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The foolish farmer
BEN OGUNTUASE
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[email protected]
There is a story that has been
told a few times and it is worth repeating. It is the story of the foolish
farmer who specialises in producing yams which he sells to a village where they
specialise in producing mortars and pestles for preparing pounded yam. The yam
farmer has his immediate family to feed, so he bought a mortar and pestle from
the producer in the other village. He keeps just a few tubers for his family
consumption. The weather became bad and there was drought leading to reduced
harvest of yams from other suppliers. The yam farmer was not affected by the
drought. He had a boom as the price of his yams went up. The yam farmer saw
an opportunity and he decided that he would sell more yams, including the
reserve for his family. He also decided that his children who provide the
labour input into his yam production must now pay for the yam they use in
preparing their pounded yam. The children protested and withheld their labour.
The yam farmer then secretly proceeded to destroy the mortar and pestle, thus
forcing his family to now purchase their pounded yam from the other village.
Just as the price of yam went up, so too did the price of pounded yam. Not to
starve, the children were now forced to put in extra labour to earn enough to
pay for the pounded yam they must now have to buy. Later, the producers of
mortars and pestles decided they would no longer sell those items. Instead,
anyone who wants pounded yam must buy from them at their price. Eventually,
they succeeded in determining not only the price of pounded yam, but also the
price of yams.
The
above in a simplified form is the story of Nigeria particularly under this
government and its so-called deregulation. It also explains the paradox of
suffering in the midst of plenty. The nation becomes richer while the citizens
become poorer. At N53 per litre, we are now paying about $1.60 per gallon at
the exchange rate of N135 to $1. They pay on the average $1.9 per gallon or
approximately N64 per litre. In the U.S., the minimum wage is $5.10 per hour
which translates to N108,000 per month. Minimum wage in Nigeria is N7,500 per
month or equivalent of $1.35 per hour. The middle class earns the equivalent
of about N450,000 per month. Since we now sell our crude at world market rate and
also buy products at world market rate, may be we should also earn world level
income.
What
we are told is that if we deregulate, we will attract private investment in our
refineries which will then automatically drive down the prices of refined
products. This will never happen and will remain an illusion. There are three
factors responsible for this. The first is that there is substantial excess
refining capacity worldwide particularly in Europe and the U.S. Since they
control the technology, they have no desire to expand capacity and throw their
people out of job. The alternative is that they build and run using their own
people. Unfortunately, Nigeria’s unstable and crisis-prone political
economy does not make this an attractive option. We lack the capacity locally.
Those who showed the potential in the short-lived Republic of Biafra were
gotten rid of. The second factor is geopolitical. To keep Nigeria under
control, it must be made a dependent state in areas strategic to its
well-being, thereby preventing her from ever realising her potential as the
giant of Africa. The third factor is the fact that our past and present rulers
own substantial interests in offshore refineries starting with the one in
Sierra Leone all the way to Venezuela. It is always in their interest to skew
domestic policies in favour of their offshore interests. If anyone truly
believes private investors will pump money into refineries in Nigeria, such a
person should first ask Total what became of its Turn Around Maintenance (TAM)
contract on Kaduna Refinery and that was even our own money! Just as it is
with our steel industry, so it will be with our oil industry. Ajaokuta will
never work, given our current approach.
We
also need to know that a producer is not obliged to sell the same item at the
same price and the same terms to two different nations. Everything is based on
bilateral relationship and relative strengths. We experience this daily in our
foreign transactions. Nigeria pays far more for the same items than many
nations simply because we lack the leadership that put the interest of the
nation ahead of theirs.
So
what really could this government have done or still do? The answer really is
simple. Finance the repair of existing refineries and construction of new ones
with soft loans to indigenous entrepreneurs. These entrepreneurs must
demonstrate the necessary skill in acquiring the technology using as much of
state facilities as possible. We are a technologically backward nation, yet
our Nigerian Intelligence Agency (NIA) is not making waves in industrial
espionage. Japan did it, Russia did it. Israel survived on it using its
MOSSAD. Even the U.S. through its CIA is not left out. What really is the
function of this agency and its relevance to national development? It is
really amazing that forty four years after independence, we are still paying
half-hearted attention to local content in our prime industry. The oil
industry failed to pioneer any technology revolution in Nigeria simply because
we lack industrial intelligence capability.
And
so, again, we are back on strike led by NLC. The media often like to describe
it as labour strike. Wrong. This is a strike of the Nigerian people in which
labour is merely providing the leadership. In this regard, Mr. Adams Oshiomole
must be commended for his courage and brilliance in articulation. The fear
however exists that this strike may go the way of others, achieving nothing.
Mr. Oshiomole and NLC must be informed that this strike must go far this time around
as failure would simply mean they will never again be able to call anyone out
for any strike.
For
some reasons, NLC always defines very limited objective, reverse to old price.
Now that old price has moved from N22 per litre to N43 per litre, government,
not labour, not the people of Nigeria has been shifting the goal post. What
all Nigerians must know is that constant increase in fuel prices is just
another symptom of a greater disease of leadership incompetence at national
level. Let us face the real issue, this government is a failure. Time has
come for NLC, the Civil Society Coalition and indeed all patriotic Nigerians to
tell this government to resign honourably. It has no new ideas left and
nothing positive can be achieved by this government. If this strike merely
ends up as another call for reversal of fuel prices, it will fail and that will
be the end.
Nigerians
have demonstrated strong support for NLC and the coalition, especially with
mass contempt shown towards the irresponsible ruling of a Judge that sought to
outlaw NLC Presidency and a Senate that willfully betrayed the mandate of a
nation. Time has come for Mr. Oshiomhole to become the Lech Walesa of Nigeria
and NLC our Solidarity Movement. When there is a government that never listens
to the people or yield to their cry, such governments are thrown out by
people’s revolution. Ferdinand Marcos of Philippines, General Jaruzelski
of Poland, Nicholae Ceausescu of Romania plus several more are all examples.
The simple basic question is whose oil and whose money are we really talking of
here? In a democracy, if the people who gave the leader his mandate now decide
this is what they want, that leader is duty-bound to obey the new mandate or
leaves the stage. Nigeria state is no one’s private property.
We cannot continue to be deceived by an ill-defined,
poorly-articulated, foreign-inspired economic reform that puts the interest of
the people last. It is so obvious that no kind of reform can achieve anything
outside the framework of a stable political system which is what the call for
sovereign national conference is all about. Someone somewhere is afraid that
Nigeria may break up. So what? If Nigeria breaks up but the people end up
happier, would that not be better than forty four years of aimless journey
through the wilderness? The Jews wondered for forty years. Why should our own
be more? The beauty of a federation lies in the willingness of the federating
units to voluntarily surrender to a centralized relationship on mutually agreed
terms. Must we wait for seventy years like the Soviet Union before we realize
what we have to do? If these leaders who talk so much of Nigerian unity truly
believe in it, why can’t they test it out by agreeing to a conference
since they are so sure most Nigerians want to stay as one? We need to stop
deceiving ourselves. No reform can work in our present circumstance and the
mission of this government to reform the failed systems, structures and values
of the past will take us no where. Why must we waste three more years with
this rudderless order?
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