Nigeria is one panoramic slide movie. In quick succession we have moved from Mosimi pipeline fire to Ralph Uwazuruike-MASSOB-Ojukwu-SSS to Alhaji Mujahideen Asari Dokubo to fuel strike and back to oil pipeline fire at the Niger Delta! As I write this (Tuesday), the nation has been shut down for two days, going to the third day. Although we all saw the strike coming, I still nursed a forlorn hope (as it has turned out) that the strike would be averted; that the government would behave differently this time. Yet the government allowed the strike to take place, acting no differently from the way it acted during previous strikes, meaning that government is incapable of managing this particular crisis or is yet to appreciate that the frequent disruptions arising from this altercation hurts this country very much. Increasingly, Obasanjo’s capacity to lead is being called to question!
The intervention of the 36 governors did not avert the strike because Nigerians could not trust them. The last time they brokered an understanding that the marketers would revert to N38 per litre while labour called off the strike. Everybody went away happy, only for the marketers to insist on selling at N42 per litre, with the governors unable to hold them to the agreement. The Federal Government once more resorted to using the same ineffectual, childish and laughable tactics to try to bamboozle the masses. The NTA was still busy deceiving itself, believing that it was rendering patriotic service to the nation! If the NTA knew the contempt in which Nigerians hold it! How come none of the Abacha people in Obasanjo’s administration could advise the government that Nigerians have come a very long way from the days of Babangida; that the masses honed their strategy to confront oppressive government during Abacha’s era; that all it takes is Chima Ubani to shut down the nation? Which also points to the regrettable fact that the confidence of Nigerians in the Federal Government is daily waning!
In the last three weeks we have been in the news globally for the wrong reasons. We are now grouped with Iraq, Iran, hurricane in New Mexico, and terror in Saudi Arabia as the reason for the rise of crude oil price in the international market! This should begin to worry us all. Already the kind of travel and business warnings the United States is posting on their Sate Department websites are not flattering at all, particularly to a country that is desirous of foreign investment. What has happened to the Nigerian Image Project?
Nigerians and the Federal Government have to quickly come to terms with the needs of the economic reforms as they concern deregulation of the oil sector. I know when I have lost an argument. You only need to see the amount of wax in the ears of a man you are arguing with to decide if continuing the argument is worth it. On 15 June 2004 I wrote here an article titled “Preparing for The Inevitability of Deregulation”. I articulated what I figured was wrong with the way the deregulation was being implemented. Those defects are what precipitated the recent strikes.
Everybody who had anything to say about the strike hammered on “dialogue” as if it was something Oshiomhole had to produce from his pocket to end the problem! The truth is that this government does not want to dialogue with anybody or group that is not armed! The government needs to engage Nigerian people on the necessity for the economic reforms it is carrying out. Why is the reform in oil sector posing more problem than in the banking or government sectors? Oil is as volatile as it is inflammable, and therefore government ought not tire of explaining issues to the people. I must say that the Group Managing Director of NNPC, Engr. Funso Kupolokun has been untiring in recent times in explaining the transformation going on in NNPC to Nigerians. But unfortunately, the league of Obasanjo, PPPRA and major marketers are making things difficult for him! The indecent haste in using the National Assembly and a high court to emasculate the Nigerian Labour Congress, and raise petroleum products prices while talking deregulation does not engender people’s confidence in the process.
On Monday, 11 October, the day the strike began, Simon Kolawole of Thisday, ended his beautiful piece on the price revolution in the telecommunications sector with this hope: “Who knows, maybe sometime next year, I will branch at a filling station to re-fuel, and I will be pleasantly told that petrol is now N1 per litre!” The President also re-echoed this during his presentation of the 2005 Budget to the National Assembly on Tuesday 12 October. The possibility of petrol price crash is a reality, but not as long as we import from abroad. And not as long as the major marketers are a cartel instead of competitors! If there is a strategy to bring competition to the downstream, and quickly too, as we deregulate, that is what Nigerians are entitled to know. Right now, one major drawback to the deregulation is that Nigerians do not trust the President and the cartel of major marketers.
There is a need to restore that confidence. For example, Nigerians cannot understand why Obasanjo and his collaborators prefer imported fuel to our refineries functioning!
When I read Simon Kolawole’s article, my reaction was that we may not get to the day petrol price may crash down. There were two reasons for this. One is that we have simply forgotten that we are squabbling over a perishing asset! Petrol resources do not and will not last forever! That is one of the arguments the government is using to buttress reform; to save the future for our children! We want, however, to be reassured that indeed the future is being saved for our children.
And that is where transparency in the reforms comes in. Nigerians would have been reassured that the sacrifice they are called to make is worthwhile if they see affordable homes through functioning mortgage system, decent and affordable mass transport system, quality roads, good hospitals and quality education system. But what do we see? The more money government spends on our behalf the more Nigeria unravels and crumbles.
The second point is that we Nigerians MUST re-prioritise our lives, re-order our priorities and adopt some personal habits to insulate us from government’s reform measures. And I have already seen some of it happening. As soon as the price of petrol went up to N53 per litre, I observed to my wife that someday marketers would themselves beg people to buy their petrol. She asked how? And I drew her attention that in our neighbourhood, generators no longer come to life as soon as NEPA strikes, as was the case before! Many cars are parked during the weekend. Yes, it is hard, you may say, in the face of erratic power supply and lack of public transport but people have started rationalising their lives. That is one way to beat back deregulation till competition comes into that sector to level the ground.
As I said before, I know when I have lost an argument. President Obasanjo will not stop the deregulation of the oil sector! He says that he is doing it because he loves us! He believes it! It is one of the things that have endeared him to George Bush and Tony Blair! And he relishes that! What we need to insist on is to be carried along in the reform, and that there must be transparency in the oil sector. He must not use other subterfuges to interfere in what the NNPC is doing just as the Central Bank governor is managing the reform in the financial sector without some arm-twisting interventions by the President. The government must listen to Nigerians who own the oil in order to establish their confidence in deregulation, and not pander to the greed of the major marketers.
