The rulers and the ruled
By Ben Ejiogu
THERE are roughly two types of Nigerians, the rulers and the ruled. Between these two groups there appears to be a pathological antipathy to each other. Basking under the dizzy lights of Abuja, the Abuja crowd seem incapable of understanding the true feelings of their fellow countrymen who are struggling to cope with many of life's challenges in modern day Nigeria. If the truth must be said, these rulers command little respect among the people of Nigeria who see them as managers of corruption.
They spend our money like water and yet I make bold to say that the naira is difficult to earn in Nigeria as the dollar is in America. For a start an exchange rate of N146 to the dollar is a sell out, but the problem is made worse by the uncontrolled profligacy of our legislators. Our masters in Abuja always exhorting us to be patient and patriotic show little of these virtues themselves. They are certainly not patient when it comes to sharing money.
Of recent our legislators have graduated into a slapping game where men slap women and women slap men. One wonders when a full-scale war will erupt in the National Assembly. But at the heart of these violent disagreements is money, not policy. The one claims to have incurred the wrath of another by 'borrowing' some N707,000 in order to attend a conference in Geneva. The other is annoyed that she was not posted to an oil producing area to do her oversight job. It will appear that an official visit to arid north was certainly not of much attraction, hence whoever conceived the idea, chairman or not, should be given a dirty slap. At the root of these squabbles is money, always money. With the possible exception of Senator Uche Chukwumerije, who when you discount his disastrous outing in the days of MKO Abiola, there are hardly any voices in the senate disagreeing or pursuing matters on principle.
Senators seem quite happy to be swaying with the wind, following the senate president who himself is always frisking by the side of his beloved president. This is the way that peace and concord is secured in what they call their White House. But you do not see among our legislators an exhortation to the higher values of nationalism or visions of the future of this great country or an inspired exposition on the role of government in a democracy.
Transparency International recently upgraded Nigeria's corruption index from second to third position. I am not impressed by this at all as nothing much has changed in essence. An African proverb says that a bird that flies from the ground to a mound is still on the ground. The government of Haiti, if it can be so called, is slightly better than anarchy. In the face of this continuing opprobrium it is disquieting that our legislators have not found it necessary to rise in great indignation to debate the phenomenon of corruption in Nigeria. Their silence in effect bears out the findings of Transparency International.
Recently, the President after ruling for years without a budget has hastened this year to propose his budget for next year. It runs fully into N1.6 trillion. A euphoric National Assembly has been congratulating the president for a job well done, and granting their teeth on how best to neutralise the office of Due Process. Clearly there is enough money to go round. When the president and his vice can spend more than N1.5 billion in one year on travel alone, surely the legislators are taking notice, because as the president goes, so goes his governors and legislators.
I am never excited about the annual budgets of Nigeria as nothing much changes on the ground year in year out. The annual budget of Nigeria is merely an estimate of bigness which may or may not translate to reality. It is money, according to the World Bank, which we allocate to the one per cent of Nigerians that consume 80 per cent of the nation's oil and gas revenue.
The money of Nigeria, however much it is, does not trickle down to the people who are still struggling to cope. Living standards have deteriorated since Independence and falling. I have watched the poverty alleviation programme of the federal government in action. It does not address the needs of the poor but is routinely used on a select few as avenues for party patronage - a piece of cloth here, a bag of rice there; a bar of soap, transport money, that sort of thing. The federal government has recently devised a similar scheme, this time to cushion the effects of incessant fuel price increases on the people. It is targeted on transport and medicines. I ask myself, how and when the declared palliative will reach the danfo commuter or even the medicine seller. In fact many of the drugs in use in Nigeria today are manufactured here. One wonders what impact the reduction of duty in imported drugs will have on our people. Many have gone back to traditional healers being too poor to afford even the general hospital. Perhaps, a reduction in import duty may have the unintended effect of a cheaper viagra which may be just what our pampered men of Abuja need to coax their failing libido.
Before we are through, the federal government will try every trick in the book except reducing the price of petroleum products. At the end of the day the hapless village farmer or market woman is still worse off because of the high cost of fuel. Let us remember that fuel price affects even those who have no vehicle. It is common denominator upon which the price of everything is measured. For instance, the increase in the price of kerosene has led to an assault on firewood.
Many Nigerians who hitherto have depended on kerosene as fuel of first choice can no longer afford it. As a result the desertification of Nigeria continues apace. The north is already moving south. The problem in Plateau state over farming and grazing rights is just the beginning of a growing problem. An imaginative government should start early to turn its citizens away from the use of firewood by encouraging them to use kerosene, gas and coal for cooking. The federal government appears not to fully comprehend the full geopolitical implications of a ruinous policy of expensive kerosene.
It seems sad that our inability to repair or build new refineries is at the heart of our problem. Had we done the right things in five years of Obasanjo's government, as world oil price escalates, the cost of petroleum products to the Nigerian consumer should have been going down. As it is, insisting on fuel importation, we are tied to the apron strings of high cost producers who vexed by the high cost of crude are pleasantly surprised that Nigeria like a lamb to the slaughter has exposed itself to the onslaught of vengeful producers.
What we call deregulation is such an imperfect market is not deregulation at all. It is our clumsy reaction to the management of imported inflation. True deregulation will come when we refine our own crude with our own labour and equipment, and sell to the downstream on the basis of the internal dynamics of the market. Until we do this, we are just punishing our people for nothing but rather than admit our inadequacies we are bullying the same people to accept without demur a burden to which God did not design for them.
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