge international meddling in Africa, the bulk of Africa's challenges lies with the leaders
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