Daily Independent Online.
*
Wednesday, June 16, 2004.
The return of President Oshiomhole
By Mike Ikhariale
[email protected]
Just about a year ago we did a piece, in which we acknowledged
the triumphant entry into the nation’s political arena of the diminutive,
but verbally thunderous leader of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), Adams
Oshiomhole, in a piece entitled “General Oshiomhole is in town!” That
was the aftermath of an industrial action that was meant to reject the hikes in
petroleum products by the government just weeks after picking another four-year
mandate from the vaults of the Independent Electoral Commission, INEC. Many
thought that the jumbo raise in the prices of fuel by the government was a
rather ungrateful act that was directed at a society that has just honoured it
with a fresh mandate. When the government refused to see reason with the plea
of the hapless people of Nigeria to reduce on the astronomical increases, like
a hero-figure, Adams Oshiomhole with some swagger stepped forward to be counted
as the one who could bell the cat, as it were. He did just that.
In many respects, the NLC call on Nigerians to stay
at home to resist the action of the government and the ensuing
government’s arrogant refusal to budge on the matter created an indirect
opportunity for the nation to initiate a motion for a circumstantial vote of no
confidence on the newly inaugurated second term of the Obasanjo presidency: Namely,
as between Oshiomhole and Obasanjo, who has the more legitimate mandate? As it
turned out the people of Nigeria failed to stand by the mandate they recently
gave Obasanjo as they trooped out in their millions behind Oshiomhole and went
on to inflict a very paralysing national strike on the already wobbling
economy. At the end of the day, the government lost and consequently swallowed
its pride and proceeded to reduce the prices of petroleum products even though
grudgingly.
But like a humiliated child, the government has been
trying one way or the other to return to the position wherein the popular
sovereign is seen to be resident with it by deploying all the tricks in the
books to jack up the prices of those products. Ostensibly in anticipation of
the economic aggression that it was bent on waging against the people, the
President went to the World Bank and hired as a finance minister, a woman that
would only be paid in dollars, then set up and economic team that would readily
parlay with our creditors like the IMF and the Paris Club due to their past
alliances. It did not matter that such appointments, apart from being illegal
as far as the dollars aspect of the remuneration packages are concerned, the
mere fact that someone has worked for an international agency like the World
Bank does not necessarily suggests competence and creativity.
Sourcing for a national economic managing team from
abroad is not the same thing as bringing home foreign-based soccer stars like
Jay Jay Okocha and Obafemi Martins to help win matches for us because these
guys have played much earlier in Ajegunle and the Mile 2 dusty playgrounds
before they got the attention of AC Milan or Real Madrid. In other words, they
are homeboys who need no re-acclimatization with Nigeria. On the contrary, some of these
so-called ‘Ivy leaguers’ that OBJ has handed the economy over to
were no stars in this country before they jetted out on their Jamb-evading
trips to overseas institutions and would definitely not have been able to
survive the gruelling and hash terrain of Nigeria either as students or as
practitioners. Now with suitcases filled with obsolete CD-ROMs and Xeroxed
materials on economic reforms, they have been suffocating the nation’s
economic space with high-sounding but practically meaningless reform agendas
and, from the look of things, the economy would be worsted before they are
chased out.
That is why the heroic return of President Oshiomhole
to the scene is very important. For the umpteenth time, the people have voted
for him on every dicey national issue in which President Obasanjo, supported by
his team of voodoo economists, is his opponent. How come the labour leader has
always found it too easy to rubbish Obasanjo in the streets of Nigeria where
the incidents of real political power are supposed to be more evident? Another
test of the “Oshiomhole power” is the just suspended national
strike directed at beating the government off its new astronomical hike in the
prices of fuel. It is instructive that at the inception of the strike Mr.
President was quoted as saying that NLC, the army of which Oshiomhole is the
Commander-in-Chief, was “insignificant”. Insignificant, my foot!
Not to be left out, his Vice, Atiku, on his part, said NLC is “the threat
to democracy” as if there is another meaning to democracy.
Well, as things have once again turned out, it is the
President, and not the NLC, that has proved to be politically and morally
insignificant. How else does one explain the fact that while the President is
not even sure of the loyalty of his ministers, much less of the populace,
Oshionmhole is able to dictate to the entire nation and such dictations are
followed to the letter?
Let us look at the scenario again. From nowhere, the
government increased the prices of petroleum products. In the case of petrol,
from N41.50 or thereabouts to N52.00 a litre! In the language of the time, it
was said to be the handiwork of “market forces” which in practical
terms translates to mean an evil arrangement between PPRPA, the shylock oil marketers
and the Presidency. How come it is only in Nigeria that market forces always
act in such jumbo leaps? For all the time I have lived in the US, the prices of
petrol only rise and fall in cents and pennies at a time and as a result nobody
is sufficiently compelled to go into the street in protest. For a product that
everyone in the nation depends on, it is bad judgement to increase the price by
such an astronomical magnitude.
Whoever told Mr. President that the people would
continue to take any fiscal punishment meted out to them has misled him. Even
if all things were to be equal, and we know that they are not, it is obvious
that no economy can withstand the shocks and dislocations that would be
generated by such seismic jumps in the prices. It is therefore easy to see why
Adams Oshiomhole would always sway the people to himself whenever he clashes
with Obasanjo. Need we mention that Obasanjo did not even deem it necessary to
stay on and fight the indefatigable labour warrior this time around as he flew
away (ran away?) to watch the G8 meeting in the US? If those G8 leaders had
mismanaged their economies, they would in all probability also be dealing with
labour strikes today instead of doling out aids to debtor-leaders like
Obasanjo. Needless to say that Baba only shook hands, as usual, and returned
home with nothing. What a pity!
It is instructive that just after three days of
extraordinarily successful nation-wide strike, the government has again climbed
down from its very high horse and retracted from the position it once told us
is well beyond the reach of humans as it is solely the handiwork of the magic
“market forces”. Nigeria remains the seventh largest exporter of
oil in the whole world. It is therefore a rich nation by all standards but the
people are impoverished and debilitated by official corruption and
incompetence.
It is shameful that the country has been pushed to
the point in which all that is possible in order to sustain the appetite of a
corrupt governing system is to continue to jack up the prices of petroleum
products on the false notion that “the people would always pay”.
Such is not only lazy and unproductive; it also shows how insensitive the
leadership has become. The continuous success of Oshiomhole over Obasanjo, so
far, is due to the fact that one is dealing with facts and the pulse of the
nation while the other is labouring under grave illusion of relevance. Too bad.
