Except you are as less sanguine as I am about anything handled by the Nigerian government, chances are that you’d have started rejoicing already, over the sordid details of the rot in the Petroleum sector being unearthed by the House of Representatives, as a fallout of the blanket increment in pump price of fuel by President Goodluck Jonathan and his team.
Except you are as less sanguine as I am about anything handled by the Nigerian government, chances are that you’d have started rejoicing already, over the sordid details of the rot in the Petroleum sector being unearthed by the House of Representatives, as a fallout of the blanket increment in pump price of fuel by President Goodluck Jonathan and his team.
Indeed, it does seem there is much to cheer about. The Nigerian populace who thronged into the streets to resist that onslaught on them by an insensitive government are feeling justified. In other words, those who refused to buy the lame subsidy removal logic may be telling the few who supported it blindly, “But we told you!”
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Who wouldn’t be shocked by the audacity of Nigeria’s petrol racketeers who, in connivance with NNPC, PPPRA and others, defrauded the country of a whopping N667 billion just in one year? We saw how we persistently paid subsidies for 24million litres of fuel which no Nigerian used. Oh, even Mr Sanusi’s CBN agrees that the subsidy they paid wasn’t N1.3 trillion as we were told earlier. That figure they peddled before Nigerians was even a barefaced lie. The true amount – for now – is N1.7 trillion. It could still be more. After all, nothing is cast in stones in Nigeria. Now, that should give any true Nigerian – except, perhaps, those in government and their fictitious fuel-importing friends and fronts - a major cause for concern.
The anger in the land has forced the lower legislative house into action. And those who mistake this government for a responsible one are already rejoicing at the admittance - by the same people who lied to Nigerians about how broke their country is, and for which they must accept further hardship –that there truly were manipulations in the subsidy regime. People are at liberty to excite themselves with the anticipation of penalties for our economic saboteurs. I don’t belong to that school of thought. And I’ll tell you why.
Telephone calls in Nigeria are weighty. And apart from our culture of daily visiting government officials – a sign of massive joblessness in itself – Nigeria is ruled largely from outside the various government houses with telephone calls. While the probe you see in the House of Representatives goes on during the day. You don’t know what goes on at night.
The members of the House of Representatives Committee handling this very serious assignment will never be allowed to take the right decision in this matter. No high-profile corruption case in Nigeria has ever been successfully concluded. The reason is simple: phone calls.
In an earlier essay, I had outlined the various groups of people who collectively reduced Nigerian to an organized scam. They range from the elected and appointed political office holders, religious heads, traditional rulers and members of the mainstream media. These groups are the ultimate beneficiaries of this decayed system, and desperately make efforts to sustain it with their phone calls.
Whenever someone – one of their benefactors in government - is in trouble, then their phones get no resting. “Hello…is that the ABLE P.A himself? Hahaha. Oh yes. That’s me, the Emir of… The Oba of… The Eze of.., The Obi of… ,The Bishop of…, The Imam of… The General Overseer of… The Editor of…, The Publisher of…The Former Minister of… The former governor of… The CEO of…” And the introduction continues. The ultimate reason for such calls is to get across to the President or those to whom he listens; and then beg him to give high profile criminals “soft landing”
It is clear that the only phrases those in government quarters are much familiar with are those that pervert justice or make a mockery of democracy. It’s either “soft landing”, “plea bargain” or “dividends of democracy”.
As those against the absurdity of DiezaniMaduekebeing a judge in her own case swell in ranks, I can only imagine the number of calls the President would have received by now. Niger-Delta elders and Northern Emirs would have called. Pastors and Imams would have called. Governors would have called. All would plead with the president or advisers to not always yield to such public demands because, in our parlance here; “anything you do, dem must talk”. So the irritation that the knowledge of the sleaze in the oil ministry stirred could have as well passed for one of those “dem must talk” scenarios.They would also cite some petty reasons like “stability of the country”. Once a certain person is fired, the country suddenly stops being stable – all in the imaginations of the beneficiaries of this failed system.
And in the culture of the Nigerian government, those whose responsibility it should be to ensure offenders are brought to book will choose to listento their callers, and then do the exact opposite of the dictates of common sense. The feeling amongst Nigeria’s unrepentantly corrupt tribe of rulers is; “Tomorrow, it could be me. And then I may need the intervention of this same people”. Remember the NdudiElumelu probe Committee of Bankole’s House of Representatives? What became of it? We cheered. We clapped. And we expected the day Olusegun Obasanjo, the man in the centre of the scam, was going to be charged and arraigned. We’ve long stopped waiting. Phone calls made that happen, or not happen, whichever you choose.
In the face of increased bombings and mass murder of innocent Nigerians by Boko Haram, calls for the sack of the National Security Adviser have increased. A consensus has long coalesced on his incompetence. Everybody agrees there’s no sign of intelligence among the country’s intelligence unit. Why is he still on seat? Phone calls kept him there.
Listening to selfish phone conversations from those who thrive on Nigeria’s failure is the forte of this present administration. The reason is that the president, himself a beneficiary of phone call endorsements, had no dreams of leading Nigeria at any time. He never imagined how to get Nigeria back to the path of sanity, growth and development. He is the conventional PDP member who only sought power for the sake of being powerful. The only requirement for pulling Nigeria out of the present state of inertia, being unconventional, is lacking in the president. This is why he pays attention to these phone calls.
But I like to think it is more of a PDP lifestyle than a Jonathan life style. The party, notorious for being an assemblage of a huge percentage of those who wrecked Nigeria, thrives on settlement and protectionism of evil doers.
The phone calls are on. We have seen people who deserve an immediate sack in this administration, but will not be fired because phone calls have been made. And the receivers of those calls took the callers seriously.
The fuel subsidy scam has stirred up deep hatred for the government, and the super-rich, in Nigeria. And the high-handedness with which the president and his team suppressed the protests, using labour’s insincerity and lack of foresight, didn’t help matters. The suppression will give birth to undesirable outcomes in the near future. Nigerians are watching how militants became millionaires by taking up arms against the state. They are also observing the willingness of this government – as expressed by no less a person than the president himself - to sit on a negotiation table with Boko Haram bombers. They’ll certainly compare these responses with the one they got for protesting peacefully. It isn’t difficult to predict the next move of many young people. It is easier to choose which pathway to take.This is why the House of Representatives may want to advise themselves against just playing to the gallery. This is equally why the president must have to reject phone calls this time around.
Those who fleeced the impoverished Nigerians of their billions must not be allowed to walk free. Immediate and speedy prosecution of these criminals should not be a matter for phone calls and visitations. But this is if we are interested in steering this country off the path of destruction in which it’s fast headed.
Yet we have another choice: to aggravate the nation’s anger by answering the phone calls of the beneficiaries of the deep rot, and letting the economic saboteurs off the hook. When the bitter outcomes of this choice come staring us in the face, I wonder how many of the calls will be able to quell the uprising.
And by the way, the calls maybe coming from abroad then.
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