Nigeria: Governance and Convictions

By

Abdullah Musa

kigongabas@yahoo.com

 

 

 

In a BBC Focus on Africa program, their correspondent based in Lagos announced that the federal government of Nigeria had canceled the policy of subsidizing petroleum products in Nigeria. He predicted that a litre of petrol might come up to N200 at the pump station. As part of the same policy thrust, the refineries are to be sold again: a reversal of an earlier reversal. If the pump price of petrol becomes N200 over night that will be over 300% increase. This sounds to our policy- makers like proper economic management, where a basic input such as petroleum product will increase in cost by over three hundred percent and they expect life to go on smoothly.

 

Nigeria imports all her needs of refined petroleum products. Luckily, or unluckily depending upon your perception, we have crude oil which we can sell to pay for the refining efforts of others, may be of even our own crude. We are really serious with life. It is this very government that reversed the increase of pump price which Chief Obasanjo did at the tail end of his administration. He was highly maligned. It is this same government that recently reduced the pump price from N70 to N65, and now says that let even the price reach the highest heavens for all it cares. It is this government that made multi-millionaires out of the Assembly men and women when those who elected them are in abject poverty; and it is only now that it is considering how to reduce the ill-gotten pay without incurring the wrath of the over-pampered Nigerians who only make resolutions for their own benefits.

 

When a person governs you, he or she has coercive powers over you. The tax rate can make you more miserable, but that is the price you pay as law-abiding citizen, and the nation, meaning the leaders will not defraud you. Not only that, the nation goes out of its way to ensure a decent condition of living for you. This is however obtainable only where there is a bonding between the leaders and the led. That is to say, the leaders govern by conviction. They are held firmly accountable by their election manifestoes.

 

Fraudulent elections on the other hand produce insensitive leaders. They can dare the populace because they dared them in the first instance, when they stole the mandate and the people acquiesced. By so doing, they lost the right to question the acts of those governing them.

 

The issue of petroleum pricing had been a thorn in the flesh of many Nigerian governments over time. The refineries were saddled with the responsibility of feeding the country all it needs of refined petrol and other derivatives. With millions of dollars down the drain, the refineries refused to function; some even being burnt immediately after some major repairs. Nigerians in the quest of easy living are people who can toy with the destiny of their nation. Economic saboteurs abound, to the degree that it is a thriving business in the Niger Delta. If leaders are unpatriotic by stealing national resources or even by neglecting the welfare of the people, then the message they are sending to the governed is simple and very clear: find a way to fend for your self. And everybody does just that. In the coolness of our offices we divert from meager thousands, to millions and even billions of funds meant for public good. We do this because the public is simply out there, and it has no mechanism to either know what is going on, or to stop it even if it knows; the unthinkable being to even contemplate punishing such acts.

I believe it is only in total welfare states that citizens are sheltered from the vagaries of economic cycles. Here in our own primitive case, no attempt is made to consider the impact of government policies on the populace. If it ruins so many then it is simply unfortunate.

 

The double tragedy is that underdevelopment carries with it also mind underdevelopment. The think-tanks of Europe and America insist that African countries must be governed in particular ways; ways that usually end up expropriating resources from the African to be carted away to the European in one guise or the other. This time round it is our prayer that the opposition may really sit down to chart out an economic blueprint which takes our limitations into consideration. Nigerian economists on their part should inform us, after careful study, the implication of total deregulation in one fell swoop. The Nigerian Labor Congress (NLC) should also rise up to the challenge by a well articulated counter-thrust that may checkmate the agents of imperialism. When government insults the intelligence of the Nigerians that subsidy does not reach the poor, then you know the policy definitely has not the poor in mind. Does the poor always walk on foot? He or she does not have his or her goods carried by vehicles that are powered using petroleum products? Do the poor not patronize made in Nigeria goods where petroleum products were necessary inputs? What could have happened if all our needs of petrol and other derivatives were met from internal refineries?

 

On our part Nigerians we should also start thinking rationally. Do governments the world over subsidize petroleum products where they are not producers of same? Are countries such as Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Libya, Algeria, and others in similar countries importing their refined petroleum products? Do they subsidize the actual cost so that the economic well-being of their people is enhanced? The opposition and NLC should spearhead this campaign, and if we truly have a National rather than self or Foreign Assembly, then whoever feels that he cannot govern without subjecting Nigerians to further hardships should simply be asked to go and enjoy a deserved rest. We have within us people with kinder hearts who will explore all options before directing all Nigerians to the abattoir for mass slaughter. This is what subsidy removal entails.