Discourse 336
By Dr. Aliyu Tilde
Zanga Zanga
This morning the Occupy Nigeria protests against fuel subsidy removal (FSR) entered its second day. It has been a resounding success. Never in the past fifty years of my life have I seen the country absolutely shut down by a consensus of its citizens like this. Nigerians have proved to the world, and convinced themselves now, that despite their differences they collectively harbour their country in their hearts. They are not ready to sacrifice their welfare at the altar of some meaningless ethnic differences. Bravo!
It is noteworthy to mention that the protest have so far claimed minimal casualties by Sub-Saharan standards. I was delighted that the security chiefs decided at their meeting last week that protesters should not be attacked by security forces. This indicates that we are making progress in our ascent on the barometer of human rights. We need to sustain it.
As we celebrate this success, it is pertinent to start applying our intellects to the fate of the process we gallantly started. It is important to foresee the obstacles that are likely to avert its success and leave us broken-hearted. What are the possible arsenals that government would deploy from its armoury and how do we immobilize them aground? Which natural and human forces can we count on and which ones do we protect ourselves against?
Time
Having witnessed a number of protests in Nigeria before, a number of things naturally come into focus. The first is time. This is both an enemy and a friend. From my experience, the "fizzle out" doctrine of Obasanjo and Jonathan must be a phenomenon to conquer if the protests must succeed. Many things can push people to wear out and abandon the protests. Chief among them is the biting poverty especially among urban dwellers whose majority live on daily bread. Rural dwellers will also suffer because their produce cannot sell when market days do not hold. Their vegetables will rot and their animals will go for a pittance when urban dwellers do not mop them up on market days. As the food chain is severed, city dwellers will be hit hard with scarcity.
If workers of essential services that provide healthcare, water and electricity also join the strike, life of citizens will freeze. For how long can we survive such sub-zero temperatures when we are accustomed to the motherly tropical climate of Africa must presently be the subject of intense discussions in both government and labour circles. Known that they are bereft of any hibernation skills, Nigerians must find a way to prolong their survival under such a winter, while the government intensifies its effort to drop the temperature much farther as quick as possible to enable a lethal shock effect.
I was a lecturer in Sokoto when the Dasuki crisis of 1988 broke out. On the first afternoon, it seemed as if the masses in Sokoto town would sustain their resolve to success, no matter how long it will take. The atmosphere of dissent covered the city with its rare fragrance of freedom and defiance. How pleasant was its breathe it air and how beautiful was it to witness its scenes! But by the fourth day, empty of cash and foodstuff, the people were begging for the Sokoto Market open, grudgingly depositing their fate in God, trusting that He will judge in their favour in the next world. But God wished that Dasuki will remain the Sultan, and so he did, until when Abacha deposed him in 1996.
Each us therefore has the duty of managing his affairs to enable him, his family and, of course, other Nigerians to maintain the tempo of the protest until our goal is achieved. We must know that governments under such circumstances are aware that time is naturally on their side. So they wait, like vultures, for our energies to dissipate and for our patience to runout before they strike at the few survivors with brutal force or with offers that a demoralized labour will find difficult to turn down.
Here, in addition to advising Nigerians to store provisions and cash, Labour must be innovative in inventing means to keep us marching forward. To do this, it requires the fuel necessary to keep our engines running. Fortunately, social media is here to aid us. Let there be, for example, more revelations on government corruption, what is in its mind at any given moment and the devices it plans to employ to quell the protests. Let us know the division in its ranks. A mix of fact and propaganda and facts, if you like. The government has fed us on lies all along. We must work ahead of it. As I wrote this paragraph, the following text message came in coincidentally:
"Now available for sale in different sizes: bicycles, camels, horse and donkeys. We can also train and equip your dog, goat, ram,etc to carry u around. They all don't use fuel or gas. Visit us at our office. No. 1, Oil Subsidy Road. Alison Madueke Junction. Goodluck Close. Off Okonjo-Iweala Street, by Labaran Maku Avenue, Austin Aniwon Crescent, Sanusi Lamido Area, Abuja. Or call 080-GEJ/DAM P-ABUJA."
What a pleasant satire!
As found in other countries, the larger population should mobilize its singers to entertain its mind and instigate its writers to feed its resolve. Elders and our women must strike at the nerve of revolt in our youths and revive their African courage. For their personal aggrandizement and the neocolonial ends of their masters in the World Bank and IMF, few gangsters that have been sucking our blood must not be allowed to continue killing the African child and enslaving 164 million of its folk. This is an opportunity to break their shackles and end their misrule.
Once we can defeat time and sustain the protests, the government will be brought to its knees. This is the secret behind the success of the Arab Spring, when they confronted Pharoahs like Ben Ali, Mubarak and Gaddafi, professionals in tyranny, worse than the thieving rats that we call our leaders. The international community that Jonathan is so mindful of will then press him to yield yo our demands in the fear that he may lose the power all together. That is when time becomes our friend.
Division
But the government is not likely to count on the passive effect of time alone. I have no doubt that it will attempt to use more active strategies.
Money, politics and religion will be recruited by government at will as potent agents of destabilizing the protests. Since the beginning of his tenure, President Jonathan has shown unprecedented readiness to disburse huge money to buy off his opponents, religious leaders and the parliament. In fact, this is the crux of the FSR. To partially finance his election campaigns, commentators have alleged that over N800 billion was stolen in the name of subsidy, causing the figure to jump from its traditional N300 billion annually.
An attempt will be made to buy the trade unions leaders or part of them. Mainstream religious leaders have already started a campaign to persuade their followers from future participation, as evidenced from a BBC Hausa interview with some leaders of Jammatu Nasril Islam and CAN last Saturday. The name of God will be invoked to anasthetise the population.
Likewise, there are allegations that the National Assembly has been compromised before it went on Christmas holiday. Part of the advanced payment, it is alleged, was the removal of Farida Waziri from the EFCC chair and the payment of N10 million to each senator and N5m to each member of the House of Representatives before the Christmas break. Though we may never know the truth about this, the silence of the parliamentarians, especially the senators, is surprising, given how they shouted down the President when he introduced the matter to them at a special dinner earlier in 2011.
Jonathan, his cabinet and the governors can also appeal to PDP sentiments among the population. They can create an atmosphere that will enable them claim that the opposition has hijacked the protests; that it is a subversive attempt to bring down the PDP government; etc. Organized labour and Nigerians in general must, therefore, be watchful of politicians that cannot resist the temptation of manipulating the protests to their ends.
Lastly, "Boko Haram" is a readily available tool. Mercenaries can be sent to kill worshippers in order to stir bad blood amongst us and divert our attention. Already serious questions are being raised about the identity of the people who carried out the recent attacks on Christians in the Northeastern towns of Gombe, Mubi and Yola. We hope the security agents will tell Nigerians the truth about them.
Repression
When push comes to shove, government will employ its security apparatus or thugs to stop the protests by blocking, intimidating and attacking civilians, not withstanding the resolve of the security chiefs not to deploy force. Protesters will be ready to remain peaceful, but violence can easily be instigated by hiring some agents to commit arson on government property, to engage the police in violence, etc. We have already witnessed the unfortunate incident at Government House Kano yesterday. Such attacks will provide government with the desired pretext to "retaliate" to "keep the peace", using live ammunition as they have done twice in Kano.
Whether the death of their countrymen would ignite the fear in Nigerians, persuading them to abandon the protest, or the blood of its martyrs would water the tree of their defiance is a quest that cannot be answered with any certainty now. The use of violence by government, however, is a possibility that is highly probable, especially with many Nigerian governors who have finished calculating how much they would loot from the FSR funds and who have so far shown zero degree of restraint in unleashing state apparatus of coercion against their citizens.
Immobilization
The most lethal weapon Nigerians can employ apart from hoarding its abour is to immobilize the security personnel upon which the government depends. Let us persuade soldiers, policemen, custom officers and immigration officials to side with us, their brothers and sisters. Once they refuse to be used by government, Jonathan will have no option but to concede to our demands. This responsibility does not rest with labour alone but with anyone among us who can reach out to someone among the security forces.
State of Emergency
Finally, a state of emergency will be the joker that the President will use, if all the above fail. We have seen how the PDP used curfew to rig elections in Kaduna and Bauchi States. The need to use it when the regime is under threat will be more compelling by a President that is deaf to the demand of his entire countrymen.
Conclusion
These are the challenges awaiting the protests that are currently dubbed "Occupy Nigeria" or Zanga Zanga in Hausa. Mentioning them here is not intended to discourage, but to remind us that the path to freedom has never been smooth for anyone throughout history. Freedom, the Americans say, is not free. Or as the late Sayid Qutb would put it, "the tree of a cause is watered by the blood of its martyrs."
Bauchi
10 January 2012
Showing posts with label Fuel subsidy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fuel subsidy. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Short Essay 23. Fuel Subsidy: SLS, Please Stay Off Debate
SHORT ESSAY 23
By Dr. Aliyu U. Tilde
Fuel Subsidy: SLS, Please Stay Off Debate
It is difficult to justify the removal of this subsidy. Personally, i believe that the Nigerian government can afford the 220billion or so required to sustain it on behalf of its people. That is just about $1.4 billion or less, just a fraction of the commission (or earnings) it makes from oil companies annually. That the amount has reached over a trillion naira is not our fault, but that of the government that deliberately fails to carry out its responsibility of checkmating them.
Incidentally, two weeks ago I was listening to a friend from CBN who was trying to educate me on the necessity of removing the subsidy. In the end his explanation boiled down to the sad truth that people benefiting from the subsidy cannot be confronted by the government. They are big, he said.
I told him the government is not honest. I then asked him a simple question that sealed the discussion: "Kai Kabiru! If the government would appoint someone like Sanusi Lamido Sanusi to head the NNPC, will he be able to check this corruption and maintain the subsidy at the reasonable level of N200+ billion?" He said, "Yes, he can."
"In fact", he added, "the realization of the extent of extortion came when Sanusi started to question the storage capacities and other facilities of some oil companies whose claims were submitted to him for payment. Sanusi refused to pay them."
I said, "there you are. Let Jonathan be more courageous and have more Sanusis in government. If you want government to work, you must have corruption-free people in it. But removing the subsidy will definitely court trouble in this now highly inflammable country, so big that we cannot even imagine. Allah ya sauwake."
While we do that, we must keep vigil on some novice politicians that are now trying to ride on our anger to gain cheap popularity and access power. This is not about PDP. It is about our being. Other parties will do the same, given the antecedents of their leaders. Every past government since 1984 has visited us with its own version of heartless economic policies without consultation, leading to the ruin of so many homes forever. Though he is the present, Jonathan is not the first and if we will allow some manipulators power, he will certainly not be the last. The difference here is that, like citizens of the 21st century, we are now standing up to it, saying enough is enough.
Some of these politicians were the architects of World Bank sponsored privatization policies that were ill conceived and ill managed. They also designed the present deregulation in the early 2000s under Obasanjo in concert with Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. The records are there and the memory fresh. Like Jonathan today, they were deaf to the criticisms we wrote then. How would they gain our support today when we know they will do worse if allowed power again? They have written their records in our minds with indelible ink. They masterminded our present state of poverty and insecurity. Their children are abroad studying; ours are here wallowing at home. We will be reckless to trust them.
In fact, the mere participation of such politicians carries the fatal virus that will divide us, with the government and PDP members labeling it as a machination of the opposition. Then the government would buy some people to claim that Muslims and Northerners are plotting against their 'God-sent' Jonathan. In Nigeria there are always an infinite number of people that would swallow that argument, hook, line and sinker. At that point, many of us will withdraw and the government will have its way.
The labour is meeting today. Their resolution will determine when the real protests will start. This nonsense must stop.
I will appeal to Sanusi to please stay off this debate. Yesterday I travelled to Bauchi - a distance of just 100km - and had to use the fuel of N6,500.00 on the bus I carried my children back to school. This is madness and sheer wickedness. We the people are really angry. We can go to any length on this matter, and genuinely for that matter.
The only thing that would quench our fire is for the President to back down. Otherwise, we are ready to take the country high and wild. If this is a joke, please stop it SLS. "The people are like a river," if I must borrow from the wisdom of al-Mutanabbi: "cross it when it is calm, but avoid it when it is violent."
Aliyu
By Dr. Aliyu U. Tilde
Fuel Subsidy: SLS, Please Stay Off Debate
It is difficult to justify the removal of this subsidy. Personally, i believe that the Nigerian government can afford the 220billion or so required to sustain it on behalf of its people. That is just about $1.4 billion or less, just a fraction of the commission (or earnings) it makes from oil companies annually. That the amount has reached over a trillion naira is not our fault, but that of the government that deliberately fails to carry out its responsibility of checkmating them.
Incidentally, two weeks ago I was listening to a friend from CBN who was trying to educate me on the necessity of removing the subsidy. In the end his explanation boiled down to the sad truth that people benefiting from the subsidy cannot be confronted by the government. They are big, he said.
I told him the government is not honest. I then asked him a simple question that sealed the discussion: "Kai Kabiru! If the government would appoint someone like Sanusi Lamido Sanusi to head the NNPC, will he be able to check this corruption and maintain the subsidy at the reasonable level of N200+ billion?" He said, "Yes, he can."
"In fact", he added, "the realization of the extent of extortion came when Sanusi started to question the storage capacities and other facilities of some oil companies whose claims were submitted to him for payment. Sanusi refused to pay them."
I said, "there you are. Let Jonathan be more courageous and have more Sanusis in government. If you want government to work, you must have corruption-free people in it. But removing the subsidy will definitely court trouble in this now highly inflammable country, so big that we cannot even imagine. Allah ya sauwake."
While we do that, we must keep vigil on some novice politicians that are now trying to ride on our anger to gain cheap popularity and access power. This is not about PDP. It is about our being. Other parties will do the same, given the antecedents of their leaders. Every past government since 1984 has visited us with its own version of heartless economic policies without consultation, leading to the ruin of so many homes forever. Though he is the present, Jonathan is not the first and if we will allow some manipulators power, he will certainly not be the last. The difference here is that, like citizens of the 21st century, we are now standing up to it, saying enough is enough.
Some of these politicians were the architects of World Bank sponsored privatization policies that were ill conceived and ill managed. They also designed the present deregulation in the early 2000s under Obasanjo in concert with Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. The records are there and the memory fresh. Like Jonathan today, they were deaf to the criticisms we wrote then. How would they gain our support today when we know they will do worse if allowed power again? They have written their records in our minds with indelible ink. They masterminded our present state of poverty and insecurity. Their children are abroad studying; ours are here wallowing at home. We will be reckless to trust them.
In fact, the mere participation of such politicians carries the fatal virus that will divide us, with the government and PDP members labeling it as a machination of the opposition. Then the government would buy some people to claim that Muslims and Northerners are plotting against their 'God-sent' Jonathan. In Nigeria there are always an infinite number of people that would swallow that argument, hook, line and sinker. At that point, many of us will withdraw and the government will have its way.
The labour is meeting today. Their resolution will determine when the real protests will start. This nonsense must stop.
I will appeal to Sanusi to please stay off this debate. Yesterday I travelled to Bauchi - a distance of just 100km - and had to use the fuel of N6,500.00 on the bus I carried my children back to school. This is madness and sheer wickedness. We the people are really angry. We can go to any length on this matter, and genuinely for that matter.
The only thing that would quench our fire is for the President to back down. Otherwise, we are ready to take the country high and wild. If this is a joke, please stop it SLS. "The people are like a river," if I must borrow from the wisdom of al-Mutanabbi: "cross it when it is calm, but avoid it when it is violent."
Aliyu
Friday, November 18, 2011
Short Essay 21: The Fuel Subsidy Trigger
The Fuel Subsidy Trigger
By Dr. Aliyu U. Tilde
President Jonathan represents a paradox. He is always quick to plead for leniency in expectations. "I am not David...or an army general", he declared in a church service two months ago. He only abides by the Hidden Hand of destiny that made him the President, he explained. With this property, one expects him to be passive and less ambitious than his predecessors who attempted to play God.
His actual ambitions, however, defy his unassuming mien. He has so far proposed two projects that have demystified three powerful generals before him. Amidst serious national security challenges that confined him to the Villa, the President proposed to the National Assembly the one-term elongated tenure bill. Though I reliably learned that the proposal was indeed borne out of his long standing conviction that second tenure kills executive initiatives and that he does not intend to benefit from it, the President was just too simple in hoping that his good intention alone was enough to overcome the public skepticism that would kill the bill even before it reaches the floor of the parliament, particularly when the memories of Obasanjo’s Third Term agenda are still fresh. Where does the bill stand right now? What made the President hope that he would succeed where the generals failed?
Removal of fuel subsidy is another task that has defeated generals before Jonathan. This ambition has so far survived every President since Babangida, except Shonekan and Abdulsalami Abubakar whose sleeps were too brief to entertain the dream. In the end, those generals consoled themselves with increasing pump price when they failed to remove the subsidy completely. This President is again giving it a shot and his attempt is already greeted with deafening protests from every Nigerian outside the executive arm of government. Nigerians are neither attracted by the pretext of his argument nor lured by its promise.
Telling Nigerians that money 'saved' from the subsidy will be used to advance their welfare is an old tale narrated by previous administrations. It was told by moonlight; by dawn it was gone. Nigerians are not ready to squander their hope on what they perceive as another empty promise, especially given the lightening speed with which the notorious Governors Forum approved it.
The pretext is more compelling to rejection. The teacher in the President exposed him to divulge that the removal is necessary to deny the syndicate of oil importers the bumper harvest of N800billion annually. This invited Nigerians to wonder why a President and Commander in Chief would choose curb a corrupt practice by punishing its victims and pardoning the culprits.
His meeting with members of National Assembly yesterday was an eye opener to the impossibility of his task. They will kill it on the floor of the house as they killed the 'Sad Term' of Obasanjo. Other Nigerians will be waiting. Labour in particular has made it categorically clear that it will fight the increase to the last man. Ordinary Nigerians may take to the streets. The President may not find supporters even among the clergy that dignified every mistake he committed before. The support by the President of the Christian Association of Nigeria was met with immediate dissociation from his members. The cleric had to disclaim it unreservedly, realizing that unlike during the elections, Nigerians cannot be persuaded to empty their pockets at the altar of religious sentiment. It seems that the President has crossed the line.
There are unverified reports that the President is even threatening to resign should the proposal fail. I am not worried that much because in spite of his strong conviction on the necessity of removing the subsidy the President will soon yield to abandon it. As he retreats, he may find consolation that even generals have retreated from that front. Or as Abu Zaid would coin it in The Assemblies of al-Hariri:
"If your request is turned down, do not feel ashamed. Verily Musa and Khidr were turned down before."
As they sleep in the cozy beds of the Villa, Nigerian Presidents are bound to have all sorts of dreams, good and bad. That of removing fuel subsidy is a bad one, Jonathan must know. He must also be wise enough to make his ambition a function of his capacity. He must know his limits and abide by them. By this measure, a wise counsel will tell the President to forget removing the fuel subsidy. Instead, he should use the instrument of law to fight the cartel that is feeding fat on the blood of the lean Nigetian masses. It is better to die a martyr of a just cause than waste his time pursuing a bad dream.
However, should the President persist and effect the removal, I am afraid that it may just be the Bouazizi trigger we waiting for so long. In that case the paradox of the President would be a blessing to celebrate. So much fuel has accumulated on the floor of the Nigerian political forest. The spark needed to start its conflagration may just be around. From its ashes a better nation may sprout again.
Watch out
By Dr. Aliyu U. Tilde
President Jonathan represents a paradox. He is always quick to plead for leniency in expectations. "I am not David...or an army general", he declared in a church service two months ago. He only abides by the Hidden Hand of destiny that made him the President, he explained. With this property, one expects him to be passive and less ambitious than his predecessors who attempted to play God.
His actual ambitions, however, defy his unassuming mien. He has so far proposed two projects that have demystified three powerful generals before him. Amidst serious national security challenges that confined him to the Villa, the President proposed to the National Assembly the one-term elongated tenure bill. Though I reliably learned that the proposal was indeed borne out of his long standing conviction that second tenure kills executive initiatives and that he does not intend to benefit from it, the President was just too simple in hoping that his good intention alone was enough to overcome the public skepticism that would kill the bill even before it reaches the floor of the parliament, particularly when the memories of Obasanjo’s Third Term agenda are still fresh. Where does the bill stand right now? What made the President hope that he would succeed where the generals failed?
Removal of fuel subsidy is another task that has defeated generals before Jonathan. This ambition has so far survived every President since Babangida, except Shonekan and Abdulsalami Abubakar whose sleeps were too brief to entertain the dream. In the end, those generals consoled themselves with increasing pump price when they failed to remove the subsidy completely. This President is again giving it a shot and his attempt is already greeted with deafening protests from every Nigerian outside the executive arm of government. Nigerians are neither attracted by the pretext of his argument nor lured by its promise.
Telling Nigerians that money 'saved' from the subsidy will be used to advance their welfare is an old tale narrated by previous administrations. It was told by moonlight; by dawn it was gone. Nigerians are not ready to squander their hope on what they perceive as another empty promise, especially given the lightening speed with which the notorious Governors Forum approved it.
The pretext is more compelling to rejection. The teacher in the President exposed him to divulge that the removal is necessary to deny the syndicate of oil importers the bumper harvest of N800billion annually. This invited Nigerians to wonder why a President and Commander in Chief would choose curb a corrupt practice by punishing its victims and pardoning the culprits.
His meeting with members of National Assembly yesterday was an eye opener to the impossibility of his task. They will kill it on the floor of the house as they killed the 'Sad Term' of Obasanjo. Other Nigerians will be waiting. Labour in particular has made it categorically clear that it will fight the increase to the last man. Ordinary Nigerians may take to the streets. The President may not find supporters even among the clergy that dignified every mistake he committed before. The support by the President of the Christian Association of Nigeria was met with immediate dissociation from his members. The cleric had to disclaim it unreservedly, realizing that unlike during the elections, Nigerians cannot be persuaded to empty their pockets at the altar of religious sentiment. It seems that the President has crossed the line.
There are unverified reports that the President is even threatening to resign should the proposal fail. I am not worried that much because in spite of his strong conviction on the necessity of removing the subsidy the President will soon yield to abandon it. As he retreats, he may find consolation that even generals have retreated from that front. Or as Abu Zaid would coin it in The Assemblies of al-Hariri:
"If your request is turned down, do not feel ashamed. Verily Musa and Khidr were turned down before."
As they sleep in the cozy beds of the Villa, Nigerian Presidents are bound to have all sorts of dreams, good and bad. That of removing fuel subsidy is a bad one, Jonathan must know. He must also be wise enough to make his ambition a function of his capacity. He must know his limits and abide by them. By this measure, a wise counsel will tell the President to forget removing the fuel subsidy. Instead, he should use the instrument of law to fight the cartel that is feeding fat on the blood of the lean Nigetian masses. It is better to die a martyr of a just cause than waste his time pursuing a bad dream.
However, should the President persist and effect the removal, I am afraid that it may just be the Bouazizi trigger we waiting for so long. In that case the paradox of the President would be a blessing to celebrate. So much fuel has accumulated on the floor of the Nigerian political forest. The spark needed to start its conflagration may just be around. From its ashes a better nation may sprout again.
Watch out
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