IT is no longer news that workers have been on strike in the country in the past four days. It has precedents. Under the Obasanjo regime, we’ve had at least three general, paralysing strikes.
In addition, the police went on strike to press their demands for improved welfare package, sportsmen and women who were unwilling to change their nationalities have gone on strike, teachers have gone on strike, too. For eight months, the universities nationwide were shut down as the lecturers decried government neglect of the institutions.
And the height of it was the few days that Senators went on strike to press their demand that the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory should be sacked by the President.
So, it is no longer surprising that workers were on strike. It is even no news that the strike was over an arrogant increase of the prices of petroleum products. Under the leadership of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, this was the fifth time it would happen. It appears the president prefers to negotiate with his hands tied behind him.
When things have become tense, and probably some precious lives lost to the bargain, the president would then give the necessary instructions that the appropriate institutions of state enter into negotiations. Even then, it is not a sincere effort to find any form of lasting solution to the crisis, the president only chooses to buy some time.
The questions I would love to ask the president are: To whom does he owe his presidency? To the great people of this country or the Bretton Woods institutions? To whom is he accountable: the Nigerian electorate or American leaders? Does he really spare any thought for what might happen to his beloved party, the PDP, in 2007, or is he satisfied that all could be arranged as usual through the Independent National Electoral Commission?
Does he have any respect whatsoever to the Nigerian workers, the creators of wealth? How does he feel each time Nigeria is in the news internationally for disputes that could have been resolved by dialogue?
How does he feel each time he is out of the country to mediate in conflicts in other countries when the prognosis at home is not any better? Has he ever considered the possibility of his administration leading Nigeria the way of those countries that are permanently wrecked by crises? Does he think a country so enormously blessed as Nigeria with natural endowments deserves the cruel path its leadership is travelling? How does he expect history to remember him?
What kind of leader would he be after 2007: one who could walk the streets freely and be hailed by the people in and part of the country or one who would only be able to move to the Lagos airport accompanied by heavily armed escorts? Would he be free to attend social functions freely or would he have to move about under the cover of darkness?
How I wish I we have a leader who would be willing to reply to these questions from simple folks in the public interest. That could only happen where there are listening leaders. In any case, a line should be drawn between leaders and rulers. The president spent most of his productive years in the military and became its commander in chief. This might have conditioned him to understand the language of command. I do not have the temperament to withstand life in the military.
Thank God I did not look in that direction when it was time to choose a profession. I therefore find it difficult to appreciate why the rank and file have no right to ask their officers questions. I therefore find it difficult to appreciate the kind of mind set that regards any form of disagreement by followers (junior officers) as mutiny.
In civil life things are quite different. Even in the work place, there is a form of industrial democracy. Just as I find it difficult to comprehend the military set up, it might be extremely difficult for a former Commander-in-Chief to appreciate why bloody civilians should query his decision. But, in the contest, I come again to the question I have been asking in these past three weeks, what is the role of the political party on whose platform the president and his men presumably won the election.
What measure of respect has the president for the PDP? To show that he was really concerned, the National Chairman of the party, Chief Audu Ogbeh, last week had a meeting with foreign diplomats, mainly from Western countries, and begged them to sell the formular for economic recovery to Nigeria. It is no surprise that with that kind of leadership, the president thinks little of his own party when designing policies. He finds very useful duty for PDP leaders in times of crisis at the National Assembly when he employs them as envoys to get the lawmakers to see things his own way.
What measure of respect has he for the National Assembly? It is a shame that the two chambers of three National Assembly frowned at the latest round of increase in the prices of petroleum products, yet, their views counted for nothing. It never mattered to the president and his men that these men were presumably elected by the people and are supposed to be in constant touch with their constituencies.
The utter contempt in which the president holds all was demonstrated in the arrogant manner in which the increase was effected and the strike allowed to take off before any attempt was made to allow consultation. And, when it came, it was in the form of setting up of a jumbo committee to work out palliatives. A polite way of announcing that anything to the contrary is a waste of time. What really does the president owe the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund? That they “donated” the award winning Finance Minister to him is no sufficient reason for him, in my very humble view, to turn over the entire economy to them.
With the bouquet of measures already introduced to “turn around the economy”, it is obvious that the president and his men (and women, too) believe that the weak and the very weak do not deserve to be pitied or helped to their feet.
In their view they should just be mercifully killed. The very sick do not deserve life support, those already in the intensive care unit should have the oxygen mask yanked off. The president and his team would rather have the strong toughened and helped to populate the land.
The other day, the author of NEEDS, my old school mate at Nsukka, Prof. Charles Soludo, was at Vanguard. One of the interesting new strategies which he explained that the government was committed to was a search for 50 super business men who had demonstrated faith in the economy by contributing immensely to its growth and development over the ages. Men in the mould of the super billionaire, Alhaji Aliko Dangote. These would then be carefully cultivated and nurtured to compete with their counterparts in other parts of the world. They would receive all encouragement and incentives to achieve the objective.
I did not have the opportunity of asking the professor, former Chief Economic Adviser to the President which of the developed countries today arrived at its destination through that method. Neither could I ask if the professor considered it better to cultivate 50 already made men than anchor on 200,000 small scale industrialists. Today’s questions are for the President not one of his 12 disciples.
The last word on this is that 2007 is not so far away again. The people have seen what their acts of commission (by voting PDP) or omission (by not effectively policing their votes) has cost them. The time to begin to agitate for the kind of reforms that will bring them the results they deserve is now. If this pernicious system is allowed to continue till 2007, they would only get another president who would think the only measure of his effectiveness is the intensity of the cry by the public.
If this situation is to be reversed, there is only one way I know. That is a Sovereign National Conference. The masters can not be appeased by pleas. Dropping the word sovereign in the demand would not necessarily win them sympathy.
All through history, oppressors have not been known to drop the whips merely because the oppressed cried out. It did not work in Mussolini’s Italy, neither did Franco think anything of it. In Stalin’s Soviet Union, the people did not matter. The people of this country should move beyond tokenistic demands to really forcing the hands of the government.
The beneficiaries of the system are not about to give up their privileges that easily. Nothing good comes without some form of struggle. The battle cannot be left to the Nigerian Labour Congress alone. As the state’s failure becomes more obvious, the rulers are likely to get more despotic and hence resort to bestial treatment. It is time to say no. And, in a loud voice. Eternal vigilance (and struggle) is the price of liberty.
