The plan by the Federal Government to remove fuel subsidy sparked off reactions in Port Harcourt city and its environs over the weekend as majority of people interviewed condemned the step, describing it as one that would upset the current stability in fuel supply and impact negatively on other sectors of the national economy.

One of the respondents, the Managing Director of NEDAL oil Ltd, Prince Emmanuel Ogba said he was surprised that the current administration led by President Goodluck Jonathan which is lauded for checking fuel crises in the country could be thinking of removing fuel subsidy now.

“I think that the step is wrongly timed because government should allow the ongoing reform in the petroleum sub sector to get to an advanced stage such that when subsidy is eventually removed, it would not have abrupt and far-reaching negative effects that would eventually affect other sectors of the nation’s economy”, he said.

The managing director who ackowledged that Nigerians could not run away from removal of fuel subsidy in the future, stressed that the idea of removing fuel subsidy should not even be imagined now.

According to Prince Ogba, “the whole idea of removal of subsidy is about increase in pump price and whence such step is taken at this stage of reform in the oil sector, it affects almost every other calculations in the nation’s economy”.

But to Mrs. Ijeoma Nwankwoala, the idea of removal of fuel subsidy would cause people to create “artificial scarcity because, in the short run, there could be hoarding by marketers who may have feelings of uncertainty over the acceptability of the step”.

In the long run, she continued, “Immediately the increase in pump price tries to stabilise, Nigerians would think of short cut. By that, I mean, black market may present itself as another competitor to organised market”.

Mrs. Nwankwoala, a secondary school teacher also expressed the view that when black market begins to thrive as a negative effect of the increase in the pump price, illegal bunkering and vandalism of pipelines by economic saboteur could become the order of the day.

Some drivers in the metropolis also condemned the removal of the subsidy because of the impact it was capable of having on the transport sector.

“Commuters in Port Harcourt always complain that the transport fare in the city is higher than what obtains in other cities of the country. Now if you remove subsidy in petrol which will result in increase in transport fare, you can imagine how high the fare would be,” said Cletus Chukwu, a taxi driver.

Another commercial driver, Jonathan Charles who operates along Port Harcourt/Aba Express Way advised the president not to give in to anti-people strategies by those he considered enemies of the government and the common Nigerians.

Mr. Charles pleaded with the president to drop the idea, at least, for now until other aspects of the ongoing reforms have been addressed, stating that what the government should be thinking now is the problem with the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).

He described the non remittal of funds to the government by NNPC to the tune of several hundred billions of naira, the comatose of all the refineries in the nation and undefined standard in allocation of oil blocks as the problems with the industry.

“But government would not see those ones because they concern the big men in the country but whenever any issue concerns the common man, the government applies a different approach,” he said.

“Look at the much talked about implementation of new minimum wage to Nigerian workers, it had been turned to a drama. This attitude should change in the interest of Nigerian masses”, he maintained.

It would be recalled that the Minister of Labour and Productivity, Emeka Nwogu, recently said that federal government has no better alternative to removal of fuel subsidy. Apart from providing more fund to service the nation, government believes that there is great disparity between the cost of petroleum product in Nigeria when compared to other countries.

Chris Oluoh