When might we go on strike for Nigeria?
By
Dark as pitch, it had gathered for days. The clouds of strike hung in the air. In bold headlines did newspapers tell of the cataclysm to come. The elite had the scalpel for a pound of the President’s flesh. And they went for him full of zeal. This President thinks he knows better than everyone does. In our opinion, the decision to increase the price of fuel was the greatest threat to democratic institutions in Nigeria, they went on and on. Who does he think he is? they asked.
Here comes Armageddon, one thought and shook in the pants. Just a day to go and one had prepared for a long drawn battle. Food in the freezer and drinks in the fridge. Night came and one wanted an early sleep. After all, one had feared that the clouds might break in a tornado. It was better awake to save what one could from the rage. But, Thursday October 9, 2003 came without a cloud in the sky. Where had all the black gone?
The major marketers have changed to the old price, a newspaper said. What nonsense, PUW thought. Why harass the people with a hike and withdraw it without a fight? People can have an honest fight with their governments. Can’t they? Two months ago, the FG talked of forty naira a litre and ended up with thirty-four. Oshiomole was quick to say he had won. And that did not solve the problem. But, what then did he win? Delay of the right price?
The voice of the elite had cried out. “Before the heavens fall,” they wrote in the editorials. You read it and you did a slow shake of the head in abject sorrow. They moaned, “The current scarcity of fuel is a ploy to enforce the thirty-nine naira per litre which all Nigerians have already rejected,” and you are aghast. But you soon come to. After all, falsehood and the facility to express it are the greatest weapons of the elite. Let it be loud and clear. Some of the people are uneasy about the hike. Many more think that the FG might have left diesel out because of the effect on the people and their wellbeing. It appalls them that anyone should suggest that the poor should pay for the comfort of those who ride in their pleasure cars. Given a choice, they would have the FG subsidise the food they eat instead.
Quite a few accept the view that there is a right price for fuel. At that price, the major marketers would put out money to buy fuel for their pumps. And they would sell at the price it cost them to do business. They wouldn’t wait for the handouts from the NNPC. That would make sure that fuel is there for all at every pump in the country. That price, the people would rather have PUW thinks.
As if the elite was not enough problem for the people, what pain those of them in Lagos are. They talk of fuel scarcity if they waited a few hours at petrol stations. What about those around the country who have to wait for weeks? What happens to our people in Enugu and the Southeast? They often have to wait for days and then to pay up to ninety naira for each litre they find? If you spoke Edo, your mind might just have taken a flight to a saying of old. “If the poor man farts it smells; if the rich should everyone near would say, thanks, Sir.” It is a problem of the attitude of the people. How much better we might have been if we didn’t have that.
The Lagos elite asks why the President would raise the price of what God gave the country as gift. It did not matter that we did not know we had it until someone told us. They couldn’t be bothered that left with the gift we would only stand and stare in wonder. They do not ask the President what he would do to stem the misery of those in the oil areas whose lives are in peril. They don’t care that the people have no roads, no schools, no hospitals, and no water. They ignore their clamour for the better things of life.
PUW would say that one good has come of this. The NLC tried to take out one of their two faces even if they did it in the manner of thugs. They tried to enforce the pump price in central Lagos. Better late than never one would say. But, did they do the same in major cities around the country? Diesel oil sold for seventy naira each litre in Lagos in August. Where was the NLC? That was not new. For years in Lagos, diesel and kerosene have helped owners of petrol stations get back what they lose to those who hunt them for bribes. That is because the products are scarce.
Labour unions charge tankers five hundred naira before each fill of fuel at the tank farms. Workers of local governments and of some major oil marketers assail station owners all the time for bribes. The NLC could claim not to know that. But, could it also claim not to know that these products and at times petrol do not sell at the official price? In Lagos that is. PUW has learnt that in the north and the east official price is a joke. If fuel could be found, they sell at a minimum of ninety naira each litre. Does the NLC know that? If not, what does it know? The FG pays part of the money to take fuel to all parts of the country so that every part shares the same pump price. That is government as Father Christmas, as those outside the Niger Delta would want it to be. But, how fair is it that it uses our taxes, as well as the tax of the deprived people of the Niger Delta for that purpose? The elite knows this and keeps mum. The NLC knows it too, but they are politicians, are they not?
A newspaper (Vanguard) has shown readers images of roads all over the country. The way they are, they bring death to the people and force high cost of food on the living. If roads are bad, motor vehicles use more fuel. The FG collects money that must run in millions of naira each day at tollgates around the country. Has it ever accounted for it? If not, why not in a government that promised to let the people know? Rumours say that those close to seats of power are under contract to take money at these tollgates. How much has each taken? How much are they paid? How much of the money has the FG ploughed back to the roads? Can we have an honest account?
Hardly any genuine spare part is in the country for the motor vehicles we use. That is well known. Our Ibo brothers that do that to us kill the people and their hopes. They have sworn to have us as slaves to those countries that fake the parts we buy. And to themselves. What they do filches away our hard currency to buy our peril. What is Ohaneze to do about that? As it is in motor and machine parts, so it is in drugs and processed food. We are on the direct route to ruin. Yes, the elite would rather fight for their pleasure cars. All self-centred people would do that. These things affect the NLC too, but they keep mum. But could a union do that? Is there no one out there to ask it to rise to higher patriotic levels? When might they strike to save the country?
Feb 2004