BY REV FR GERALD
NWAFOR
Since 2015 we have observed the APC (All Progressive Congress) led government making all kinds of excuses because the government is not doing well. From snakes and monkeys swallowing money to rats and rodents eating the furniture in the presidential villa (Aso Rock). In some cases, they have accused the past government of Goodluck Jonathan saying that the PDP (Peoples Democratic Party) stole everything in the treasury before going away.
It has been nine years since the Jonathan administration left office and we are still hearing stories of what happened to the bird and the mother bird (Eji gba nwa nnunu nne ya felu). APC government convinced us to hire them in 2015 and promised that they would fix the country in one year.
It is nine years down the line, and we have not seen any progress but retrogression and destruction of society by corruption and maladministration. The Gen Z has woken up to say that we want our country back.
The government is saying to the GenZ that it is one Mr. Peter Obi who is responsible for waking them up and that they should go back and continue sleeping while they watch their country go down in ruins. What is the connection between Mr. Peter Obi and bad government one may ask? Mr. Peter Obi is not in government and Mr. Obi is not holding any political post the last time I checked.
As a matter of fact, it was Mr. Peter who told the government that there was a fire on the mounting but instead of putting out the fire, the government started saying that the fire was ignited by Mr. Obi. Was it Mr. Peter who removed the subsidy without a plan on the 29th of May 2023? Was it Mr. Obi who devalued the Naira and floated the currency without appropriate backing and a safety net?
Was it Mr. Obi who increased the prices of food commodities in the market? If the presidential advisers planned to be sincere to the President, since the President said he doesn’t watch TV anymore because they abuse him and cause him high blood pressure, they would tell him that there is real fire on the mountain, and it can engulf the nation.
The planned protest may work out very well and may not work out at all. When a protest is planned it doesn’t go far but when it is not planned, and it is organic, it tends to achieve more because when the poor have no food to eat, they would eat the rich.
There is anger and hunger in the land but the fact that the people are picking and choosing when to protest and how to protest is a good window to help the government to clean up their mess. But if the government continues to look for who to blame and who to quarrel with, it will be too late in the day to survive the action of the hungry people.
I cannot believe that the government is watching a 20 billion investment being attacked by his cohorts in NNPCL. One of the main problems of Nigeria today is that we cannot see fuel and diesel to buy. And a businessman spent his fortune to put up a refinery in Nigeria to solve the problem and the government is sabotaging him. First, they failed to give him crude oil saying he should buy in dollars.
When he provided the dollars, they said he should go and buy from a foreign market. He bought from foreign markets they said the Sulphur content of his refined product was high. Recently we just discovered that the government has no lab and the government the businessman has not even produced diesel for public consumption.
So, where did the government get all this information about the new refinery that they were pushing to de-market a refinery that should be a source of help to the Nigerian public? The refinery doesn’t belong to Mr. Obi, nor does it belong to Obi’s kinsmen (Ibiakamsi). Why is the government quarreling and fighting everyone who means well for the country of Nigeria? It is a simple case of a bad workman and the tools. Give a bad workman the best of the tools and equipment, and he will continue to quarrel and antagonize himself with the tools. The unrest in Kenya look like child’s play if and when the masses would revolt against the government of Nigeria.
There is still time to calm the nerves, but the choice is theirs to keep quarreling or to do the needful.The government promised us security in 2014 when they were campaigning. They said food would be everywhere. They said Niger Delta would be secured and we can produce 5 million barrels of oil daily.
The Boko Haram terrorist group would be a thing of the past. Out-of-school children would be sent back to school and student loans made available. Unemployed people should be paid five thousand Naira monthly. Fast forward to 2024 ten years after, Boko Haram gave birth to triplets called bandits, herdsmen, and farmers. Food inflation has gone from arithmetical progression to astronomical progression. When you bought a bag of rice seven thousand five hundred in 2014 and in 2024 it is a hundred thousand a bag what do you call that kind of inflation?
The student loan promise never saw the light of the day. Only two weeks ago it was discovered that the five thousand Naira was never distributed but the account recorded that it was missing. Now the court is calling on the then Minister of Finance (2015-2023) to reimburse the federation treasury with over seven hundred billion. The crude oil production has dropped from 1.8 million barrels to 1.2 million barrels, not even meeting our OPEC (The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) quota. The people who plunged 133 million of its population into multidimensional poverty cannot be said to be doing well.
The number of out-of-school children in the country has increased by 100% thanks to the menace of the political elite who padded the budget and took away 50% of the total budget for their selfish gain. The government is blaming everyone for their failure except themselves. The bad workman blames all the tools except his incompetence. While the government engages in politics and campaigns of pointing fingers, the raging fire would engulf the nation like a whirlwind.
