Tag: celebration

This Christmas and New Year celebrations will for a long time be remembered by Nigerians. Not only do they represent one of the worst in recent times in terms of the hardship people passed through, they were also marked by organized and despicable violence in some parts of the country.

Innocent people who were on Christmas carol in Kaduna State were attacked by a lone gunman with many of them sent to their early graves for no just cause. Though the motive of the dastardly attack is yet to be established, the method of attack and the area where it happened leaves little room for imagination.

And In Benue State, unidentified gunmen riding on several motorcycles reminiscent of the style of the Boko Haram insurgents, stormed a gathering killing and maiming those who were there to share meat for their Christmas celebrations. Not done, the bandits, wielding automatic guns, rode into the villages, attacked houses and killed all those at sight and vamoosed into the thin air.

They left in their trail sorrow and awe. The motive is yet to be established but indications are that it was a reprisal attack allegedly by some Fulani herdsmen having lost two of their members around those villages not long ago. That was the Christmas gifts those innocent souls who may know nothing about the missing herdsmen got from the avengers. In all, the attacks were primed to coincide with the Christmas celebrations.

Aside these premeditated acts of violence were the debilitating fuel scarcity and concomitant price hike that messed up the celebrations for many a family. When the development reared its ugly head a few weeks before the yuletide, government’s reaction was tepid. At the Federal Executive Council meeting, the minister of state for petroleum Ibe Kachikwu was mandated to take immediate steps to normalize the situation by that weekend.

The impression we got was that government was on top of the situation as they usually claimed and within that weekend, the situation would normalize. But that became a tall order.  It soon became obvious that the government had no immediate solution to the problem as the issues that lead to the scarcity were much more fundamental than we were made to believe.

It became obvious there were certain policy measures the government needed to implement if the return of long queues, hording and price hike is not to make a mess of the relative stability we hitherto enjoyed in the supply chain. Things really got out of order as the commodity became inaccessible even in the federal capital territory and Lagos- two cities that at the worst of times enjoy relative steady supply of fuel.

The government began to change the narrative. They began to trade blames accusing independent marketers of sabotage, hoarding and all manner of malfeasance. The story was no longer that the government had enough supply to run through the New Year. They now invented new enemies of the people in the marketers.

The matter was so bad that both the president and his vice could no longer cover up. And in places where the commodity was available especially in the states, they sold at very exorbitant prices. The price of a litre of fuel went haywire. Those who planned to travel for the celebrations but could not afford the now jerked up transport fares had no other option than to shelve their journeys.

Apparently piqued by the scandalous level the fuel situation had degenerated, the NNPC came out with another narrative that the landing cost of a litre of imported fuel now stands at N171 as the product sells for N145 per litre. What that implied was that government is still subsidizing the product by N26 per litre. But NNPC Managing Director Baru Maikanti carefully avoided the word subsidy for fear of running into some contradictions. That disclosure suggests that for the product to be readily available, some form of upward price adjustment may have to be effected. But the government avoided saying that explicitly.

Even with that reluctance, the stark reality of the increase is already with us as people now pay more than double the pump price except in some petrol stations owned by major independent marketers especially in Lagos and Abuja. It is not difficult to fathom why the government is reluctant to go into the issue of increase in the pump price of fuel. In 2016, it had against all expectations, jerked up the price of the commodity from 87 per litre to N145.

Then, it had contended among others that one of the reasons for the price increase was to ensure regular supply. That logic has been shattered by the turn of events even as citizens are yet to recover from the chain of events unleashed on the nation by that increase and the subsequent down turn in the nation’s economy.

To contemplate another increase would amount to adding salt to injury. Moreover elections are around the corner. And further increases could become a major issue in the campaigns. As things stand, the prospect of the government being put to task on this is still there. Not with the hardship currently being experienced in the country. Not with the high cost of the commodity where it is available and the general increase in prices of goods and services given the centrality of fuel to economic activities.

When the last regime attempted to effect marginal increase in the price of fuel, those with the technology in organizing mass protests stoutly resisted it. And some key players in this administration were among the unseen hands that opposed that increase. And the question that is now being asked is, if the last government could afford to sell fuel at N87 per litre, why are we being told now that the landing cost equates to N171 per litre?

The answer you are likely to get will lie in disparities in the foreign exchange rate of the two regimes. But then, that would throw up another question as to the factors responsible for the foreign exchange rate disparities. The answer will inexorably hinge in the way and manner both regimes managed the economy. Could it then imply that the former administration managed the economy better than the current one irrespective of the quick resort of the latter to blame the former for all the ills of this nation? That is the question that may form the central thrust of the coming campaigns.

In all, it is important government takes immediate steps to address the debilitating fuel scarcity and the prohibitive cost of obtaining the commodity.  With the biting effects of the economic recession still with us, the current situation is bound to compound the suffering of the common people if it is allowed the way it is.

The government has blamed marketers for sundry misdeeds that culminated in the scarcity. But the fact of the matter is that at the root of it all is the policy of the government on fuel importation. It needs to take another look at the suffocating corruption in the sourcing of foreign exchange by marketers. There is a lot going on among officials at the apex bank that add up to this sordid pass.

It must act fast to save the toiling people of this country the suffocating impact of having to source fuel at the prevailing prices especially in the New Year. If it amount to bending the rules, it should do so in the overall interest of the people. The welfare of the people is the very essence of governance.