At uncertain times as we now have, it is normal to ask questions as; do Nigerians deserve what they are going through? Do they deserve the regular affliction of leadership failure they are forced to contend with? Is it really their making to be created in a land of affluence and still be in penury? These are issues that keep popping up each time the leaders carry out actions that always have deleterious effects on the people. We are at that unfortunate juncture, now.
As we write, Nigerians are in for more hardship as the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), on Tuesday, announced an increase in the pump price of the Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), otherwise called petrol. The hike, has taken the pump price for petrol from N617/litre to N897/liter, depending on location.
It only took a short statement from the NNPCL to effect the new price regime. The release stated; “This is to inform you that NNPC Retail Management has approved upward review of PMS pump price from N617/itre to N897/liter effective today, 3rd September, 2024. Please ensure all your pumps and totems (price boards)/MIDs reflect the new PMS price of N897/liter. Thank you”. That is the type of arrogant communication Nigeria serves its citizens. There can be no better definition of impunity.
The new price is just an official notification. It does not take care of variations in different parts of the country, where the pump prices are already beyond the reach of the common man.
The hike is expected to spike costs of food items, transport fares and other services. That, in simple terms, indicates more hardship for the masses that are already in dire straits. For the people, there has never been a breathing space. It has rather been a full dose of challenges. A bag of rice that was bought at N30,000 some months ago currently sells at over N95,000. Cement has gone up from N4,000 to N10,000 and beyond. The same measure of Garri that was sold at N1,200, currently goes for N3,500, in some places, higher. House rents have gone up, transport fares jacked, companies are closing shops and families in disarray due to unbearable hardship.
We had here on Friday, July 12 noted that almost all the failed portions of internal roads in major cities in the country, are being taken over by colony of women, at times with children, begging for money or food. In Lagos, there is the disturbing dimension of men gathering in clusters, brandishing banners with such inscriptions, as “Ebin pa wa”, which a friend with better understanding of Yoruba language, translates to “we are dying of hunger”.
In the East, at motor parks, presence of various bands of beggars is becoming the norm. Such scenarios hardly existed in the southern parts of the country, before now. But as it is, no section is spared the embarrassment. The out-of-school syndrome that had been associated with the northern part of the country, is spreading to other states. The totality of the pressure is making the people’s patience grow thin. There is trouble in the land.
Elsewhere, this is a time when leadership matters. It is on occasions as this, that genuine leaders identify with the people, sharing in their joy and feeling their pains. But ours is different. Nigerian leaders are not known for empathy to the people. On the contrary, they interpret fellow-feeling as sign of weakness. Seeing the ordinary citizens wallow in poverty, gives them joy, in a way. It is a crude system in which while the leaders luxuriate in unconscionable lucre, the people fall deeper into poverty.
You can then understand why even when millions of the citizens can hardly eat twice daily, approvals were made for N150bn presidential jet, N5bn for a presidential yacht, N1.5bn for official cars for the office of the First Lady, N995 million ‘Black Beast’ Armoured Escalade car exclusively for the President, and billions of naira alleged to have been approved for food and entertainment for the presidential villa this financial year.
Under the circumstance, it would have been apt to ask; where is the legislature, the supposed bastion of democracy in all these? Years of military have made Nigerians focus more on the executive, with lesser attention on the legislature and the judiciary. What we have now is a selfish legislature that hardly bothers at the disturbing drift in the land, as long as the interest of its members are taken care of.
An elected legislature is the arm of government that defines a government as democratic, hence the constitution has assigned strategic roles to it. That is why the legislators are seen as true representatives of the people. Any other contraption is an autocracy or outright dictatorship.
The weight of responsibilities on the legislature, is thus, much. But the problem is that the legislature in Nigeria does not understand its role, nor the power it wields in putting the country on a sound footing. Consequently, the executive has exploited the naivete or lethargy of the lawmakers and has reduced the lawmaking institutions to mere appendages of the presidency or governors’ offices. From the inception of the current dispensation, the executive arm has not hidden its disdain on the legislature, going as far as selecting its principal officers.
So, if anyone is expecting the National Assembly (NASS) to raise a whimper of protest on the hardship serially imposed on Nigerians by the Tinubu presidency since coming to office, the person will not be getting it right. Truth be told, the current NASS under the leadership of Senator Godswill Akpabio, has in its actions and utterances, shown to be the most timid and timorous in approaching the matters of state and governance.
Every other Nigerian outside the leadership circle, is therefore on his own, trudging as far as he can and succumbing to death the day his strength fails him. That is the situation here or as expressed in ordinary terms, the way we roll. But the danger in this crass leadership failure is that the country is gradually being pushed on edge. The August 1-10 #Endbadgovernance nationwide protests by the youths over hunger and hardship in the country, should serve a lesson on the level of tension in the land. Former President, Olusegun Obasanjo, got it right the other day in his remarks that “Our youth are restive. And they are restive because they have no skill. They have no empowerment. They have no employment. We are all sitting on a keg of gunpowder”.
We may take it or not but when we talk of the rising insecurity in the land manifested in insurgency, terrorism, banditry, kidnapping, ethnic nationalism or militancy in some parts of the country, all boil down to the youth, the masses unleashing their anger on the nation and its profligate leaders that have neglected them for a long time.
It is hoped that our leaders learn and act before it gets late.
