by ‘Ifreke Inyang

On the last episode of Rubbin’ Minds, the topic of discussion was ‘Oil stains’. Few weeks ago,  the Federal Government announced their plans to remove fuel subsidy and called for a deregulation of the oil sector. This they claimed would save more money to carry out projects like road constructions, fund health services, improve educational system for the benefit of the people.

This therefore implies that Nigerians would have to start paying the original cost of petrol themselves. Also, the subsidy would now be managed by a government formed trusted committee to ensure these projects are carried out.

To deliberate on this issue was our first guest, Ferdinand Adimefe. Ferdinand is a writer and brand Communication executive at Century Energy Services Limited, one of the fastest growing and leading indigenous service companies. He served in NNPC. “If the government is talking of removing subsidy, I support it. Oil is like the blood of our economy. If we remove oil, we remove our life support.”  However, he acknowledged that the timing to remove the subsidy was wrong and Nigerians had to persevere.

The next set of guests included Joachim Macebong, Abang Mercy, Cheta Nwanze and Wale Ajani. They continued on with the discussion which had begun to heat up. “When we were supporting Goodluck Jonathan, there was no plan that six months later he would remove subsidy,” Wale Ajani, who felt a bit betrayed said. He wasn’t worried about the president though,  he was more concerned about the public.

But Mercy Abang wanted the panel to move on from talking about the elimination of the fuel subsidy which she believed was an issue set up by the government in the first place to cause a distraction from more pressing matters. “I believe that the whole talk about fuel subsidy is created to be a distraction from what’s really happening,” she fumed.

Thus Cheta Nwanze tried to proffer a solution  “The first step to solving anything is to remove the impunity,” Nwanze asserted. “Nigerians should stand up, or else they will take us for a ride,” Wale Ajani added. Mercy Abang agreed with him. “We cannot pay for the sins of the government. Let’s kill the debate.”

To conclude the show, Abang dropped final words reminding everyone about the hunger strike coming up on the 11^th of November.