Listening to and reading President Goodluck Jonathan’s declaration to run for re-election next year on the platform of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) penultimate Tuesday, I believe was close to an act of self-immolation for many Nigerians who have suffered immensely in the last five years in the hands of this government and for close to 16 years under the PDP, as there was virtually nothing to declare.
Listening to and reading President Goodluck Jonathan’s declaration to run for re-election next year on the platform of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) penultimate Tuesday, I believe was close to an act of self-immolation for many Nigerians who have suffered immensely in the last five years in the hands of this government and for close to 16 years under the PDP, as there was virtually nothing to declare.
The torture most Nigerians had to go through listening to President Jonathan and the PDP once more after 16 years of gruelling punishment of Nigerians was worse than seeing someone decide to set themselves on fire or jump off the Third Mainland Bridge in Lagos in protest against this cruel government and ruling party.
For most Nigerians, it was like listening to the song of Afro-hip-hop artist 2face Idibia titled “E Be Like Say.” The song, sung in Nigerian pidgin English, opens with the following verse:
“Another year has come, now you want my vote once more... be like say you want to tell me another story again..eeh, e be like say you want to act another movie again..e be like say you want to dance galala na the new dance again”
The song goes on to speak about politicians who think that money gives them power. These politicians, the song points out, do not realize that power is nothing without quality education, health, peace, security and wellbeing for the people. I believe that this song aptly fits the PDP and their motley crowd of power-hungry politicians who have usurped the sovereign power of the Nigerian people for close to 16 years.
Looking through the declaration speech of President Jonathan, there was nothing noteworthy or awe-inspiring to declare that would make any sane Nigerian want to give their support to him or the PDP after 16 years of the party in power. His most notable declaration after close to six years of stewardship was his announcement that he ended corruption in the agricultural sector.
If corruption had really been eliminated in that sector, was it a deliberate and conscious effort on the part of the president? Before coming to power, did he envision an agricultural sector in Nigeria that works the way it probably works now? President Jonathan appointed Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina as a minister, who came in with his own brilliant ideas, not those of the president. There is no evidence anywhere of Jonathan campaigning in 2011 to do the things Adesina is doing in the agricultural sector. Yet, Jonathan claims the credit.
Perhaps there is nothing wrong with that. But once again, how have the changes in the agricultural sector affected the cost of living of Nigerians? How have the basic prices of staples in the market like garri, rice, beans, sugar, flour and wheat and the consumer price index (CPI) changed since 2011? Since the president claims to have eliminated corruption, we should be feeling the effect if they have been rising or falling.
President Jonathan and the PDP also mentioned how they have dealt successfully with the Ebola outbreak. How bloody crude of these people and the evil party they run. So were they praying for a deadly mass virus disease like Ebola to hit Nigeria so that they could declare success in our healthcare system? If the Ebola outbreak did not occur in Nigeria (the outbreak has hit neither Guinea nor Togo), would President Jonathan have nothing else to mention about his government or the PDP’s advances in healthcare in 16 years? Without wanting to over-flog the Ebola issue, everyone knows that it was the quick thinking skills of the First Consultant Hospital, now late doctors and nurses and the Lagos state government led by Tunde Fashola that saved Nigeria from calamity.
How many new hospitals has his government built? Where are the new doctors, nurses and consultants that have been recruited by his administration? Given that the Health Ministry is usually in charge of everything, leading to massive corruption in the ministry and hospitals never getting the equipment they need, how much autonomy and power do the federal hospitals have over their yearly budget (including capital budgets and purchases of equipments)? To this date, most federal hospitals in Nigeria still use blankets and bed sheets bought by the PTF under Muhammadu Buhari’s administration. It is also pertinent to ask the president and his party what Nigeria’s CPI for medical care is at the moment and what it was like during PDP’s rule from 1999 to today.
Despite all the GDP re-basing and damned lies President Jonathan and his spin doctors have been using with mere statistics, the Nigerian economy is currently in shambles. Nigeria being the largest economy in Africa or the 26th largest economy in the world does not compensate for the fact that the country has been announcing a budget deficit for the past 16 years. Nigeria went from having zero debt in 2006 to $11 billion in foreign debt and is paying more than 750 billion naira to service interest from domestic debts in 2014 alone. Furthermore, state government coffers are reducing allocation by up to 500 million naira monthly since July, and they are struggling to pay salaries.
What sense does Nigeria being the largest African economy make if we do not know the household potential index (HPI) of Nigerian households? The HPI measurement would indicate the amount of disposable income and purchasing power of a household. Its measurement would take into account durable goods like agricultural produce, up to 22 FCMG products, services like telephone, internet and broadband penetration, banking, six demographic measures like education, the number of working members in each household and household type and size to gauge the true affluence of Nigerian households. It would show what most Nigerian households consume in terms of products and what we own as properties and assets. This would show a massive disparity in the affluence of Nigerian households and the level of poverty as well as disposable income.
The voodoo economy we run under President Jonathan, the PDP and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala will get worse in 2015 as oil prices fall across the globe. The amount of oil that has come online over the last four months is staggering, according to a Stratfor Global Intelligence report. The US alone increased production from 8.5 million barrels per day (bpd) in July to an estimated 9 million bpd. Despite its internal crisis, Libya has more than quadrupled production from 200,000 bpd to more than 900,000 bpd. Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and Iraq have also increased production in the last few months, with OPEC’s production reaching its highest level in two years. And the International Energy Agency’s projection for global oil demand growth for 2014 is only 700,000 bpd, with only half of it being met by increased production in the US and Libya alone.
Looking ahead to 2015, energy production in North America is projected to rise. US oil production is set to rise by another 750,000 bpd. Traditional swing producers for OPEC like Saudi Arabia's Aramco, which usually reduces production to bring about higher oil prices during periods of global oil price, have shown little interest in doing so. Drawing from its bitter experience in the 1980s, the Saudis would rather increase production to compete with any other country for global oil market share rather than for increased oil prices. In any case, the Saudis, the Emiratis and the Kuwaitis have amassed large Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWF) in the last 40 years that help them weather long periods of low oil prices. Oil prices have been sliding for barely a few months and yet Nigeria already needs $5 billion to prop up its usual budget deficit. Our SWF funds are just barely more than $3 billions — not enough to even last for some few months before we go kaput.
If oil prices continue to drop, oil producers will eventually have to slow down production. The US has no constraints to slow down if the prices bottom out for about $80 per barrel as it still leaves them profitable. The Saudis, on the other hand, have vowed to keep increasing production to fight for market share. The only other way to drive up prices would be to have large-scale production go offline in places such as Nigeria and Libya.
All eyes would thus be on the OPEC semi-annual meeting scheduled for November 27. That is when the root for likely economic and social unrest in Nigeria in 2015 would be decided. States would get dwindling allocations and petrol and diesel prices would be increased to pay the Mafias who import petroleum products into the country under the guise of the removal of fuel subsidy. Under President Jonathan and the PDP, this would not be a problem. They would probably tell us to go to hell if we are not satisfied with the situation.
Nigerians get punished with policies outside the mandate given to them. In 2011, when President Jonathan was campaigning, he did not mention increasing fuel prices or removing the so-called subsidy. In January 2012, President Jonathan and the PDP violated their mandate by increasing the cost of petrol and diesel in the country. They did it in such a callous way, doing it at the beginning of our financial year without any notice. Nigeria's financial year runs from January through December. Only a wicked and insensitive person would increase the cost of vital oil products at the start of the financial year.
President Jonathan even had the nerve to mock Nigerians, saying that we did not protest enough — that we only gathered for comedy, music and food at freedom parks across the country. Was he expecting Nigerians to break through his security, take off his Fedora hat and slap it across his face before he knew they were protesting and in pain? In a sane and well-organized society, President Jonathan would have been impeached for carrying out a policy in 2012 outside of the mandate given to him by Nigerians in 2011 and for daring to tell them there is no going back on it. He would also have been tried for committing treachery against the Nigerian people.
In a recent interview with The Cable Nigeria, presidential aspirant Muhammad Buhari mentioned the fact that none of the thousands of oil pipelines and depots across the country (he signed the contracts for them to be built in 1976) were constructed with foreign loans. They were paid for with money from our commonwealth. So why should we be paying a so-called fuel subsidy to internal colonizers called fuel marketers? Buhari argues that as Nigerians, shouldn’t we know the calculations behind the price of these products when they arrive on our shores via the marketers. Considering the fact that the pipelines and depots used for these products are owned by the Nigerian state, we should only be paying a minimal fee to sustain their maintenance.
When we have such transparency, it’s clear that at moments like these when global oil prices drop, the cost of petrol and diesel should reduce in Nigeria, even if we import them. But it stands the same at 97 naira and will surely increase next year under a government led by President Jonathan and the PDP when they are struggling for funds to run the country due to massive corruption. In the United Kingdom and the US, petrol and diesel prices are declining and are project to decline more next year reducing and projected to further come down next year. In Nigeria, it defies logic.
There is also the issue of security and the welfare of the people. In his declaration, President Jonathan’s admitted himself that his government has failed on the issue of the Boko Haram insurgency in Northern Nigeria. It’s not just President Jonathan’s indifference and failure in the last three years that has emboldened the insurgents but also the overall failure of the PDP government failure since inception. In 2004, the US government warned the Nigerian president at the time, Olusegun Obasanjo, that Al-Qaeda had infiltrated parts of the north like the Yobe and Borno states and would soon start carrying out attacks.
Mr. Obasanjo, with his usual indifference and lackadaisical attitude, waived it off. President Jonathan came into office in 2010/2011 and made everything worse. His own indifference to the issue is appalling. He viewed it as an insurgency from the north against his administration rather than an urgent national problem. With such crude thinking, the president and his advisers have done little to fight Boko Haram, with the hope that they would use it as a campaign tool against any northern presidential candidate in 2015.
Four years later, President Jonathan is struggling to explain to Nigerians why he has failed to adequately deal with these terrorists. I believe that all hope is not lost. Recent Boko Haram videos demonstrate that they are still a bunch of ragtag bandits with looted heavy weaponry in their hands that can surely be defeated or contained by the Nigerian Army.
Overall, Jonathan has failed Nigerians massively and frittered away all the goodwill he got in 2011 when he was voted into office. His party has also failed us in the 16 years that they have been in power. When you get to an airport and you have nothing to declare, you pass through a certain door. In President Jonathan’s case, he has failed us woefully in the last five years. The PDP, for its part, has failed us massively in the last 16 years. They have nothing to declare to us. They should be shown the door marked, “Exit.”
Ola’ Idowu is a management consultant and researcher in the UK. You can reach him by email at [email protected].