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New Page 12
A reform and cycle of losses
ANDY IKE EZEANI
Nigeria
has become akin to a pregnant volcano; every once in an interval, it rumbles.
Each rumbling leaves death and destruction on its wake.Yet, many of such rumbles
and movements are only precursors to a major eruption. Those who inhabit
volcano-prone zones die many times over before the ultimate eruption. The fact
that no one can predict exactly when catastrophe will descend makes life around
a volcano zone most perilous. It is a situation that leaves inhabitants of such
an area most unsettled.Here, life is lived one day at a time and planning for
the future often seems futile. You just never know what will give the next day.
Strange as it may sound, life in the
present Nigeria has become far more uncertain than that in a volcano zone. In
both settings, prospects of rumbles and eruptions with their attendant deaths
and destruction are constant. In both settings too, there are dormant periods
when anxiety levels are lowered and life puts on a veneer of normalcy. Those are
very deceptive times. But no one ever- stokes a volcano. It answers the call of
nature. There lies the difference between a volcano zone and the rumbles and
eruptions that have become the feature of the Nigerian society. Over here, the
government of President Olusegun Obasanjo seems to have sworn to stir the embers
intermittently.
The President calls what he does
commitment to reforms. By his acts and the policies of his government, the
society Obasanjo purports to be reforming is now sentenced to a cycle of
destruction and loss that renders any possible noble aims in his policies void.
But the man at Aso Rock is not concerned. For him, it is reform the way he
understands and pursues it or nothing. If it takes a total consumption of the
society and the death of those he proclaims to be working for, so be it.
As it seems for the President, his reforms
have taken a life of their own and are now far more important than those they
are made for. When in the immediate aftermath of public outcry over the latest
hike in prices of petroleum products Obasanjo declared that he did it because he
loved the people, the dangerous turn which his mindset has taken became more
apparent. Is this a jarring reflection of one man’s pursuit of nirvana or is
there something fundamentally wrong?
The views from official quarters that the
four- day nation-wide strike called by Labour last week was not a success spoke
loudly once more of the extent of the leadership problems confronting the
Nigerian state. How is success of a labour strike measured? What will happen
before government adjudges such a strike a success? And should a national strike
by Labour be allowed to occur in the first place, whatever its outcome
eventually becomes?
How much is the Nigerian economy worth
that it can afford almost on quarterly basis to have its industries and
productive sectors shut down? The reported position of the government that the
strike should be allowed to run out and that labour will return to work sooner
or later is not just a reflection of an uncommon level of shallowness in
government thinking, it is disaster on its own.
The issue is not and should never be
whether a strike was successful or not. There should not be a strike in the
first place.Labour dispute has never been a manifestation of normalcy in any
economy or organization. And no economy makes a head way which hugs crisis and
labour dispute on regular basis.For an economy that is already weak and reeling
on the ground as the Nigerian economy, to be shut down for a single day, even in
the face of natural disaster is tantamount to a step into ruin. The failure of
the Obasanjo government to appreciate this basic fact renders its declared
objective of turning the economy round rather clumsy. For the government it is,
of course, not an issue that lives are often lost in the strikes that have
become a cycle of losses engendered by insensitivity.
The way things are going under the watch
of President Obasanjo, by the time his tenure is over in the next two years, his
reforms may have a collapsed economy to show for all its posturings.Of course, a
few millionaires and billionaires will be thrown up within the system - the real
beneficiaries of the reform which a colleague recently defined as soulless
capitalism.
Information and National Orientation
Minister, Chukwuemeka Chikelu probably gave the most appropriate overview of the
strike. He was reported to have declared that there are no winners in the strike
and that we are all losers. If only President Obasanjo can fully come to terms
with this reality. In calling out the workers and all economically engaged
citizens across the country to down- tool and embark on strike, organized Labour
was obviously not seeking for victory in any sense of hubris or personalized
goal. Certainly not. The thrust was a protest against a government whose
policies exhibit gross insensitivity to the wellbeing of the majority.
Unleashing a policy assault that
consistently undermines the survival of the majority in the society as Obasanjo
has done and turning around to view any protest of the policies as a plot to run
down the government smacks of presidential blackmail.Clearly, Obasanjo is
afflicted with the George W.Bush syndrome; a blatant and objectionable mindset
that claims knowledge of what is good for every other person and a definition of
self as personification of society’s desired profile. Unfortunately, whether in
America or elsewhere, such self adulating portraits hardly reflect what others
see.
It is instructive that for all its loud
claims to restructuring the economy and making it resilient, the government has
no plans to curtail importation of oil either in the near future or indeed in
the long run. It has no plans to resuscitate the old refineries or to build new
ones. It has no policy that encourages private sector investment in refineries
either.Yet,it is an undisputed fact that the price of oil is the bone of
contention in the present national upheaval.For the government and the prime
beneficiaries of its vaunted restructuring of the oil business, the deal is
obviously in importing refined oil and selling it to Nigerians at the sellers’
price.
For a country that is merely forty four
years old, Nigeria is in a very bad shape. Contrary to what the government may
want us to believe, the situation is not improving by any reckoning.Indeed, it
is sinking into precariousness.
One round of national labour strike is
over for now. In the next fortnight or so another round may commence. Labour has
made that clear. The people are not actually happy at the frequent strike, but
they certainly identify with the cause. Once more, the economy will be closed
down. The government will sit it out and wait for the strike to exhaust itself.
In due course, that will happen. Before then, Nigeria would have taken further
steps down the road to ruin. The government will prepare to announce a new
higher oil price regime and the cycle will play itself out again. President
Obasanjo will go home each day feeling tough and triumphant. But to what
purpose? Governance in Nigeria must have its own essence.
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