Nigerian Government is at it again, bereft of ideas to move the country forward; the federal government has resorted to the usual attempt of making the poor masses pay for their unbridled recklessness. The issue of fuel subsidy has been over flogged by the successive government in the last three decades. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo to his advantage and his rogue cabinet members exploited this term to raise gasoline prices five times in his eight years rule, still government is again talking about subsidy removal in 2011.
What is wrong with Nigeria and her leaders? What can Nigerian government lay claims to today as the incentives for the populace? Every street in cities and villages provides its own security. Every household provides itself with water and electricity. Citizens are devising every means (sometimes crooked) to survive. Public schools now compete with private ones in tuitions; no healthcare is accessible by the people. Yet, the only measure the government can think of to save money is to remove the non existing subsidy on a product that has spiral effects on the daily living of the people already ravaged by the poverty inflicted on them by the insensitivity of corrupt, inept and prodigal governments.
At a time the world is expressing its frustrations about the greed of the few rich and insensitive government through the Occupy protests, it appears Nigerian government is taking the resilience and endurance of the people for granted. A government that discarded the wise counsel to reduce its size and cut governance costs is now coming out with nebulous reasons to remove some subsidy that former Petroleum Minister David West says is nonexistent.
Just few days back, the House of Representative shamelessly published its plan to commit a whopping 23billion naira to cars for its members. How much Nigeria has paid for automobiles for the Senate and House of Representatives in the last 13 years of democracy could be better imagined. They sold the government quarters to themselves without a blink. They share money by the name of constituent's development funds without making any impact to the communities that supposedly send them to the National Assembly, and their monthly remunerations are far and above that of their colleagues in countries that richer and better managed.
Nigerian government is found of blaming a cartel for the stealing in the petroleum sectors, but the whole world knows who this cartel is. The cartel is made up of those that donate heavily to their election campaigns. You see them hobnobbing with presidents and top government officials all the time. They are the recipients of national honors and close friends of those in power. No citizen will take a government so deceptive serious when it comes to the issue of fuel subsidy removal. What the government wants to do is to raise the prices of petroleum products through the backyard and further enrich their partners and those that serve as the custodians of their stolen wealth.
The governors that also endorse this malady are doing so in their won interest. They are looking for more fund to pilage and Nigerians must resist this attempt by making their home states ungovernable through protests and civil disobediences.
Nigerian Government is at it again, bereft of ideas to move the country forward; the federal government has resorted to the usual attempt of making the poor masses pay for their unbridled recklessness. The issue of fuel subsidy has been over flogged by the successive government in the last three decades. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo to his advantage and his rogue cabinet members exploited this term to raise gasoline prices five times in his eight years rule, still government is again talking about subsidy removal in 2011.
What is wrong with Nigeria and her leaders? What can Nigerian government lay claims to today as the incentives for the populace? Every street in cities and villages provides its own security. Every household provides itself with water and electricity. Citizens are devising every means (sometimes crooked) to survive. Public schools now compete with private ones in tuitions; no healthcare is accessible by the people. Yet, the only measure the government can think of to save money is to remove the non existing subsidy on a product that has spiral effects on the daily living of the people already ravaged by the poverty inflicted on them by the insensitivity of corrupt, inept and prodigal governments.
At a time the world is expressing its frustrations about the greed of the few rich and insensitive government through the Occupy protests, it appears Nigerian government is taking the resilience and endurance of the people for granted. A government that discarded the wise counsel to reduce its size and cut governance costs is now coming out with nebulous reasons to remove some subsidy that former Petroleum Minister David West says is nonexistent.
Just few days back, the House of Representative shamelessly published its plan to commit a whopping 23billion naira to cars for its members. How much Nigeria has paid for automobiles for the Senate and House of Representatives in the last 13 years of democracy could be better imagined. They sold the government quarters to themselves without a blink. They share money by the name of constituent's development funds without making any impact to the communities that supposedly send them to the National Assembly, and their monthly remunerations are far and above that of their colleagues in countries that richer and better managed.
Nigerian government is found of blaming a cartel for the stealing in the petroleum sectors, but the whole world knows who this cartel is. The cartel is made up of those that donate heavily to their election campaigns. You see them hobnobbing with presidents and top government officials all the time. They are the recipients of national honors and close friends of those in power. No citizen will take a government so deceptive serious when it comes to the issue of fuel subsidy removal. What the government wants to do is to raise the prices of petroleum products through the backyard and further enrich their partners and those that serve as the custodians of their stolen wealth.
The governors that also endorse this malady are doing so in their won interest. They are looking for more fund to pilage and Nigerians must resist this attempt by making their home states ungovernable through protests and civil disobediences.
This government should leave Nigerian alone with the current 65naira per a liter of PMS. Kerosene is already in the firm grip of the shylocks in the petroleum business yet government is looking the other way. This government should look for other means to fund its profligacy and resist the attempt to shut the country down through the people's revolt that will follow this insensitivity. Those that still believe that what is happening in North Africa, and Middle East cannot happen in Nigeria should perish in the thought. If protesters can occupy the Wall Street in United States and other commercial centers across the developed world, Nigeria cannot be insulated against the move of the people, the difference is that the protests in Nigeria may be spiced with violence.
Sunday Odeleke Houston, Texas. USA.googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content1'); });
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