Contending Issues in the Niger Delta Crisis of Nigeria - Journal of ...

Chapter IX: The Politics and Policies of Oil Deregulation in Nigeria:
Implications and Policy Suggestions
equitably allocating resources for national development. According to
these analysts, the limitations of the price system can only be checked
using regulatory devices such as:
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
Private activity regulations;
The subsidization policy; and
The strict ministerial controls: which the theories do not
allow to function.
Stressing the cut-throat advertising and other promotional
efforts subsumed in the privatization programme, Samuelson (1983)
describes the system as “a mechanism which involves coercion via the
allocation of goods to those who can afford their equilibrium prices”.
These criticisms may not be a blanket rejection of privatization and
deregulation as Friedman (1962) responds to the criticisms using the
weaknesses of the public sector such as:
(i)
The impediments and difficulties in controlling huge public
organizations which most PEs stand for;
(ii)
The difficulties in assessing public programmes;
(iii)
The slowness of government bureaucracy; and,
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