No matter how we pare it, the 2012 #OccupyNigeria protests will remain pivotal in our sociopolitical history. Its significance lies in how much the pushback against government insensitivity resounded nationwide and even among the Nigerians in the Diaspora. It started as protests against the fuel subsidies removal, but it soon culminated in other disquieting issues such as government profligacy. #OccupyNigeria was the crucial juncture where the “breath of fresh air” that supposedly ushered in the Goodluck Jonathan administration—elected less than a year then—was putrefied. Nothing else he did afterward could stop the doomsday clock of his administration that started ticking.…

It’s disheartening to see a dubiously contrived consensus emerging among unsuspecting and otherwise critically-minded Nigerians on fuel subsidy. The rhetorical offensive of successive governments on the issue is sadly proving successful. The debate has now shifted from whether petrol, the single most consequential product in our economy that directly or indirectly drives all economic activities, should be subsidised, to when and how subsidy should be removed, and how the government should invest the resulting revenue boost. That’s exactly how the political elites want it. These are their preferred terms for discussing subsidy. This framing exculpates them, blames the nebulous and…