Last week, Nigerians woke up to discover that the pump price of petroleum products had shot to the roofs. According to very reliable press reports, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), the group that ‘messes up’ with Nigeria’s oil resources, did not endorse the increase, so who did? We can’t blame it on the Russians because we are not that important on their global radar to merit being sabotaged. What is known is that the original increase came from the NNPC web portal before it was quickly obliterated as the shock hit the nation.
President Muhammadu Buhari remains our petroleum minister and he makes an awesome mess of that position. Nevertheless, he does not have the guts to relinquish the post. There must be something addictive in holding on to a position first held over three decades ago.
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The president and his minders have denied having anything to do with the hike. As usual, they have done nothing to significantly reverse it.
It is worrisome that people did not believe their president. Although I live thousands of kilometers away, I believe my president’s inconsistency.
It would take the day when his new environment is devoid of the usual humdrum of servants running into each other to make him comfortable. It would take him carrying his own bag, joining the queue at the airport and flying economy class to see his doctors in London to wake him up from his selective amnesia. Until then, I have given up on Buhari taking responsibility for his actions, inactions or awareness of his surroundings.
Buhari is only aware of what Buhari wants to be aware of. I am not a doctor, so I cannot agree with those who conclude that he is senile. What is in the open is the fact that his wife had to go public to apprise him of her own battles, from disappointment that the Aso Clinic has no analgesics, to the cabal hijacking the popular mandate they earned, to Buhari’s relatives terrorising her in her own home. I believe that Buhari is not aware that his wife has left Aso Rock.
I started believing that from the moment he was unaware that East and West Germany had reunited. It was reinforced when he serially appointed dead people into privileged positions.
Femi Adesina constantly overshoots the runway of correctly psychoanalysing his hero, which prompted Garba Shehu to take on that unqualified responsibility. Shehu invented a one-size-fits-all press release template in which he fills in the dots of who did what, when and how to make the world believe that the president is sentient and would speak when he is expected. Shehu has deftly refused to embarrass the president with an interview, even using recognised official megaphones.
When a different hireling not schooled in this template went to Gusau to assure Zamfarians that the Jangebe abduction would be the last, we were wise enough not to believe it. We knew what that meant was that Jangebe would be the last until another one happened. Under Buhari, tragedy is a template that farcically replicates itself.
The next template gave bandits few more months to clean up their acts. It is a language that bandits love. It simply means they could continue to terrorise the citizenry while Buhari and his friends decide if they cared enough to do anything about them.
Evidently, the bandits have amplified their activities, Nigeria being the only country in the world that pets bandits; it is now open to two months of chequered banditry. The only reason we are still here is to see where the carnage strikes next. Bandits are aware that the window is open to extension in the same way expired service chiefs have their terms extended or their indolence rewarded with other appointments.
From those who care to count, Buhari has more than 800 days in office as figurehead president. That’s enough period to increase our fasting and prayers to survive him and wait for the next disaster in governance.
Buhari does not have to worry about bandits. They have threatened not to put down their arms until they meet with him personally. If you think this is a dream, please pinch yourself or ask the person near you to gently slap you to confirm that you are not in Dr Patrick McNamara’s hybrid-sleep-wake state of consciousness.
The last time I checked, Nigeria is a major oil producer. Unlike others, it does not refine its own crude and has no intention of doing so in the future.
It is true that COVID-19 affected global oil production, as well as its use for most parts of the last year, but like the phoenix it has witnessed a rebound. Major oil producing nations have adjusted accordingly, granting their citizens the needed reprieve from the sufferings occasioned by the lockdown. America, whose president is in the same age bracket as Buhari’s official age, has just passed a stimulus package for its citizens. Buhari’s package was distributed by bluetooth, apparently to graveyards. Age, like wisdom, is not synonymous with wisdom in governance; ask King Solomon.
Every Nigerian knows that when the price of petroleum products rises, it leaves unbearable ripple effects on the people. So, here we are debating whether every state could pay $65 as average monthly minimum wage when one gas-guzzler on the presidential or governor’s convoy consumes that much at one fill-up.
Add to that, the pain of not having your sleep guaranteed, or your drive to work or back assured and you would realise that Muhammadu Buhari is not a blessing on this land. Is he a curse? Let the victims be the jury.
Postcript
Britain wants to repatriate James Ibori’s loot to Nigeria that is evidently ruled by a regime that abets corruption. On its own, the regime wants to spend the money on the ubiquitous Lagos-Ibadan expressway and the famous Kano rail line. Contemporarily, several other loots and loans have been dumped on these projects, with very little to show for success. The Lagos-Ibadan expressway would remain impassable if Nigeria sinks its foreign reserve on it.
On its own, Delta State wants the money for its own socio-infrastructural development. This is a country of awesome wonders. Successive post-Ibori regimes in Delta State have openly argued that the former did not steal their money. The big question is how they want to benefit from money that did not go missing in their vaults?
It would appear that the best way to end the debate is for Britain to keep the money and keep spending its interests until we have a government that could account for its proper use, or perhaps return it to Saint Ibori. He might have earned it legitimately!
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