Can you imagine a 60 year old ‘child’, still a toddler, not yet weaned and using a diaper? Diaper is worn by infants to catch excrement and hold urine. Also called napkin or nappy. That 60 year old ‘child’ is Nigeria. She refuses to grow and remains a ‘child’ despite her age which falls in the category of the aged. A 60 year old is old enough to have children and grandchildren. From the perspective of political economy, at 60, Nigeria ought to have grown to a developed economy in the category of the first world countries. But here she finds herself: struggling to maintain the status of being a member of third world countries. This is for those who believe Nigeria is still not a failed state despite the glaring facts to the contrary—I will not delve into that. But at least nobody raises the eyebrows over her classification as a third world country. Is that where we should be? Is that the appropriate niche? But that is the niche we carved for ourselves. Oh! Pardon me! The niche our political gladiators carved for us.
It is a rite in Nigeria that the President addresses Nigerians at the turn of every 1st October with a speech presentation to mark our independence from ‘Great’ Britain. This year (2020) is not an exception. The presidential speech is historical. I commend him for this since History is no more taught in our secondary schools since the PDP years. Thus, most of our kids in primary schools and lads in secondary schools do not know Nigeria gained independence in 1960. Also the speech is laced with fineries (appealing ‘to do list’) which if implemented, Nigeria will be good for it. It is however riddled with some nauseating fallacies. Perhaps the President presented it parrot fashion, without scrutinizing the contents. I will come to this shortly.
Nigeria is still a ‘child’ because there is hardly anything she does by herself. Her ban on rice importation, for example, to encourage local production is an evidence that she cannot do anything by herself. What ordinarily should be a commendable policy becomes harbinger of agonizingly unbearable hardship. Local rice is prohibitively exorbitant. Why? Nigeria is a ‘child’ @60. To grow common rice which is affordable, she cannot.
Nigeria is still a ‘toddler’ in the sense that any attempt by her to make a step forward results to one or two steps backward. She slumps many times on her trajectory as a toddler slumps in an attempt to walk. But kudos to a toddler who finally walked after few days of several attempts. Alas! Nigeria is yet to walk after sixty years. If Nigeria had fixed her refineries, she should have learnt to walk. Unfortunately, neither the PDP government which is generally acknowledged as an embodiment of corruption, nor the APC government led by the man/men of ‘integrity’ has have them fixed. The corruption in the oil sector is calamitous and unbearably stinking. How do we objectively contend that the BIG Minister of Petroleum is not culpable? If he is not; who is?
Nigeria is not yet weaned from her mothers’ milk; she has many mothers. She is still being breastfed by other countries—by Britain who initially colonised her and others who are on the threshold of colonizing her. Just like a hungry yet to be weaned child cries to its mother for breast, Nigeria cries to her mother, China; her mummy, America; and her grandma, World Bank for loan. She cries to Mrs Germany for electricity and to Miss Malaysia for graduate studies. She was/is being breastfed with loans such that her debt profile skyrocketed unprecedentedly. Her total debt stock hits 28.63trn in Q1, 2020 (March). Or do you think it is COVID-19? No! This was before it. According to the Debt Management Office (DMO), Nigeria’s debt profile stood at approximately N12.12 trillion as at June 2015 barely a month after the APC took over from PDP. As at June 2020 according to DMO, it is N31.01trn. the Senate alarmed that the debt will rise to N33trn if President Muhammadu Buhari got approval for the $22.7 billion foreign loan request. The Present government is about to triple the debt banqueted to it by the corrupt PDP government in 2015. Worst still, the loan has not, in any perceivable way, bettered the lots of Nigerians. Rather, the masses experience hardship after hardship on daily basis.
Nigeria still wears diaper. Surprising!? But that it is. Corruption stinks. It is like a baby’s excreta covered or held with diaper. Our looted moneys are being held in foreign accounts because they stink. The foreign banks are like diapers worn by Nigerian looters. It is when the diapers burst, due to the volume of the excreta, that we get wind of the stench. You recall Abacha loot, though Malami said it is ‘asset’. Whichever word you choose, it was the diaper that burst; we wouldn’t have known.
Back to the President’s speech. Nigeria gained independence in 1960, our population is over 200million, we grapple with multiple challenges etc. these are factual. I identify some fallacies; I will mention just three. The President perhaps forgot that lifting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty should be 9 years, not 10 years. The counting started last year. That Nigeria is not a country for Mr President is a rhetoric. For the country is governed as if it actually belongs to Mr President. Consider the notoriety of the executive arm of government (headed by Mr President) for disobedience to court decisions and non-compliance to court orders.
The last but biggest fallacy is: “Saudi Arabia charges N168 per litre. It makes no sense for oil to be cheaper in Nigeria than in Saudi Arabia”. This is where I concluded that the President, perhaps, read the speech parrot fashion. If the President’s shrewdness and sagacity is not in doubt (which I firmly believe is not), he should know that minimum wage in Saudi Arabia is 3000 Riyals and there is price control. This is equivalent to N305, 124.62—almost a professor’s salary in Nigeria. In Ghana, where according to Mr President’s speech, oil goes for N326 per litre, the minimum wage is 1,280 Ghanaian Cedi which equals Nigeria’s N84, 193.
So what is the President alluding to? What kind of comparison is this? Who wrote this part of the President’s speech? Are Nigerians fools to be baited with this misleading information? Since Nigeria is compared to Saudi Arabia, would the government please peg a litre of oil at N168 and increase the minimum wage to Saudi’s equivalent (N305, 124.62)? Why is the government always economical about the truth? Why does it invariably twist the truth to unleash untold hardship on us? What are our offences? Tell us so that we can seek forgiveness from God then from you (government). A comparison of Nigeria to Saudi Arabia to justify hike in oil price is ill informed. This is a country where service to their citizens is next to service to God. Sufferings and hardship in Nigeria is next to Hell. Therefore, ‘Nigeria no be Saudi’. This comparison is fallaciously ludicrous.
POSTSCRIPT: Tuesday, 2 days to Independence Day, the Lagos Boy form VI, the Minister of Labour & Employment (Chris Ngige) shamelessly claimed that “ASUU members have been collecting their money since COVID 19 came”. I expected a rebuttal from the government to dissociate itself from this lie but none. Lie is becoming a general characteristic of this government. I fear it is declared World Capital of Lie. ASUU members are in their fourth month now without salary.
*** Abdulkadir Salaudeen is at Salahuddeenabdulkadir@gmail.com / @salahuddeenAbd
About the Author
