Friday March 6, 2009 |
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For most practical purposes, the
Nigerian state is battering and assaulting its citizens. It is time the
citizens awoke to the reality of the ongoing war, and fought back.
Recently, the Umaru Yar’Adua regime
revealed its plan to remove all subsidy from petroleum products. That
announcement amounted to an unprovoked intensification of the
bombardment of Nigerians.
There’s no better time for professional groups, labor unions, students,
street vendors, farmers, the unemployed to rise and tell Yar’Adua that
they, not he, own Nigeria.
Barack Obama and other true leaders spend their waking hours thinking up
with ideas to cushion the harsh impact of the bleak economic times on
their citizens. Meanwhile Yar’Adua and his cohorts, whose political
legitimacy is far from resolved, are drumming up callous ideas to make
life more brutish, more nasty, shorter for Nigerians.
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Yar’Adua recently made a fanfare
of taking a pay cut. Nigerians should not be impressed one bit.
The man lives in the nation’s prime mansion for free. He doesn’t
pay a dime for food or drinks, nor does he know the pain of
scrunching around for change to pay the electricity or water
bill. He’s a kept man, the tab for his every need and fancy as
well as that of his family picked up by 140 million Nigerians. |
The
looters bought up plush real estate in South Africa, in Dubai,
in England. |
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Labor unions ought to serve notice of
their intention to call an immediate nationwide strike the moment the
insouciant bunch in Abuja carries out their threat on the removal of
petroleum subsidy.
It’s sheer arrogance and insensitivity for such a man to contemplate
adding to Nigerians’ collective misery. As if his much-abused fellow
citizens were not too woe-be-tide as it is.
Why is it that “ordinary” Nigerians are made to suffer through economic
booms and dooms? For ten years, crude oil prices rose and rose and
Nigeria earned unprecedented levels of revenue. But a visitor to Nigeria
would not have known it. Hunger still stalked the cities and villages of
Nigeria. The governments, federal, state and local governments – often
under the control of the bigger riggers – continued to shirk their
responsibilities. Roads remained in a shambles. Hospitals were
ill-equipped. Citizens had to dig wells or sink boreholes to take care
of their water needs. The power corporation perfected its supply of
darkness. Nigerians simply did not see any evidence that their country
was raking in more billions of dollars in oil revenue.
That’s not exactly correct. The hapless citizens watched in shock and
awe as their politicians in Abuja made upward adjustments in their greed
to suck up the slush. The stealing orgy set new records. The looters
bought up plush real estate in South Africa, in Dubai, in England. A
lowly presidential aide transported $170,000 in cash on a presidential
jet bound for New York City. In a country where the law states that cash
exports exceeding $10,000 must be reported, Nigerian law enforcement
agencies stated –with no sense of shame – that no law had been violated.
Yar’Adua could argue that he was not running the shop when this obscene
run on the nation’s resources took place. But that argument would be
easily punctured. The man has carried on an open love affair with the
governors and other officials who captained the looting. He dines even
with convicted rogues, instead of instructing state prosecutors to seek
harsh jail terms for the contemptible fools.
Nigeria is buffeted by the same grave economic crisis that has gripped
the rest of the global economy. The situation calls for the kind of
energy and engaged, visionary leadership that Yar’Adua, quite simply,
cannot provide. When a man has few ideas of his own and is confounded by
the scale of a problem, it’s easy for opportunistic advisors to persuade
him to make sacrificial lambs of the same segment that bears the brunt,
in good times as well as bad.
Now, though, Nigerians should resist being put upon. Labor unions,
students and other organized sectors of Nigerian life ought to tell
Yar’Adua a few straight truths. They should tell him that the reason
most workers can’t afford a decent living standard is that politicians
steal too much. Before Yar’Adua touches petroleum subsidy, he ought to
ask Obasanjo, Segun Agagu and Liyel Imoke to explain what happened to
the billions of dollars spent on the power sector. He should instruct
the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to get cracking with the
arrest and prosecution of incumbent and former officials who betrayed
the trust.
Yar’Adua should stop handing out millions of naira to legislative
leeches in the name of constituency allowances. He and state governors
should immediately repudiate the scandal called security votes. It’s
sheer scam when state governors can spend more than N200 million in
so-called security votes with no obligation to account for it. Obama
wants the wealthiest Americans to pay more in taxes to help lift the
American economy from the doldrums. Yar’Adua? He’s asking the poorest
Nigerians to sacrifice even more. Is he for real?
