PhD in Zoology and Animal Farm Administration

“All animals are equal but some animals are created more equal than others.” George Orwell, Animal Farm (1945)

Why else will two families be entitled to N 1 billion worth of breakfast, lunch and dinner per annum, however 140 million people cannot have 1 trillion Naira worth of subsidy?

N 1 billion and yet the president has vowed to eat cassava bread till his last day in office. Is cassava really that expensive? Or will there also be, as a side, gold-dipped croissants covered in chocolate mousse and served on the latest diamond encrusted china from Louis Vuitton’s kitchen collection? Will meals be flown in from Le Meurice in France?

The disconnect between the ruling class and the average Nigerian is as wide as some of the gaping potholes on the Oshodi-Apapa expressway or the Lagos-Benin express death trap. The average Nigerian earns 0.03% of a lawmakers salary.

Trillions of Naira are devoted to paying the wages of a few lawmakers salaries and juicy allowances, yet a trillion naira cannot be “borrowed” to cater for a subsidy impacting all the people. It is when it comes to the people, that the funds are deemed to be borrowed.

The Nigerian Police Force were on a rampage on the day before Christmas eve setting up checkpoints faster than the common cold can be transmitted. They then began collecting denominations of the Naira from motorists. The drivers of public transit vehicles had to indulge the police some rumpled 20 and 50 Naira notes, after all we cannot expect the N 1 trillion budgeted by Aso Rock for security to trickle down to the rank and file. Not when there is an IG, several AIGs, DIGs and CPs to help themselves to a lions share first. Now it becomes the responsibility of the masses to ensure that the corporals, lance corporals, sergeants and DPOs have chickens to sacrifice this Christmas. After all the police are no stranger to extra-judicial killings, and the commoner believes it is better safe than sorry.
Why does the president not insist that the riot act be read out to all policemen? Why are innovations such as solar powered CCTV not employed at all checkpoints as a check and balance against bribe-taking? Obviously the budget drafter believes it better to throw more money at a system with structural errors, and the deficiencies will correct themselves with little to no change in oversight.

Please bear with the following parable, a young company was erecting a high rise residential building on Lagos mainland. They spent billions on it and upon completion discovered structural problems in the foundation that could endanger the inhabitants. They were confounded as to what to do. Yet these young men displaying courage and integrity knocked the building down and started all over again.
If it had been the government agents, wager they would have budgeted billions to furnish and paint the buildings as it were, encourage hapless Nigerians to move in. These same agents would then contact realtors in Dubais seeking choice properties. After all some Nigerians are more equal than others.

Current Senate president and aspiring future president of Nigeria, David Mark once said telephones were not for the poor. Yet the private sector led by MTN proved him wrong. Government likes to take credit for the success of telephony in Nigeria in a process they term deregulation, as if by granting a license to a company to install its own equipment, they magically allowed phone calls to happen. In any case, how come millions of Nigerians had no access to the President during his media chat on subsidy and other state of affairs? Perhaps he didn’t want to talk to us. Maybe his handlers knew what would happen if the line was indeed open. In any case broadcasting a chat with the leader of a nation of 140 million people and providing only one phone line just goes to show the wisdom of those in leadership.

The president assured us in the Presidential Media Gaffe that corruption is not a problem peculiar to Nigeria. How astonishing? Perhaps the president should have taken some time to highlight to us other countries with such vast oil wealth that also do not have roads, healthcare, power, education, and, very soon, access to fuel.

Like pigs rolling around on their bellies in the slush that is our collective national wealth and enjoying their cassava croissants, our leaders have selective amnesia. They forget, once they start tasting the largesse that is oil money, the plight of the people. Once they have enough lucre to travel by helicopter, they no longer see or are affected by the dilapidated condition of the roads. Once their multi-billion generator and diesel allowances are paid, they have their aides purchase the latest in noise-proof generator technology from Germany and forget the sound of endless choirs of I better pass my neighbor humming in the cities and towns. Their immunity does not just begin and end with ability to evade prosecution and be arrested for corrupt activities. Their immunity transcends every iota of their lives, they are immune to what ails the rest of the nation. They are more equal than others.

It becomes apparent that the commander in chief knoweth not what to do. At the town hall meeting on subsidy held by NPAN, Ngozi Okonjo Iweala said its the rich that enjoy subsidy. If the coordinating minister of the economy can utter such fallacy, then are the Nigerian masses not doomed? Perhaps she can be excused, after all she hardly lives in Nigeria. She’s usually in Washington DC and so despite her intellectual prowess she cannot be expected to understand the simple economics of petrol consumption in Nigeria. The fact is the upper middle class and rich in Nigeria utilize petrol for their cars, and diesel for their generators. All other Nigerians use petrol for both transportation and electricity generation. The choirs of I better pass my neighbors are fueled by petrol. So the demand is higher for petrol by the vast majority of Nigerians who are not rich or politically connected.

You increase the price and it affects everybody. No amount of english, economics, lobbying, or appearing on talk shows with inaccessible Nitel number will change the fact.
You remove the subsidy, millions and millions of Nigerians will be vexed in spirit, soul and body.

2 Comments

1. 

   Charles

   December 24, 2011 at 8:34 pm

   Honestly,after reading this piece…though there are grey areas i would beg to hold divergent opinions…but after all said…there is very little left to be said again…any responsible person or government will always and every time take the sides of the poor…whatever excuse or explanations we give here…it is obvious…not just on this subsidy issue…but by the body language of this present government…that the poor have been left to their fate…whatever this means….time shall tell!!!
2. 

   Yazeed Salisu Zaria

   December 31, 2011 at 11:23 pm

   d price of cassava will rise to N1m/ tuber becos of oil subsidy removal dats y they budgetted N1b for breakfast