INFLUENCE OF GENDER AND PERSONALITY ON ATTITUDE OF AWKA RESIDENTS TOWARDS THE REMOVAL OF FUEL SUBSIDY

Abstract

The study is very apt in the sense that it was conceived as a result of incessant fuel crisis in Nigeria in the downstream sectors of the Nigerian petroleum industries. The reoccurring fuel crisis in the country has left most Nigerians in doubt of whether the country is still among the oil producing nations of the world. The contemplation of the Federal Government of Nigeria to remove fuel subsidy has aggravated the worries of consumers of petroleum products on the face of economic predicaments of the nation. The issue of removal of fuel subsidy has heightened the fears of Nigerians and their attitude towards the policy looks very offensive irrespective of their gender. Their coping mechanism could be assessed by the type of personality they possessed.  Therefore, the study examined the influence of gender and personality on the attitude of Nigerians towards the removal of fuel subsidy. Two hundred and forty (240) participants, participated in the study, comprising of (96) males and (144) females, exhibiting the personality traits of introverts and extroverts. Their ages ranged from 19 to 55 years, with a mean age of 30.34 and standard deviation of 6.24. They were selected from a cross section of Nigerians in Awka through stratified random sampling technique. Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, developed by Eysenck & Eysenck (1975) was administered to the participants to identify the traits of introverts and extroverts. Attitude to fuel Subsidy Removal Scale developed by the researchers were used to measure the attitude of the participants towards fuel subsidy removal. The pilot study was conducted to ascertain the reliability of the scale, which revealed an alpha co-efficient of 0.78. The design for the study was 2x2 factorial design, and 2-way ANOVA was employed as appropriate statistical tool. The result reveals no significant gender difference on attitude to fuel subsidy removal at F (1,236) =1.78, P>.05, in the first hypothesis. The result further revealed that significant personality difference exists on attitude to fuel subsidy removal at F (1,236), = 0.43, P<.05, in the second hypothesis. Finally, the result revealed the significant interaction of gender and personality on attitude towards fuel subsidy removal at F (1,236) = 0.37, P<.05, in the third hypothesis. Findings were discussed and recommendations were made among others that the Government should introduce palliative measures to ameliorate the anticipated sufferings of the poor masses, and more especially the Nigerian men who purchases fuel in most cases if it intends to retain the fuel subsidy. Finally, the personalities of Awka residents should be critically assessed visa-vis the calamity the removal of fuel subsidy will bring on their personality types.