It was a somewhat sober President Obasanjo who addressed
Nigerians the other day, at the inauguration of the Mantu Committee set up
to find measures to alleviate the suffering associated with the incessant
increases of the price of petroleum products. For a fleeting moment at
least, as the quotation above shows, Obasanjo abandoned his all-knowing and
haughty disdain for people, to attempt to present a more measured side to
his personality.
That this side of the President came to the fore no
matter how briefly is an indication of the depth of the crisis that faces
the country. The general strike called by the Nigeria Labour Congress and
its civil society allies was such a success that the state apparatus was
obliged to re-assess its response to the groundswell of feeling that
assisted the success of the nationwide strike action. It was obvious for all
to see, that the government was very alienated from the Nigerian people,
while the image of the President has become inseperable from pain, anguish
and suffering in the minds of the Nigerian people.
The more sinister element of the unfolding scenario, was
the creeping erosion of confidence in the democratic project that the
handling of the nation�s political and economic process, by the Obasanjo
government was beginning to engender. In the build up to the strike, I had
spoken to some notable individuals within organised civil society circles,
who felt there was the need to give Obasanjo a �bloody nose�, or words to
that effect, with a crippling general strike.
Unfortunately, a few operatives of the government, such
as the Labour minister, Dr. Hassan Lawal, still could not appreciate the
gravity of the issues that the strike action�s success raised for the
government. He was still living in cloud cuckoo land, when he told
journalists after the Federal Executive Council meeting of Wednesday,
October 13, 2004, that �You can see the strike was not a success. At least
my children are in school�. Obviously Hassan Lawal�s media source for the
reportage of the strike action, were the irresponsibly jaundiced bulletins
that Tony Iredia�s NTA was dishing out to Nigerians, while the strike action
lasted.
On the other hand, the information minister, Chukwuemeka
Chikelu, was more measured in his own conclusions about the strike. It was
noteworthy that the NTA that had set out to demonise the strike action now
became the same medium over which appeals from the Information Minister were
made directly to Nigerian workers to abandon the strike and return to work.
Those appeals in themselves were an acknowledgement of
the effect that the strike was having on the Nigerian economy and on the
general credibility of the Nigerian state. It was therefore not surprising
that Chikelu�s take on the strike struck a far more conciliatory tone, when
compared to that of the Labour minister. Information Minister Chikelu had
gone on to state that with the success of the strike, �everybody is a loser.
The government, the NLC, the Nigerian people. There is nothing to
celebrate�.
The information minister added for good measure, that
�There is no success for anybody when people do not go to work, children
don�t go to school, banks and financial institutions do not open, when an
economy is dropped and dragged down, people are suffering and prevented from
earning a living, nobody is a winner in a situation where your country is
going down�. This is a true reflection of the unfortunate scenario which
came in the wake of the general strike.
However, the question to ask is what is the source of the
problem in the first place? Has Chukwuemeka Chikelu, if he is being honest
with himself, asked the question? Or has he gone further to feel the pulse
of the Nigerian people: its mass of working people, the middle class of
professionals and intellectuals and its suffering national entrepreneurial
class, why they feel very exasperated today, than at any other time in our
recent national history?
It is imperative for the government of the day, and
particularly President Obasanjo to listen to the Nigerian people. In a
democracy, it is very important for government to be one with the people
like fish in the ocean. That means that where there are genuine sacrifices
to be made for the overall good, such sacrifices must be presented to the
people honestly and sympathetically. It�s also important to stress what the
outcomes to be expected are, and the time frame for such outcomes to be
placed in the public realm.
The failure of the Obasanjo administration is that its
economic programs, the basis of the incessant hike in the prices of
petroleum products; the sale of our national patrimony in a dubious
privatisation project and the anarchic withdrawal of the state from several
areas of societal life, are hinged upon a foreign orchestrated project. The
source of the programme is the Bretton Woods institutions and the creditor
governments of the Western world. The program suffers from the arrogance of
its leading proponents, members of the so-called economic team, some of who
love Nigeria so much, that they cannot even accept to be paid salaries in
our national currency!
These experts talk at the Nigerian people, believe that
their doctrinaire worship of market forces and the highways of globalized
capitalism, cannot be faulted by anybody. It�s the last word in received
wisdom. Their attitude does not inspire confidence in the Nigerian people.
If that is then mixed with the well-known impatience of President Obasanjo
for a different perspective of issues and that all-knowing, messianic
�short-fuse�, it becomes easy to understand why Nigerians went all out to
obey the strike call.
But there cannot be a gloating over the crisis which
faces Obasanjo and his administration. We want to identify with the sober
conclusions of the information minister, that there cannot be a winner when
the country lurches from one avoidable crisis to another. It is pertinent
for the operatives of the government to climb down from their arrogant
perches to meet us, mere mortals on the grounds of objectives reality. That
means an acceptance that there cannot be infallibility in the programs of
government.
It is heartening to note that Nigerians have continued to
talk offering a different perspective to the government about its policies.
In an interview published in SATURDAY PUNCH of October 16th, 2004, Professor
Anya O. Anya, took a look at the policies of the government and said bluntly
that �I am worried, because the political frame work, the socio-economic
frame work are not right�in (the) long-term�we have to manage our political
and socio-economic circumstances better. Our president has to be a lot more
patriotic and to listen to (SIC) a lot more�� if you don�t have the patience
to listen to your citizens, then you have no business being there.�
Where Obasanjo has refused to listen to the Nigerian
people, above all else, is in the regime of incessant increases in the price
of petroleum products, and in his oil policy in general. When he came to
power in 1999 the price of refined petroleum was N11 per liter, and five
years later, in 2004, it is now over N53 per liter. Of course all Nigerians
understand the ripple effect on the prices of goods and services, and
therefore the deepening level of poverty amongst the Nigerian people. All
Nigerians, except those brought by the international financial institutions
to implement the harebrained neo-liberal policies.
Ambassador Oladapo Fafowora�s well-researched write up on
the current crisis, which was published in THISDAY ON SUNDAY of October
17th, 2004, looked at Obasanjo�s reforms and the effects they have had on
Nigeria, and the outcome makes very depressing reading. �The poor have
become poorer while the well off have grown richer. It is estimated that
less than 1% of the population earn over 50% of the total national income, a
process that has been made possible by the whole-sale acceptance of the IMF/World
Bank economic reform programme.�
So after twenty years of the implementation of SAP and
with Obasanjo�s continuation of the same neo-liberal economic policies,
Nigerians, Ambassador Fafowora continued, �remain some of the poorest people
in the world, with a per capita income of less than $300 per annum. It is
estimated that over 70% of the population live below the poverty line, and
earn less than $1 per day. When compared to other developing countries,
Nigeria has one of the worst social indices. We spend far less per capita on
health care, education, housing and other social infrastructure than most
other African countries.�
This statistical background is an indictment of the
Nigerian ruling class and its husbandry of our country. There was a
tremendous groundswell of goodwill for President Obasanjo when he came into
power in 1999, which unfortunately has been squandered in the five years
since then. It is particularly unpardonable when it is realised that so much
money has accrued to the different tiers of government, since 1999 than at
any other time in Nigeria�s history. Monies that could have appreciably
turned now the lives of Nigerians, if properly utilised.
It is therefore important, given the crisis in the land
today, for President Obasanjo to take steps to heal the country. He has to
redeem the image he has cultivated of an uncaring President; a President
whose charity begins abroad, and who is excessively enamoured of being seen
amongst the international elite than being sympathetic to his own people.
Obasanjo must begin to dialogue with broad sections of the Nigerian people,
and should shake off the cocoon that has been built around him by his
experts, whose loyalty is to impenalism and not Nigeria; and the oil
importation lobby, which has made him lose his much admired common touch of
old.
It is also imperative for Obasanjo to rethink the entire
economic platform that underpins his reform agenda. It is a platform that
will not work, because the content is not patriotic. It is designed to
deepen the dependent status of Nigeria; it will eventually destroy the
fabric of our sovereignty and will pauperise the Nigerian people even more.
The IMF/World Bank were not set out to help the economic development of
underdeveloped countries, but to protect the hegemony of the impenalist
powers, headed by the United States.
There is no way that the leopard of the international
financial system will change its spot in the Nigerian economic reform
program which President Obasanjo has been made to accept line, hook and
sinker. It is the pain which accompanies the programme that is fuelling the
anger in the land today. It is anger that needs to be carefully defused, by
a more sober President Obasanjo; that means re-tracing his steps away from
the doctrinaire implementation of the agenda of imperialism.
We need a genuinely people-centered and patriotic economic reform
project. This is the only way that the pain, anger and anguish in the polity
can be decisively healed. Obasanjo, we are waiting.
