How are Nigerians coping with it all?

Sometimes, I wonder how President Bola Tinubu feels when he reads or hears about some of the things happening in the country under his watch. How does the president receive the daily cries of hunger; the reports of recurring brutal killings; the mindless kidnappings for ransom with attendant murders and the general economic hardship? One wonders if the ongoing harassment of dissenting voices, especially in the media, gets to the president’s ears. It’s also a thing of wonder how he reacts to people’s thoughts and comments on the galloping inflation and also, their reactions to the petrol pricing conundrum. Generally, the preponderance of the thoughts is not left at the ambivalent question of Mgbeke’s barbing skills or the sharpness of her razor. Most fellow Nigerians have rather concluded that it is all about Mgbeke and her head-scrapping prowess. To the majority of the people in this loop, with what so far has become of their respective lives in the life of the Tinubu administration, Mgbeke simply does not know how to scrape the head.

There are those Nigerians who are on the other side of the divide. Naturally… They hold the thoughts that Mgbeke actually knows her onions, but that her problem is the issue of the blade. It is just not sharp. In fact, these people have extended the argument beyond the bluntness of the blade to include the non-existent spirit of understanding, support and cooperation of Mgbeke’s clients themselves. This school of thought is peopled by the believers of ‘the monkey and his sweat’ philosophy. It’s their posture that the monkey sweats but his hairs have prevented us from getting to see this.

Then, there is the third group where some of us belong. In this category, you will find the highest number of Nigerians and we are mostly the working class or the labouring majority. We work and wait for our salaries to be paid at the end of the month. When the money eventually comes, you’ll be worried that your take home pay cannot take you home. Apologies to the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), the owners of that postulation… Your monthly wages would come and you would be left wondering if you had just been sentenced – like a man who got the wages of sin. All of the people in this labouring majority will wonder daily why their take home pay has remained stagnant while inflation, which is induced by respective government policies – and taxes -, would be growing in leaps and bounds, and will also be festering.

In the monkey dey sweat group are the ministers and sundry government officials. To them, we are either impatient or have simply refused to understand or to cooperate with the government of the day. A prominent member of this group is Mr. Heineken Lokpobiri, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil). Under Muhammadu Buhari, he served us as the Minister of State for Agriculture and Rural Development. Before 2015, he was a member of the Senate. Before going to the Senate, he was a member of the Bayelsa State House of Assembly. He was the Speaker of the House during his time there. You see why he knows more than you do, and why you need to show him understanding, cooperate with him and also cooperate with his government so that they can concentrate and thereby serve us better? They do not deserve our shrill cries of pain, those are a distraction to them at that level of service to you and me and country.

Lokpobiri, after his meeting with Vice President Kashim Shettima and the National Security Adviser, Mr. Nuhu Ribadu, on Thursday, took his place on the motivational pulpit. As one of the princes or ministers in Nigeria’s petroleum palace of confusion, he had to address all of us on the problems in the palace, but we needed to learn some more semantics and about linguistic rigmarole. The Minister successfully said so much while actually addressing nothing to Nigerians about the current fuel situation in the country. The current fuel situation is a result of the policies of their administration, and the most affected Nigerians believe they should do more than just announce to us that petroleum supply will normalise by the weekend. Lokpobiri also told how President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is feeling about the heightening economic hardship in the country. He said the president is not just concerned, he is “deeply concerned” about it, especially with a special focus on the ugly fuel supply. If the president and his government are indeed concerned as Lokpobiri stated, they should do something about the price of the commodity. That is what the people he is believed to be addressing would like to hear.

Lokpobiri said in reaction to the long fuel queues and high cost of the product: “We want to reassure the public that there is sufficient fuel supply in the country, and by the weekend, we expect products to be available nationwide. While prices may vary in different regions, we believe that once distribution stabilises, prices will regulate naturally. It’s important to emphasise that the government is not fixing prices, as the sector is deregulated.” This is more like placing people on that beautifully decorated horse we find on the carousel. It is not yours… The Yoruba talk about riding a roach in place of a horse. That is the kind of horse Mr. Lokpobiri and his government has placed Nigerians. It is even worse than the carousel. When petrol supply becomes adequate, the people would then begin the battle against a monopoly producer and supplier. There have to be measures to regulate the cost of the product rather than leave Nigerians at the mercy and vagaries of foreign exchange.

By so doing, the government is beating us with one hand and at the same time, is applying a soothing balm on our wounds with the other. The government does not care how Nigerians are coping and the measures it has taken to tackle the hardship are a far cry from what Nigerians are going through. Going by Lokpobiri’s submission, if the government is indeed concerned about the hardship, workers are not supposed to be earning the same wages they were being paid before the government plunged them into further hardship occasioned by extant fuel situation. With what has happened, the government has created a credible avenue to wipe the value of the proposed new wages. Whenever it is paid, it will not be a wage that leads to happiness. They have paved a highway to poverty for the people while teasing them with mellifluous words. The government and its system is saying go to hell and have a nice trip.

The question will be asked how families weathered the Tinubu government’s storm. On the nutrition front, there will be a lot of ‘ments’ – malnourishment, undernourishment to tackle among the populace. The seeds for these have been planted and have been watered by the current increment in the pump price of petrol. Headline inflation, going by the figures of the National Bureau of Statistics, increased to 34.19 percent in June 2024 when compared with 33.95 percent in May 2024. In the midst of all of these, the government through Mr. Tunji Bello of the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission is warning traders to keep within a certain profit limit and charge them against profiteering. Bello said, “The FCCPC has the will and the capacity to invoke the full weight of the law against those found culpable of exploiting consumers for undue profit.”

The traders, like all of us, know what the government is saying. But has the government given a thought to what the people are saying… to what people are going through? Multiple taxation, extortion by various government agencies at checkpoints, high cost of transportation caused by fuel price increases are factors in all of these.

READ ALSO: EFCC returns 53 stolen vehicles, $180,300 to Canadian authorities