Fuel Scarcity and the Darkening Cloud

Eddy Odivwri

One of the things Nigerians have against the President Muhammadu Buhari administration is its “go-slow” approach in dealing with issues of national and urgent importance. As my people would say, what is crawling on your skin and what is biting your skin cannot be given the same type of attention.

For the fourth week running, Nigerians have been returned to the order of groaning and gnashing of their teeth, no thanks to the lingering fuel scarcity. What is hurting Nigerians should be of concern to Mr President. But that is not what we see, or so it seems.

If it is otherwise, we should have seen actions being taken by agencies of government to relieve Nigerians of the crushing pain, hardship and difficulty being experienced. Last Tuesday, Mr President flew out of the country to Kenya for an official engagement, and will proceed therefrom to the United Kingdom for a two-week medical check up. The unspoken message seems to be something like: ‘if you people like, suffer and die, I have to attend to my own issues first’.

He is the substantive Minister of Petroleum Resources. Nigerians cannot be spending days in filling stations and being grounded, and Mr President jets out for some inconsequential meetings outside the country. The fuel scarcity had started from alleged importation of a million litres of contaminated fuel. The NNPC and marketers traded blames here and there. Weeks after, is it the so-called withdrawal of a million litres that has held us down in this agony of continued scarcity?

The NNPC plus the House of Representatives swore to investigate the source and importers of the bad fuel. Till today, nothing has happened. Nobody has resigned, nobody has been fired. But if that was not bad enough, the fuel issue has lingered with greater and harsher severity. Days have run into weeks and Nigerians are practically sleeping at filling stations so they can have fuel to drive their vehicles.

The Minister of State for Petroleum, Mr Timipre Sylva and the GMD, NNPC, Mallam Mele Kyari do not seem to know what to say. They have not said anything meaningful or helpful to Nigerians. Their promises of restoring normalcy have all fallen through again and again. We roast, they rest.

Do they realise that Nigerians are suffering needlessly?

Are they indifferent to our pains because they do not share in it? I am aware there are huge and deep fuel dumps in the Presidential Villa and in some ministries, especially the NNPC. So, they do not understand the colour of our agony. They do not understand what it means to stay on the very long queues all day and all night long and still not get fuel. They do not understand how access to public transport system is either hampered or the cost becomes unbearable. They do not understand how transport cost affects just everything about the economy, including cost of food items. They do not understand how it all dampens the business morale and operations. They do not understand how it makes mockery of the ease of doing business campaign in Nigeria. They do not understand how it ultimately crashes our GDP. They do not understand how it makes life bitter and brutish.

The NNPC had been the sole importer of petroleum products. So, what is the reason for this prolonged scarcity? It is bad enough that Nigeria has embraced the importation of what we have in our soil, yet it is worse that we cannot even handle the importation anymore. If we can’t refine the crude we need, can’t we also import refined products? Does it require great skills to do that? Why are we being subjected to this harrowing experience?

The Buhari administration was already being hailed for saving Nigerians from the periodic agony of fuel scarcity and all its concomitant consequences. This fledging legacy is being destroyed by the poor handling of the malaise of this fuel scarcity

As if the fuel situation is not crushing enough, the electricity supply situation just got even worse. Many DISCOs are not able to distribute electricity. The electricity issue has clearly become an enigma that defies solutions, not because it is intractable, but because the vested interests involved conspire to frustrate every genuine effort government introduces to solve the problem. Government after government wrings its hands in pretencious and vexatious helplessness. No heads of saboteurs have ever rolled. Why won’t the cartel fester and boom?

The so-called unbundling of NEPA simply unbundled our woes. Nothing has improved, If anything, we are regressing and getting more frustrated, even at a higher cost. Even common supply of pre-paid meter is far-fetched and a complex mirage in many towns and cities, more than ten years after the idea was introduced.

Buhari inherited the electricity problem and it is looking certain that he is going to bequeath it to his successor. And the beat goes on and on. And as the late afrobeat maestro, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, would say, we continue in “suffering and smiling”.

What the pall of darkness and the arising heat and discomfort means is that people would have to fall back on their dependable ally: their generators, even if it is the “I-better-pass-neighbour”. Yet, there is no petrol to power these generators. The result is that people would sleep and wake in darkness. And as if there is a conspiracy of even cosmic elements, the heat wave this period is like a furnace is opened unto Nigerians. Gradually and steadily, we are being nudged into Thomas Hobbes’s world of shortness and nastiness. The trigger of the famous Arab Spring was not as severe. The clouds are darkening. Only insensitive leaders will not see it.

But in the face of this prolonged scarcity, is the boom of the Black Market. While the product is scarce in the filing stations, the adjoining black markets have petrol at cut-throat prices.

Some of the filling stations choose to dispense fuel from just one pump, thus lengthening the queues and prolonging the service time. No regulatory control from government agencies is visible. Many Nigerians have been groaning across board. The story is the same everywhere.

Last Wednesday, Mele Kyari was threatening that filling stations selling above official pump price would be dealt with. Really? I dare say it is an empty threat. They never get dealt with. It is practice that is as old as the malaise itself. They should be ashamed of themselves. The withdrawal of One million litres of contaminated fuel is not enough to pass Nigerians through this harrowing experience. Nothing explains or justifies this agony. Who has been punished or prosecuted for the importation of the contaminated fuel? That should be the starting point of re-assuring Nigerians that the NNPC is not in hands in gloves with those inflicting this pain on Nigerians. It should not be that we pray for them and they prey on us.

Canticles…

2023: Who Will the Cap Fit?

Eddy Odivwri

Have you followed the developments at the National Assembly in the past few days?

There is nothing exciting about the National Assembly. I have decided to ignore those elite clowns and carry my own cross as a citizen

But they have made very valuable improvements on the constitution of the federal republic. Shouldn’t that cheer you up?

Did you say, ‘very valuable improvements’? How does the rejection of all the proposed amendments in favour of women translate to very valuable improvements? Can’t you see that these lawmakers have not shaken off the shackles of pristine politics from their mindsets? Can’t you see that they believe women are lesser entities who must be used and dumped? How can they reasonably vote against all the amendments being pushed for by the women folk? Not even the coming of the First Lady, Aisha Buhari to the National Assembly the other day, followed up by the wife of the Vice President, Mrs Dolapo Osinbajo, cut any ice with these chauvinists called lawmakers.

But you are being sentimental. It is democracy. Democracy has nothing to do with gender suasion. The women folk probably did not do enough groundwork of canvassing support for the positions they were concerned about or craved for. So, those proposed amendments simply failed to pass the democracy test of popularity. The lawmakers were not sufficiently convinced about the propriety of what the women wanted. How can it be legislated, for instance, that a certain number of seats be reserved for women in the National Assembly? Do they think the National Assembly is FIDA or NAWOJ? Did they understand the democratic complexity of what they were asking for?

But you forget that these same women are the ones who will turn out en mass to vote for these men folks either in the rain or in the sun. How come now, that these same selfish male folks cannot even spare a thought for the feelings and concerns of these same supportive and faithful voters?

Again, you are being sentimental. The motion to support these pro-women amendments simply failed on the floor of both chambers. It has nothing to do with whether they stood in the rain or withstood Hurricane Catherina for the interest of the men folks.

I think what should be of concern to the womenfolk, now that they have seen that the National Assembly route will not lead them to the promised land, is how they can support a President that will be more disposed to favouring women.

That is the issue. When the time comes now, all the presidential candidates will be running after the women folks, forming women wing of their campaign organisations, to get their votes, knowing that they constitute the largest chunk of faithful voters. And when they get into office, the women will be treated like rags that must be tucked away after being used to clean up a public surface.

Well, the women now should be wiser in discerning those who will be disposed to them. They have seen how many of the lawmakers, citing religious and ethnic reasons, voted against the emancipation of the womenfolk. They should apply the wisdom therefrom in voting for a candidate whom the cap will fit.

So, who will the cap fit?

That’s a million dollar question!

I think the race is basically between the ruling APC and the opposition PDP, struggling to regain a lost paradise

But don’t forget that part of the constitutional amendment gives room for independent candidacy

Yes, we have to grow in that culture. It cannot be automatically imbibed. Look, the sun shines first on those standing before it shines on those kneeling. On this matter, those running on the platform of political parties are those standing, while those going to run as independent candidates will be those either kneeling or even squatting. What the independent candidacy can achieve for now, is broadening the democratic space and base.

The PDP does not believe that there is any character in the entire south who can win the presidential race for it. And that is why the likes of Atiku Abubakar, Gov Aminu Tambuwal and Gov Bala Mohammed have raised their political notches against all odds.

What do you mean by that? Are you saying that Gov Nyesom Wike, for instance, is not a presidential material?

You said so.

But talking more seriously, the women and indeed all Nigerian voters should screen the religious and ethnic content of some of these aspirant and know those who will rather see and not hear the women in the public space.

Are you trying to say that the PDP does not have women-friendly aspirants and that it is only in the APC that we shall find one whom the cap will fit?

By no means. I have not said so at all, except if you believe so. The point I am making is that the man or woman whom the cap will fit must be one who will not be constrained by religious, ethnic or cultural reasons to trample the women folk under the carpet.

You can see however that the APC parades men and even women who are liberal and receptive on such matters of pristine boundaries.

Aha, now I can get the drift of your argument.

You are better be sure. The summation of my argument is that whomever the cap will fit shall be one who will not only be pro-women liberation and supportive of the affirmative demands, but also, and more importantly, one who is deeply concerned about changing for the better, the fortunes of all Nigerians. We have wandered long enough in the wilderness; we should now have a leader who will not only save us from endless thralldom, but also knows the shortest route that can lead us to the promised land. We are not a cursed people.