A professor of Political Economy and Development, Habu Mohammed, is the Director of Aminu Kano Centre for Democratic Studies at the Bayero University, Kano State. He is an awardee of the prestigious US-based Institute of International Education (IIE) and a former Fullbright visiting scholar at Northwestern University, Illinois, USA. He speaks with IMOLEAYO OYEDEYI on how Nigerian politicians are weaponising poverty to perpetuate themselves in power and what the people can do to rescue themselves from their oppressors.
AGAINST the killings, kidnapping, and current hardship pervading the land, some observers have said the people may soon shut down the country in a nationwide protest. Do you think the current situation demands such kind of reaction?
It is possible, but we need to understand why the country’s current situation is peculiar amid the global economic crisis. Truly, Nigeria is not the only country battling with a battered economy, which has bedeviled its entire population and affected people’s social lives. However, our case is quite different. In a situation whereby some people, out of personal and particularistic interest, decided to siphon the resources and common wealth of the country and create some kind of man-made economic crisis, through the printing of currency just to satisfy their ego, the result can’t be different from what we are seeing. In a situation where the ruling class is always desperate to cash in on the simmering crisis, one can’t travel far before knowing the cause of the chaos. That is why Nigerians are becoming fed up with the current shambolic state of the country evidenced by galloping inflation as prices of goods skyrocket daily. The falling standard of living is fast becoming unbearable. Hence, people are aggrieved. Some are even completely disillusioned, which may force them to come out and vent their discontentment.
As we speak, we are in the second week of February, yet some federal government workers haven’t received last month’s salary. It is even not the payment that matters now, but the value of what the money can purchase in the country, which has starkly depreciated. Many people are seriously affected by this, especially the rural dwellers. Some parents can’t even pay the tuition of their children anymore without succumbing to all forms of begging. Nigerians are deeply suffering from a man-made economic crisis submerging the country deeply, putting it on the verge of collapse. As it is, the people are much more likely to mount severe pressure on the federal government in the coming weeks. I just saw a circular where the Nigeria Labour Congress and its affiliated unions have threatened to embark on nationwide protests if their demands are not met in the next 14 days. The federal government has consistently failed to fully implement its signed agreements with the labour unions.
The failed promises of the government in the past have greatly depleted the public trust and made Nigerian workers to now doubt when the government says things will change. But amid the excruciating pains and widespread insecurity plaguing the country, you still find the Nigerian president travelling out now and then. All these are what has culminated in the gale of discontent from the people. The worrisome situation is drawing people to their boiling point and making them believe the only way out is for them to carry placards and shut down the country in protest. It has started in Kano, and Niger states already. Soon, it may spread to other states if care is not taken. And when that happens, it may snowball into the 2020 EndSARS protest and massacre of youths [as it happened] in Lagos. It may happen again, and it will be difficult for the Federal Government to handle. In the country today, the middle class no longer exists. It is either you are a poor man or a rich man now. Meanwhile, 80 per cent of the rich men nowadays are those holding political offices. This explains why the crisis is deepening. Even you and I are also aggrieved in the sense that the highest a professor earns in the country now is N450,000. For you to be a professor, however, you must have reached the apex of your academic career with more financial responsibilities to meet at the family level. As we speak, a bag of rice is over N65,000. I bought it recently for N68,000. But are you going to eat the rice alone; what of other things?
Also, you will have school fees to pay, while your dependents will also be expecting you to meet certain needs for them. Despite this, you will also need to fuel your car to move around. I heard a packet of spaghetti is between N13,000 and N14,000 now. Even a congo of garri is more than N1,000 in some places, let alone a congo of rice, which is about N3,500. So, people are disenchanted and have arguable reasons to become volatile and restless in the country. So, the federal government needs to do the needful and look into some of these crises that have pushed the people into traumatizing, and multidimensional poverty, which is not affecting those in the informal sector alone, because even those in the formal sector are crying. They don’t have light, while the demoralising forex crisis is taking its toll on the importation of production materials.
So, in a nutshell, yes, we agreed that it is a global economic crisis as many countries are even in recession. But ours is a man-made crisis caused by the previous administration and the present one which has further compounded the woes by displacing the petrol subsidy with no concrete measures to cushion the effect of the removal. So, unless frantic and more ideological efforts are made to turn around the economy, and rescue our purchasing power, there may be no end to the misfortune until the entire Nigerians’ hopes are dashed, and no one will be able to predict what will be the likely consequence.
Last Saturday, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) conducted reruns and bye-elections across 26 states of the country, but there were still blatant incidents of vote-buying, which has been a recurring abnormality in the Nigerian electoral system. With the current excruciating hunger and growing poverty, are politicians not strategically weaponising poverty so they can buy off the army of hungry people during elections?
Let me first categorically say that the level of poverty in this country is better imagined than experienced, because even the usual statistics don’t usually capture the deep stretch and extent of the politically inflicted penury that afflict the people. Some statistics will tell you that between 65 to 75 per cent of Nigerians are poor. But I can tell you without an iota of doubt that the extant poverty rate which cuts across the poor and the middle class in the country is more than 80 per cent of the entire population. Pathetically, once politicians get the money to doll out to the electorate to get their votes, the people, who are hungry, would have no option but to grab the opportunity. I am not saying it is ideal for people to collect political bribes and vote for a particular politician, who will be far from competent. I will even call the politician that induces the poor a criminal because vote-buying is a criminal offence in the Nigerian code of conduct. According to our electoral and legal framework, vote-buying is not only illegal but also retards the democratisation process of the country. But when someone has been taking two or one square meal for days and you come and give him a meagre amount, there is no how he won’t grab it to meet his or her excruciating hunger.
What I am saying in essence is that poverty is very endemic in this country and our politicians are desperately using it as a window of opportunity and weapon of affliction. They are the ones who created the problem, but you will see them all racing out during the period of election to take advantage of the problem. On one hand, they will dish out some amount of money to the hungry and angry youths, who they use as political thugs to snatch ballot boxes, kill and burn down the polling units in their opponents’ camps. On another hand, they will be giving the impoverished Nigerians at their polling units meagre sums of money all in a bid to curry their political favour. So it has all been an issue of give and take. But at the end of the day, the recklessness and pains continue.
How then do you think the people can liberate themselves from the political oppressors?
I like this question the most. It is the most important question that any journalist in Nigeria has ever asked me. The issue is: in Nigeria, we have been dismembered socially. This has brought about a divisive and disarticulated thinking of the people about the ruling class. With this being in full force, no one has seen any need to come together to express a collective interest. That is why during our electioneering periods, issues like ethnicity, tribal affiliation, and even moral issues will determine the direction of the discourse, which ordinarily should not be. But our people can always liberate themselves from this bondage of oppression, humiliation, and bastardization of their ideals only when we all collectively decide to make a distinction between governance and the ravaging idiosyncrasies. Let’s look at it this way: recently when the Nigerian Super Eagles played and defeated the South African team, the jubilation and joy cut across the ethnic, tribal, and religious divides of the country. The members of the Nigerian team all worked together in one accord and were driven by a single goal, without saying this one is Hausa, that one is Igbo. They all had and worked towards the attainment of one goal, which was to win and they eventually won. Using this analogy, our people must understand that the best thing we can do to rescue ourselves is to come together and fight against our tormentors.
The fact remains that a country like Nigeria has all it takes for its people to live a comfortable life. But the corruption and the overbearing contamination of the Nigerian state have not been producing good, credible, transparent, and accountable leadership for the people. And that is why we are where we are.
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