How do you dance to the admiration of all Nigerians? Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey said it all in his song/story on “Ketekete” (horse) and its owner: There is nothing you can do to please the entire universe. No matter your efforts and regardless of the success achieved, some will still deride you and pull you down. They will find fault.
A man’s horse, the elders say, is never tall enough in the jaundiced eyes of his detractors. Even when it is all obvious for everyone to see, they will still say, “Ki ni?”. What is it? A saying of our people summarises the “Pull Him Down” syndrome by inveterate foes thus: “Winni-winni l’oju orogun; eji-woro l’oju iya e” While every good-natured person rejoices with the mother who just gave birth to twins, describing the new-born babies as “two-at-a-time” achievement; the detractor sees and describes them derisively and derogatively as “two tiny-tiny creatures”!
Let us start by talking about the Port-Harcourt refinery that reportedly came on stream after decades in the land of the dead. Last week, we were told that the refinery roared back to life and started trucking out products. But the detractors said “Ki ni? It is not producing but is only blending what-have-you!” Whether petrol, diesel, kerosene, aviation fuel or whatever – was it producing or blending anything before now?
This is the same refinery we have all given up as dead – dead as in dead; dead as dodo, as they say! This is the same refinery that we all said had gone the way of the Ajaokuta steel rolling mill – a multi-billion dollar investment that had become a bottomless pit and a source of national embarrassment. If only Ajaokuta can in the same manner roar back to life, even if minimally! And they began to say it is the old and not the new refinery! Whichever! And that it is operating at only xyz and not 100 percent capacity! Again, whichever!
To think that these were the same people who had pilloried the government for keeping workers of the refinery and spending billions on them for the lengthy period the refineries were comatose! Shouldn’t they now at least heave a sigh of relief, if not rejoice, that, at last, something is coming out of nothing?
Think of it: These are the same refineries that former President Olusegun Obasanjo told us Shell refused to take and manage. They are the same refineries that the same Obasanjo had sold at give-away price – as scraps. It took the wisdom and patriotism of his successor, the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, to reverse Obasanjo’s decision and take back the national asset. Unfortunately, death cheated Yar’Adua to his vision for Nigeria.
Don’t get me wrong: I am not saying all is well right now at the Port Harcourt (old and new) and the other refineries; no! A lot of hard and serious work still needs to be done! I am also not by this eulogising the management of the place; no! I am one of those who canvassed a regime change there but it would appear President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has a different idea. He must have his reasons. I concede that those of them in government have access to information that is not readily available to those of us outside.
But, for now, kudos to the President and NNPC for this minimum achievement. Placed side-by-side with the monumental failure of the past decades spanning successive military and civilian leadership, it looks like cherry news but we must not rest on our oars. All the refineries must be made to work at full capacity. Importantly, Nigeria needs more refineries – be it government, private or a combination of both. The downstream oil sector is damn too critical to national survival and the well-being of Nigerians to be left in the vice-like grip of a monopolist.
If we say we operate a free market economy, we should know that monopoly distorts the market. That is why there are laws in free market economies frowning at unfair competition. Monopoly breeds and entrenches unfair competition. In fact, it eliminates competition altogether and imposes the economic equivalent of a political reign of terror. Let’s build more refineries!
But should the NNPC turnaround story turn out to be a hoax and another Nigeria Air swindle of monumental proportions – like some are alleging – then, not only must heads roll, some folks should cool their heels in jail. We must begin to ensure that there are consequences for bad behaviour!
CBN: The ‘Orisa’ that cannot help Nigerians
What do you think of the new interest rate imposed by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)? The apex bank raised the rate from 27.25 percent to 27.50 percent. According to them, this is to fight inflation – but inflation keeps surging and raging. They may not know it because they are cut off from reality; fixated, as it were, on the textbooks and lecture notes their Harvard-trained “Oyinbo” lecturers poured into them in college.
Despite the CBN’s monthly MPR, inflationary surge has not abated; maybe it does in their books but the pockets of Nigerians and the market place say otherwise! We need a refreshingly different alternative to the Western-trained economists forcing IMF and World Bank bitter pills down our throat! There used to be one self-styled “motor park” economist on the Editorial Board, I think, of The Guardian newspapers. Where are you? What we need are economists like the late Professor Sam Aluko who have their legs firmly on the Nigerian ground, not floaters regurgitating economic models that deepen the country’s underdevelopment as well as exacerbate our people’s penury.
And do you blame the CBN fat cats? They are immune from the adverse effects of the policies they propound as they are ensconced in their air-conditioned offices feeding fat on our common patrimony. The scriptures describe some people as hypocrites and a brood of vipers who “bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers”(Matthew 23: 4). Did we not hear, the other time, how the fat cats were still loading themselves with additional largesse at our collective expense?
Now, if the CBN’s Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) is as high as 27.50 percent, by the time the banks add their own administrative costs or charges and you factor in corruption, we may have to borrow from the banks at over 30 percent, if not up to 40 percent. What kind of business will still break even – especially small-scale enterprises, which are the bedrock of many thriving economies elsewhere? Is that not why businesses are folding up here and/or relocating elsewhere? By the time you add to the mix the cost of power supply and corruption at both ends of the regulatory authorities and ordinary Nigerian workers themselves, are we at all surprised that factories here are quitting their space for worship and events centres?
As at last week (November 24, 2024), the interest rate in China was 3.1%. And we want Nigerian products to compete favorably with Chinese products? Any surprise, then, that we have become a dumping ground for all manner of Chinese products? It is safer – in fact, the only profitable option available is to go to China and ask them to lower the quality of their products for the Nigerian market (because our people cannot pay for quality products due to the massive devaluation of the Naira). Unfortunately, medicines are not spared. Vehicle tyres are also not spared!
The other time we were warned by the regulatory authorities that over 50% of imported pharmaceutical certificates in Nigeria are fake. If the certificates are fake, it stands to reason that the products themselves are fake! Or can fake certificates be used to back up standard and quality products? And according to NAFDAC (National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control), substandard and falsified products threaten access to safe, efficacious and affordable medicines. Don’t mind their long-winding grammar; it is mere euphemism for just one word: Death! Slow, painfull, agonising death, after fortunes must have been spent procuring fake, adulterated and substandard drugs. May that not be our portion! I know you will shout “Amen”!
Only those engaged in illicit businesses such as drug peddling, yahoo-yahoo and money laundering can raise the funds needed to start or re-inflate businesses here. Any surprise, then, that crime is on the rise all over the place? Why are more and more of our people getting themselves into money rituals and cult-related activities? It is largely because legitimate channels to access funds for productive ventures are shut against them. Jobs are not available. Factor into that the quantum of disguised unemployment. Crime and desperation are on the rise. The legitimacy of the Government and of the political system itself is stridently being called into question, leading us to the real reason for this piece!
Tinubu: Delay is dangerous!
Despite the fact that there are many bus stops and traffic gridlocks in Lagos where I live and work, we still manage to get to our destination! Even though I made a brief stop-over at some bus stops, my actual destination here today is this: Tell President Tinubu that no matter how well he revamps the economy that was destroyed beyond imagination by his predecessor, if he fails to address the foundational problem of Nigeria, he would have achieved nothing in the real sense of the word.
It took Buhari just eight years to destroy all that three previous administrations achieved in 16 years. It will take a similar or lesser length of time to destroy Tinubu’s own achievements if the present Nigerian system remains the same. Under Obasanjo, Nigeria exited the debt trap; today, we are back in it real time. Obasanjo also once bemoaned that all the thriving national assets he left behind as military Head of State, he found none when he returned as a civilian President.
Tell Tinubu to quickly restructure the country! That is the greatest legacy he can bequathe to Nigerians. Time and tide waits for no man. Obasanjo learnt that too late and desperately sought for a third term in office, even though he bold-facedly denies today what was clear to even the blind.
Ask former President Goodluck Jonathan the cost of procrastination. When he could have implemented the resolutions of his Political Confab 2014, he waited to first win the 2015 presidential election.
Tinubu, you were one of those who did not let him! Learn from history! Others are waiting to give you a taste of your own bitter pill! What goes around comes around! Don’t wait to win a second term of office before you do the needful. They will distract you with challenges as well as with praises! They will obstruct you! They will ring you round with enemies pretending to be loyalists.
Be wise! Who knows, maybe you became the president of Nigeria at a time like this for an assignment such as this (Esther 4: 13 & 14)!
* Former Editor of PUNCH newspapers, Chairman of its Editorial Board and Deputy Editor-in-chief, BOLAWOLE was also the Managing Director/ Editor-in-chief of The WESTERNER newsmagazine. He writes the ON THE LORD’S DAY column in the Sunday TRIBUNE and TREASURES column in NEW TELEGRAPH newspaper on Wednesdays. He is also a public affairs analyst on radio and television.
