Pay-TV Tariffs: Stay action, don’t dare our country, Senate President warns MultiChoice Nigeria, screamed the headlines of most newspapers on Wednesday, 13 April. Online publications too were not substantially different. They all reported the same thing: our dear, wonderful Senate suddenly became an ombudsman out to protect Nigerians’ interest.
But that’s only for those just coming to the party. For those of us who have been following the saga, yes, that is what it is, we know it is not so.
His imperial majesty, Ahmed Lawan, the Senate President, pronounced magisterially that MultiChoice Nigeria, a private enterprise offering that cannot be put in the life and death to its customers and, therefore, does compel patronage, must not continue its business the way it deems fit. One would have thought that Nigeria is at war with MultiChoice and our senators are the commandoes sent to rescue Nigerians. Nigerians, however, know better than that. While inaugurating a seven-member adhoc committee of the Senate, headed by its deputy chief whip, Lawan warned, again that no foreign operators in the country should take Nigeria for granted in a tone that would not be out of place in the Russia-Ukraine war. All these because a company decided to adjust tariffs on its DStv and GOtv platforms, as demanded by the current economic climate.
It is shocking and unheard of that a parliamentary body will seek to prevent a legal entity recognised by law to do its job. “Meanwhile, stay action. No increase. No increase. And that is to say don’t dare our country. No increase in tariffs,” our dear senate president decreed. Sometimes one wonders whether the lawyers and accountants among the 109 senators have stopped attending plenary sessions. Otherwise, they should have called the attention of their fellow senators to the clownery they have initiated. The same MultiChoice is presently before a three-man Federal Competition and Consumer protection Commission Tribunal in Abuja over price increase. So why can’t our senators wait for the matter to run its full course and allow judgement to be given before embarking on another action?
Perhaps our senators do not know, numerous businesses have devised many means of dealing with the vagaries of our country’s economy. A few examples will suffice. Last month, an emergency journey took me to Abuja. Unfortunately, I left my tube of toothpaste in Lagos, forcing me to saunter into a store to buy another. Not getting my regular brand, I settled for another. The 120g was about three-quarters empty and sold for N450, I was alarmed. Getting back to Lagos, I made the mistake of sharing the experience with my wife.
She proceeded to lecture me on how prices are skyrocketing and why we have to discuss, again, the housekeeping money. A careful observer would have discovered that most fast moving consumer goods are about half their regular sizes, while some are three- quarters presently. Our dear senators are yet to warn them not to dare the Senate.
Banks, the Nigerian variants that we all think swim in a bottomless ocean of money, now shut down earlier than their advertised closing time. Our senators don’t think that is worthy a public hearing or the attention of an ad-hoc committee. A friend who works in a bank’s head office told me that all of them have been mandated to close at 5pm unfailingly in a bid to reduce their generators’ diesel consumption. The end result is that my friends endure a tortuous drive home as he no longer has the luxury of sitting out the perennial traffic.
His pain has been exacerbated because there’s only an exit out of Lagos Island now. Our dear senators have not thought of asking Federal Roads Management Agency (FERMA) or Federal Ministry of Works why the Eko Bridge has been closed down.