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untitled
Of fuel, spirits and kalokalo
KENNETH UGBECHIE
HONEST, I�m beginning to hate this thing called fuel. I am serious. Fuel is filthy. It is evil. It is a spirit
which is everything but holy. I mean fuel is an evil spirit.
Just consider this. In its raw state, it is called crude oil. To refine it so that government can have something
to toy with its price, you subject it to a process called cracking (of all the words in the world). Then a lot
of things happen. Petrol, a.k.a. premium motor spirit will jump out first, then diesel, then kerosene and others.
You see what I mean? There is something uncanny and cranky about fuel. And I blame it on Jack, the English lexicographer.
Why, for instance, did he choose to call the process of refining crude oil cracking. As if crude oil were some
hard slabs of granite exhumed from the crust of the earth. As if Jack did not know that cracking is derived from
the word crack: a highly addictive form of cocaine...as if he did not know that a crack-brained person is a mad
person.
Again, this Jack, a mischievous little brat, decided to spite some of us holy and happy Nigerians by labelling
petrol premium motor spirit. In other words, petrol is a spirit. And we all know that spirits are not to be seen,
sighted or touched. But you can smell them. In the same manner, we smelt the toxic, noxious, deadly petrol imported
during the good old days of General Abacha. In those days, premium was placed on importation of motor spirits.
And when the son of the Lord of the Manor, with assistance and guidance from pimps at the Petroleum and Products
Marketing Company (PPMC) imported this brand of petrol from Russia, they quickly turned to spirits and disappeared
leaving only their smell behind. And we really saw pepper. We smelt fuel, fumes and spirits.
Early in the morning, we would arise like good compatriots and march hotfoot to the filling station. There the
fuel attendant, a sedulous pumpkin head, would serenade our souls with some karaoke, serve us kola, the real bitter
kola, before playing kalokalo with the fuel pump. He would fiddle with the fuel pump, turn the nozzle towards heaven,
then to Abuja, Warri, Port Harcourt and Kaduna. He would mutter to himself before turning to us. "Gentlemen,
the refineries are not working. There is no fuel."
We, too, would charge back. "There is fuel. We can smell it. Sell fuel to us, jare!"
But that is the truth. There is no fuel. Even though we are all choking from the stench of imported fuel. Indeed,
we could smell the fuel, Abacha petrol, but like the spirits they are, they have grown wings and disappeared. And
that�s how we battled with petrol scarcity in the days of Abacha. The man of the dark goggles could not deal with
the stubborn spirits in the premium motor spirit.
I am happy, fellow compatriots, to announce that we have at last found a cure for the spirits. Just like a cure
for the blues (remember Bill Clinton�s campaign badge). Yes, we found the cure in Baba (Oga, sir, me too, I dey
kampe). In the last five years of this regime, Baba has been able to tame the wandering spirit of petrol. He has
not told us how he did it but I think Baba is spiritually higher than Abacha.
When Baba appeared on the scene on May 29, 1999, he merely decreed: "let there be fuel!" Pronto, there
was fuel, more fuel and more fuel. And it is not the Abacha type of fuel. For while the Abacha fuel has wandering
spirits that make them disappear all in a flash, Baba�s fuel has a different kind of spirit � a climbing spirit.
That is why the price of fuel has been climbing the ladder, jumping a record five rungs in five years under Baba�s
tenure .
This is the trouble with Baba�s fuel. It doesn�t have the abiku spirit that infested Abacha fuel making it to appear
and disappear from filling stations. Baba�s fuel comes, stays but perches beyond the people�s reach. Go to any
filling station today, you will find fuel, plenty fuel. But it is expensive. Only a few of us can afford it.
And just like crack, fuel is addictive. While Abacha was addicted to its importation, Baba is addicted to increasing
its pump price. In fact, it has become his favourite pastime. Any time he gets into a fit of blues, he turns to
the pump price of fuel for a cure. And this he does by merely jacking up the price of fuel and watching Nigerians
get cracked up.
I have yet another grouse about fuel. It fuels poverty and hardship. Ask Professor Sam Aluko, that renowned economist
and chairman of the National Economic Intelligence Commission (NEIC). Recently, while submitting the 2004 report
of the Commission to the President, he accused Obasanjo of fuelling inflation by constantly adjusting upwardly
the pump price of fuel. The professor of economics said Baba�s penchant for tickling fuel pumps has sent all the
fuel pumps in the federation into a spasm of hysteria and rhapsodies. In fact, he warned that if nothing is done
to discourage Baba from further romance with fuel pumps, he might continue to indulge himself and subsequently
hang all of us on the cross of inflation. God forbid!
Again, fuel fuels corruption (this word again). This is my ultimate discovery. Ever since Transparency International
branded Nigerians as a people possessed by the spirit of corruption, I had to go back to my laboratory. And both
the preliminary and final reports of my highly scientific empirical analysis point to fuel as the premium motor
spirit in our engine of corruption. To make sure that my analysis and prediction do not fail like the cheap predictions
of parapsychologist Okunzua and the panoply of fake prophets abounding in this country, I decided to consult the
spirits of my forebears. Their verdict? Blame the evil spirit of fuel for the only thriving industry in Nigeria,
the industry of corruption.
In fact, the spirits told me that because petrol is labelled premium motor spirit, its aura, charm and hynoptic
influence on Nigerian leaders are all manipulated from the spirit realm. They said this is why our leaders are
either obsessed with the soporific passion of importation of the wrong spirits like the toxic Abacha fuel or they
are feverishly joggling their pump prices. Now you know why despite government�s admission to committing the sum
of $800 million to turn-around-maintenance (TAM) of the four refineries without successfully turning a single nut,
nobody is in jail by now. I guess you, too, had been under the hynopsis that given the spirited tenor with which
this government has been mouthing its anti-corruption campaign, somebody would by now be cooling off in Kirikiri
or Kuje prison at the behest of Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) or the Independent Corrupt Practices
Commission (ICPC).
Fellow compatriots, permit me to shock you this morning with my findings in the spirit world. During my sojourn
in the spirit kingdom, the spirits were especially nice to me. They even gave me an insight into why corruption
is resident in Nigeria. They said that corruption became more corrosive in Nigeria since the birth of ICPC in 2000.
What? Just wait. They said that in the spirit world, they use the baptismal names of people, parastatals or agencies
of government to work against them. They revealed to me that because ICPC is a Commission for Independent Corrupt
Practices, they help it to live out the full essence of its name by making it to encourage corruption. They said
the appropriate name ought to have been Independent Anti-Corrupt Practices Commission (IAPC). In this way, they
confided in me, the Commission would have mustered enough spiritual strength to fight corruption. The spirits even
quoted the bible to support their argument. They said satan cannot cast out satan. I was benumbed.
Now you know why MT African Pride (indeed!), that ship impounded by the Navy for engaging in crooked crude oil
(unrefined spirits) business in Nigerian waters, disappeared out-of-sight, out-of-earshot and even out-of-reach
of the Chief of Naval Staff himself. It is because the ship is a spirit used in lifting spirits, a lucrative business
ordinary people like you call bunkering. I have said it before. Nobody can arrest a spirit, not even Super Cop
Tafa Balogun (Oga IG, you dare not). And the cheek of it. Some people think they can prosecute those linked, remotely
or directly, with the ship or its upstream business. I tell you, nothing would come out of that case. Mark my words.
Nobody can spite the spirits and still stand.
Can you imagine? Just because of a miserable $75,000 (he calls it loan) which my uncle, a former Inspector General
of Police and Nigerian-breed politician, M. D. Yusuf, got from officials of Hanlliburton, some people think the
man has soiled his immaculate robe. This is preposterous. Utterly ridiculous. Do these people not know that in
matters of business of spirits, you give kola to elders, especially elder statesmen, to appease them? I will advise
those prying into this matter to remove their blood-shot eyes because this matter borders on premium motor spirit.
And in matters of the spirit, the more you look, the less you see.
If only you people know the trouble I went through to write this. I had to bind and cast all sorts of spirits,
including wandering spirits, climbing spirits, evil spirits and premium motor spirit, before I was able to scribble
this senseless nonesense. Do you really think I made sense? The spirits think I did.
© 2004 @ Champion Newspapers Limited (All Right Reserved).
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