Chinua Achebe is heading a group of 38 Nigerian authors who are throwing their weight behind mass protests in the country at the government's withdrawal of the state fuel subsidy.
The internationally acclaimed, bestselling novelist Achebe was joined by Caine prize winner EC Osondu, Commonwealth writers prize winner Helon Habila and 35 other Nigerian authors in issuing a "Statement of Solidarity with the Nigerian People" on Sunday. Thousands of protesters have taken to the streets of Nigeria since the announcement at the beginning of the year that the country's state fuel subsidy programme would be discontinued, leading petrol pump prices to more than double to around $1 a litre.
The authors called the timing of the move "ill-advised", coming as it does shortly after a series of religiously motivated attacks on churchgoers.
"We stand with the Nigerian people who are protesting the removal of oil subsidy which has placed an unbearable economic weight on their lives. This action has clearly imposed an untenable and unfair burden on those segments of Nigerians who are already impoverished – subsisting on less than $2 a day. We call on President Jonathan to immediately change course," said the authors in their statement.
"By reverting to the old prices of petroleum products, President Jonathan can work to diffuse tension in the country and exemplify the true servant leader who not only serves but also listens to his people. To insist on having his way, and to deploy state security and legal apparati to crush growing popular uprisings is to stamp on a highly valued tenet of democracy – the right to peaceful assembly – and to inadvertently promote greater violence in the country."
Achebe and his fellow authors also called on President Goodluck Jonathan and Nigeria's political leaders to "tackle the state of lawlessness in certain parts of the nation and address the trepidation and rage that has reached dangerous levels within the Nigerian populace".
"Clearly, the sophistication and deadly impact of the terrorist attacks suggest an agenda to create widespread fear and, possibly, to foment anarchy or war. President Jonathan has no greater duty than to ensure that Nigerians are safe wherever they live or visit within the country," they wrote, suggesting that Jonathan "outline both short and long-term plans to comprehensively address the scourge of terror", that he "appoint competent and committed officials to head the various security agencies", and that he "serve as an agent to heal the many divisions plaguing Nigeria, and persuade all well-meaning people to enlist in the fight against festering violence".
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9 January 2012 4:32PM
I know this is a bit of a Guardianista thing to say -- and I assure you I'm slamming myself in my mind, but...
Nigeria is too poor to spend £5 billion a year on fuel subsidies.
They need refinement still by all means, but they really need education, healthcare and welfare, and paying petrol subsidies to foreign refiners is not going to help that.
9 January 2012 4:35PM
I couldn't get past the bad maths in the first paragraph. Exactly how many authors is it? Make your minds!
9 January 2012 4:59PM
Difficult to be concerned with climate change and in favour of fuel subsidies.
If a fraction of this money was invested in technologies that work (solar in particular) Nigeria would be richer and lower-carbon.
9 January 2012 7:20PM
They should put a tax on the ridiculoushair weave industry.
The profits on that would be more than enough to continue the fuel subsidies and then some.
9 January 2012 11:58PM
I am Nigerian. We know the fuel subsidy wont last forever but now is not the right time to remove it. The government can generate money from a lot of other areas. The government is more interested in satisfying the IMF and World Bank than in the welfare of Nigerians. That is why there have been protests.
With the increase in fuel prices, the cost of transport rises. The cost of food rises. We don't decent have electricity supply so we have to generate ours using petrol, no running water, no railways, bad roads with potholes big enough to build houses in. So petrol prices don't affect only those who drive cars. It hits the poorest hardest. How can a country in the top 10 oil exporting countries in the world continue importing petrol because corruption has made our refineries obsolete?
An MP in Nigeria earns three times the US president. That is why Nigerians are protesting. In a country where many people live on less than 2 dollars a day, we don't even have security. The police run away from robbers but are happy to shoot at peaceful protesters.
We all hope we do not have another civil war but that seems to be the path we are heading down.
If they restore our refineries, then they can remove the subsidy, heck, we won't even need it
10 January 2012 12:39AM
Achebe,Osondu ,Habila and 35 others equals 38 authors in my calculation.
Could you please give me the final figure you arrived at?
10 January 2012 12:48AM
The fuel subsidy is the only tangible benefit most Nigerians get from the 'Government. When Dave Cameron intended to increase fuel duty by 50p, he mentioned it a year before implementing it and after considering the effect on the economy, the policy was shelved.
However, The Nigerian 'Government' on Jan 1 announced out of the blues that petrol,diesel and kerosene prices were going to double overnight.
In a country where a large percentage of the population survive on $2 a day, how are the masses expected to pay $1 per litre for oil that is sourced from their own land?
10 January 2012 9:10AM
I have always been an admirer of Professor Achebe. But on the issue of the removal of fuel subsidies I have to strongly disagree with the Professor on two important grounds. Firstly, it makes economic sense to remove or gradually phase out subsidies from the consumption side of any economy, be it a developing or developed economy, because subsidies have negative knock-on effects on the productive side of the economy. Put simply subsidies on consumption depress investments in productive capital.
Secondly, subsidies on commodities such as petrol exert downward pressures on the incomes of the 99.9% of consumers at the bottom end of the economy, while at the same time generating surplus disposable incomes for the 0.01% of consumers at the top end of the economy. Again, put simply subsidies on petrol amounts to transfer income from the economy to the 0.01% of consumers: subsidies merely increase the power of the 0.01% to consumer rather than produce.
However, and to a certain degree, I would agree with Professor Achebe on one ground. And the ground is that the removal of fuel subsidies would invariably lead to rises in the costs of living, particularly the cost of transport. This is not detrimental because the removal of fuel subsidies would, in the long run, exert upward pressures on the incomes of the 99.9% of consumers at the end of the economy and downward pressures on the incomes of the 0.01% of consumers at the top end of the economy. Anything that is likely to ameliorate the imbalance income distribution in Nigeria is to be welcomed.