John Hembe works in one of the service providing companies in Lagos. He recently rented an apartment in the suburb and was gradually sourcing furniture and other household appliances to make it comfortable for living.
In the course of this, he had visited some electronic showrooms to window shop in the hope that as soon as he received his next salary, he will make up his mind as to whether to purchase a television set or not. In some of the places he visited, he was attracted by the price tags on some of the plasma television sets such that he had concluded that his dream for one will become a reality at the end of the month.
And as soon as he received his pay, he did not waste time to rush to that showroom with the hope of returning home the same day with one. But that hope turned out a mirage. He was taken aback that prices of the items he had seen the previous week had been jerked up by as much as 30 per cent. Unable to believe what he had seen, he approached one of the showroom managers and the following conversation ensued.
“Sir, I was here last week to look at the prices of your plasma television sets. But now, I just discovered they have gone up. It looks like it is because of the Christmas that you have just suddenly hiked the prices”
Manager, “Sorry sir, it is true our prices have gone up but they have nothing to do with the yuletide. I am sure you know of the exchange rate situation. We import these items and their prices depend on what the dollar sells”
“But there has not been any significant change in the exchange rate in the last one week retorted Hembe in utter disappointment. Well I have to leave since the amount I have can no longer buy the type of plasma television I want”
With a sorry for the inconvenience from the manager, Hembe eventually left the showroom without purchasing a television set.
The above captures very vividly the lot of many Nigerians in the last one month or so. The price of everything has substantially increased making life a lot more difficult for many. Not only are jobs being lost on virtually regular basis, state governors have threatened to cut salaries and allowances or in the alternative reduce their workforce. Before now, the rate of unemployment has been at an all time high.
When you juxtapose the high rate of extant unemployment; the job losses that are now on the increase against the rising cost of goods and services, you can figure out the debilitating economic situation in which many Nigerians have inevitably been entangled. The matter is not remedied given that for every Nigerian that is gainfully employed, he has about five other mouths that feed from his meager salary. The current pass has been largely blamed on two factors.
The first is the fall in oil price to an all time low. For the first time in so many years, oil price in the international market has fallen below S40 per barrel. And since our governments depend on a mono cultural economy to funds their activities, the drop has resulted in serious policy dislocations on account of their inability to provide public goods and services. The state governments were so mired in a seemingly irretrievable mess a few months back that the federal government had to lend them money to offset salaries and allowances. Despite this, the situation is far from being over.
The next factor fingered is the alleged mismanagement of the economy by the regime of President Jonathan. The revelation of billions of Naira that were alleged to have gone out of our common till illegally is said to be part of the unwholesome practices that put this country into the current predicament. The argument is that if those monies had been meaningfully deployed to service the people of this country, some substantial progress would have been recorded. This argument is plausible since development is all about availability of resources and their effective utilization and deployment.
There is little doubt that one of the issues that have held this country down over the years has been the mismanagement of our common patrimony by some rampaging buccaneers masquerading as leaders. For so many years, this country was in plenty in terms of the monies that accrued to it from oil sales. For many years, this country was yearning for visionary and purposeful leadership to husband its resources and guarantee the future. But for those numbers of years, the locusts were really on rampage. What we witnessed instead was the unbridled looting of those resources by the ruling elite such that has prevented any meaningful development from taking root. Our leaders reveled in mindless ostentation and insatiable acquisition for wealth.
They have had to carry on as if the oil in our shores is inexhaustible. But suddenly, the tea party is over. We now hear of threats to cut down on the minimum wage, reduction of the labour force and all that. We also hear new tunes on the issue of fuel subsidy removal. We are now being plainly told that the so-called subsidy will have to go and Nigerians will have to pay more. They are already paying as much as N150 per litre of fuel in many parts of the country including parts of Lagos. Even those who had been in strident opposition to fuel subsidy removal are now singing a different song. And one begins to wonder what has suddenly gone awry.
There is also the issue of electricity tariff. The last time I checked, the Nigerian Labour Congress NLC was protesting the hike in electricity tariff which it put at 45 per cent. Though the regulatory body had indicated its intention to adjust the tariff, it made so much noise convincing the people it has abolished the fixed charge of N750 per month. It spoke so much on the abrogation of the fixed charge that many electricity consumers did not realize they were going to pay as much as 45 per cent more.
Given the prime role fuel and electricity play in every economy, a hike in their prices will lead to a corresponding increase in the prices of goods and services. Governments are also talking of raising their internally generated revenue to stay afloat. This is okay provided they are not such that will lead to strangulating taxes on the people. For now, it is difficult to fathom which other public goods and services will be affected by price increase. Every indication points to harder times ahead.
The new regime promised change. It has said it loud and clear that it intends to turn around the economy to deliver on its mandate to the people. It has moved on to get all those alleged to have fleeced this country dry to face the wrath of the law. It also intends to engage 500, 000 teachers nationwide and pay some allowance to unemployed post NYSC members. Ostensibly, all these are targeted at ameliorating the debilitating hardship ravaging the country.
But the soothing effect of these measures will pale into insignificance in the face of the biting inflation and the jerking up of the prices of the goods and services provided by the government. It would appear Buhari is in a hurry to get efficient pricing for goods and services provided by the governments. That may well be. But in doing this, it will amount to a monumental risk to put the lives of the toiling masses at great jeopardy.
If this economy has been mismanaged, the common man is not the cause. There is a tolerable limit the common man can be stretched all in the effort to have a quick fix to years of mindless plundering, misrule and looting by those Vilfredo Pareto called circulating elite. In verity, this country needs to part way with its decadent past. It needs to gets things alright so that the future of this country can be guaranteed. We need change. But change can be both negative and positive. The kind of change we desire is not one that comes with the notion that we can pay for all the sins of the past in one day. Those for whom the change is designed must be alive to savor its benefits. It must go with a human face.
