Tag: men

In almost all climes, the approach of festive seasons elicits excitement. We all look forward to Christmas, Eids, and other religious, cultural, or social festivals with joy. Parents plan towards them. Children are expectant. Souls are upbeat. The excitement is infectious.

There was a time Nigerians were said to have been adjudged the happiest people in the world. If in ordinary and trying circumstances, we are adjudged the happiest, we can fathom what the situation would be with the approach of festivals. Nigerians would certainly be in a world of their own. In the last four days, however, happiness yielded ground to sadness, excitement to apathy, hope to hopelessness, euphoria to disillusionment.

Christmas came and like the other festivities before it, it was heralded by unimaginable bone marrow pain – a pain that can only be inflicted by sadists. I cannot remember in recent times, or in the past five years, when every festival has not been heralded by fuel shortage.

Few days to Christmas, what appeared to be an orchestrated fuel shortage occurred and the Federal Executive Council directed the NNPC – so we were told – to ensure, before the end of the week, the free flow of the essential commodity. It is either the federal government over-estimated its capacity to deal with the situation or was being insincere, knowing the trajectory of other simulated fuel shortages in the country in the past. The truth, as is now known, is that pain must be inflicted on Nigerians at every festive season and Christmas 2017 was not going to be different.

It had always been known that fuel shortages are orchestrated for economic gains. The Department of Petroleum Resources acknowledged only few days ago that in Abuja alone over 129,000 litres of fuel had been diverted, a figure that may not even be representative of the day’s loss. Is it just being conceded that the problem of fuel mal-administration, year in year out, is a systemic one? It is convenient for the DPR to accuse the marketers now that the problem has come to a head, but is it not known that diversions of fuel had always been a major problem aside the operational shortages, a result of petroleum agencies’ lack of capacity, and syndicated fraud?

In alluding to the whole chain of distribution as being culpable in inflicting this festive pain, I find difficulty even in excluding the harmless or is it deceivingly powerless fuel attendant from the chain of pain inflictors. They are all active participants, active inflictors of pain during this season. They are likely to be there to do so at the next festival.

But let me leave fuel and its availability for the moment. After all, some are won’t to argue that fuel and its distribution should be subject of economic indices rather than social consideration. Fuel should be allowed, they contend, to find its market value if we really want to and this seasonal sadism.

Have you travelled across cities in recent times to see how the approach of festivities draws policemen and other security agencies onto the roads like honey does to bees? The other day, I counted 15 security checkpoints between the Ijebu Itele Junction and the Ore intersection of the Ijebu-Ode Benin expressway. In all you are likely to be stopped at more than half of the checkpoints and for quite mundane reasons. If this is not punishment, I wonder what it is. Nigerians are used to such ordeals, such needless distractions and time wasting.

The story changes dramatically once the sun sets, and as the Yoruba say okunkun o mo eni owo (the night knows not a respectable person). So, the sharper the pain infliction you expect to be put through. Of course the security checkpoints shrink in number, may be to three or maximum of four for the same distance, not because of civil delivery of their services but because the security themselves are possibly wary of the tough boys on the prowl. But the few security checkpoints are now of a different nature. The express way is reduced to a third of its motorable size at each checkpoint, with bonfire, thereby generating a long queue of harrowing traffic snarl as each vehicle waits to be ‘cleared’ by the officers.

The rationale of course, is that it is for your protection and it is in your interest. But a victim would attest to its sadistic intents. First it provides an assured full revenue generation to those manning the checkpoints with the approach of the targeted commercial vehicles. The trailers and commercial buses behind blew their horns repeatedly but this sound fails to break the eeriness the victim is subjected to and dispel the fear that until the checkpoint appears in sight, you could still be attacked by a marauder appearing from and disappearing into the bush. And the traffic snarl can be long, running into kilometres.

It may be necessary for Nigerians to start reflecting on the change in value that has now taken place in all spheres of life in our country. In all interactions now, be it on the road with one another, with policemen and women whether on the roads and or within their stations, in the hospitals with caregivers and attendants, in any endeavour really, sadism is really taking over. People are beginning to enjoy inflicting pains on others. The power to inflict is determined by your power to give or provide service. Sadistic Personality Disorder, SPD, which is described as an “obsolete term proposed for individuals who derive pleasure from the sufferings of others” is almost the vogue. Think of what the overarching response would be, if a survey is taken from everyone that takes a service from any of our institutions – whether public or private – to simply state whether they are happy with the service or not.  Even Nigerian agencies in other countries, particularly Nigerian embassies, are not exempted from this sadistic psychology of service.

Can we begin to analyse the annual fuel shortages in celebration of Christmas, Easter, the two Eids and the PENGASSAN cult strikes as a celebration of sadism? If the argument is extended to other spheres of our life where we discern purposeful acts to inconvenient or make life painful to others, would we be right in contending that Nigeria is becoming an abode of sadists, and by extension of sad men and women?

I have in the last few days watched the scramble at the fuel stations from a distance. I have also read about it in the print media and watched it on television. You almost go away with the impression that the people themselves enjoy the pain being inflicted on them. No doubt, they occasionally quarrel with one another or with the fuel attendants, but you still see them enjoying one another’s company, patronising the food hawkers who spring up around, and look as helpless as they could be. Would this be the attitude of someone in pain?

Don’t they know the addresses of those they elected, their assemblymen, their honourable representatives, their senators, their governors and president who still go about in their convoys that consume the fuel that 10 ordinary citizens can use to run their cars? Instead of queuing up at the petrol stations, can’t they picket the homes of these big men who derive pleasure in inflicting pain on the populace?

If we can conclude that those taking decisions at all levels of our public sphere enjoy inflicting pain on the public they ‘serve’, it must equally be that Nigerians also enjoy going through those pains if they cannot rise up against these men and public institutions funded with taxpayers’ money to provide services.