I actually expected the NLC to have taken serious umbrage when the news broke some two years ago that Nigeria was keeping the most expensive parliament. I thought the indignation should have come out as one instantly and collectively delivered expletive, complete with a compliment of phlegm: What the…!
I was flabbergasted to hear that the outgoing National Assembly managed to pass 40 bills in 10 minutes. I have tried to come up with all kinds of excuses for it. They must have been working on those bills all the four years, and those things probably needed only minor adjustments to make them ripe, and that ripeness came right about…last week. I can just see the assembly men now, all in their starched and flowing agbada, sitting in their plush assembly chairs that sooooooooooooo fill me with envy, wiping their 25 million-Naira-a-month-manicured and pedicured brows as they hastily flipped over the bills, and exhaling their long held breath into one giant ‘Phew’!
The country however is not exhaling. It can’t. Our breaths are drawn in as we inhale in bewilderment, wondering what we needed the men for in the first place. I could have passed the bills, right on to my neighbor, who would then pass them on. What greater passing do you need? Seriously, though, what is the record in other countries? Since Nigeria has the poorest record in maternal death, infancy death, life expectancy, yet with the highest paid parliament, it is good to ask what the record is. The parliamentarian payout is also why the rest of the country has palpitations, both in its collective hearts and finances.
The most astounding thing is that these assembly men do not perceive any contradictions in this interesting scenario. They are still jaunting around the globe, they and their families, like there is no tomorrow. Actually, it does appear as if there will be no tomorrows for the country, particularly when it comes to fuel subsidies.
There have been so many arguments for and against fuel subsidy removals over the decades. In fact, it does feel like the arguments have been going on forever. The way it is now, it might be wise for mothers to make it their duty to tell their infants-at-arms first thing that now they have come into the world, and Nigeria in particular, it would be wise for them to know that there is a raging argument on over the removal of fuel subsidy: to be (removed) or not to be (removed). So, the infants will do well to quickly make up their minds where they belong on the subject. Silly, isn’t it? Just like a book I read in which an entire kingdom went into a debate on whether to break an egg at the front end or the rear end. I tell you, it had the entire kingdom divided down the middle into front-enders and rear-enders. So now, we are going to have our infants growing up as either Tobeans (subsidy removal men) or Nottobeans (subsidy retainer men).
Anyway, going by national records, there has always been one powerful body standing firmly in the way of subsidy removal: the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC). In fact, the body is such a strong Nottobean that it had the entire country queuing up behind it to protest against the Tobeans. And it worked, with a little loss of face, but it worked. Now, the argument is picking up momentum again and now everyone is pitching his/her tent yet again on either side. This time, we do not know where the NLC will lead us but I have a take on the matter.
I know there are countries where there is no oil subsidy. Fuel is sold at the market forces by the procurers. You must grant though that in those countries, everyone lays their cards on the table. Their parliamentarians do not use a quarter of the country’s gross earnings as their own unearned, unneeded earnings. Their presidents or prime ministers use the same means of transport like anyone else, not maintain fleets of convoys that mow the people down as those ones try to grope their ways through the mazes of poverty and want on the streets. No sir, the children of the leaders in those countries also attend the schools next door; not some select ‘oberseas’ schools of privilege. Need I go on?
Until we retrieve the country from the hands of the wasters so that we know exactly where we are, we are not qualified to talk about fuel subsidy removal. And this is where the NLC comes in. NLC has been known to be an umbrella body for workers across the country, in the forefront on the struggle for the welfare of its members. It has struggled for a higher minimum wage for workers. It also employed its fight mechanism in the struggle against subsidy removal. I actually expected this same body to have taken serious umbrage when the news broke some two or three years ago that Nigeria was keeping the most expensive parliament and one of the lowest-paid working groups in the world. I thought the indignation should have come out as one instantly and collectively delivered expletive, complete with a compliment of phlegm: What the…!
Nothing came. So today, that parliament worked out its term and, on their way out, delivered us two, no three, slaps. One, the senate passed 40 bills in ten minutes flat at its last sitting as we said above, according to news reports. It seriously begs the question: what had been going on all the while the sessions were on? The House of Representatives could not even rally its own members to a sufficient number at the last sitting, according to more reports. You have to agree that forty-something is a far cry in sufficiency from two hundred and something.
The second thing came in the form of a stupendous severance package slapped on a country made up of the poorest of the poor. The executive and legislature severing themselves from national affairs would collectively collect a pay running into billions of Naira. And I think they are less than five hundred in all. And I asked two questions. One, does this money even mean anything to anybody any more? It is obvious that our politicians ceased to respect the naira a long time ago, after helping to bring it on its knees and sink it in the mud. The second question is: if the country pays that money, does it guarantee that we will never hear anything about these people or even hear their names mentioned anymore? The reason is that it is very obvious that these men and women do not have any love of the country in their hearts. The only romance they know comes through rubbing the jingling coins in their pockets. So yes, we do not want to hear their names anymore.
The third slap came when some politicians/local government chairmen who served for one term only began to ask that they be given a pension. Now, that’s awkward, I thought. I remember clearly when the 1999 assembly fixed an outrageous emolument for itself (nothing like the present one). It was so irritating to people that the assembly then had to explain that it had built in some kind of pension for itself and everyone went, which pension, for what work? But people kept quiet, for the sake of peace. So, it sounded very strange that the same parliament, mere new wine, would be asking to be paid a pension! That’s like a fish asking for retirement benefits from the angler for allowing itself to be caught.
Anyway, the task before the NLC is quite clear. Its job is not only to ask for benefits and welfare; its job also includes helping the country gain some kind of fiscal sanity by ensuring that emoluments are in tune with reality. It must cry out against all over-the-bar spendings.
