Are Nigerian Protests Justifiable?

This year started on a very difficult note for the government of Nigeria generally and for the president in particular. Not only is the country faced with a problem of armed groups attacking civilians ostensibly to enforce religious homogeneity, the government made a critical but unpopular decision in economic policy. The latter decision involved the suspension of subsidies on petroleum with the immediate result that prices went up substantially. To my mind though, it is most surprising that the public demonstrations throughout the major cities have been organized to try and force the government to reverse the economic policy while the press that I refer to has not reported equally public campaigns for government action to respond to the loss of lives from cowardly armed groups.

This blogger will say no more than that no government that is legitimately elected should succumb to political pressure emanating from groups driven by an ideology that holds no respect for life. Indeed, the government's feeble response to the bombings and murders is the main point of weakness that I see. Regarding the suspension of subsidies, it may well be that the timing is unfortunate but it is clearly sensible economic policy. Reading this story, it is evident that the protests that issued on account of rising fuel prices causes difficulty to some citizens but I am certain that the incidence of the benefits of a subsidy on petroleum fuel is taken by the car owners and middle class people. The claim that this resultant price hike harms the poorest is demonstrably untrue because the owners of vehicles in this country are unlikely to be the indigent. Besides my regret in the damage to property and the risks faced by law enforcement officers, I think that this is an urban middle class bawling for subsidies at the expense of poorer Nigerians.

The moral of the story: there is never a right time to pull back subsidies even if in most cases, abolishing subsidies is the right economic policy.