2012 and the battle ahead !!!
In this report, OLUSOLA FABIYI writes on the challenges Nigerians are going to face in the New Year.
The year 2011 meant many things to Nigerians. While some saw it as a year of fulfillment, to others, it was a year of regret. In whatever way it was, Nigerians generally pray that 2012 will be more fruitful in terms of achievements for them and the country. But with the drums of war coming from every direction, there are fears that the New Year might well be as tough, if not tougher, as the out-gone year.
Nigerians have to contend with the government’s plan to re-introduce toll-gates on the major highways. Regardless of the fact that government said tolls would not be introduced on bad roads, it, however, refused to state who would determine a bad road. A statement signed by the Minister of Works, Mr. Mike Onolememen, on November 7, 2011 said the Federal Government was sensitive to the plight of its citizens. The minister said, “Government is sensitive to the feelings of the people, so in re-tooling the toll-gate policy, we have decided that we are not going to toll a road that is so bad that there would be nothing to show for it. What we have decided is that as we would rehabilitate and reconstruct the roads, only roads that qualify and pass through this process of full rehabilitation are going to start collecting tolls. The toll gates would not be re-introduced to any road that had not been rehabilitated and reconstructed to the level of it being qualified as fit and proper by global standards.”
Justifying the return of the toll plazas, the minister said the reason was to bring to stoppage the degeneration of roads to the state of disrepair, saying: “And in so doing, we should be able to sustain the all-year maintenance of these roads.” He said that the abrogation of the toll gates was a wrong government policy, stressing that the absence of toll gates on the country’s major highways have contributed to the poor funding and subsequent lack of maintenance of roads aside the added advantage of toll gates serving as checks on most criminal activities on major highways including escalated cases of armed robbery.
The toll gate palaver is not the only major policy of the government aimed at draining the pockets of its citizens. With the removal of fuel subsidy, it is expected that prices of goods will skyrocketed. With the arithmetic given by the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, it is obvious that Nigerians are going to go through hard times this year. Okonjo-Iweala, who is one of the proponents of the subsidy removal said, “The landing cost of fuel is N123 and the cost distribution is N15.72 per litre; altogether you have N139 per litre.” With the explanation given at the second Town Hall Meeting of the Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria in Lagos, hard times definitely await Nigerians.
President Goodluck Jonathan is aware of this. But while he insisted that the downstream sector must be deregulated, he assured that pains resulting from such action would be temporary. Jonathan said, “The pains will be temporary, after a few weeks and a few months, Nigerians will be better for off, the economy will be repositioned. We must aggressively pursue agriculture; we must aggressively pursue industrialisation for jobs to be created in the economy.”
Such sermon has yet to be bought by a lot of Nigerians, especially the organised labour. Both the Trade Union Congress and the Nigeria Labour Congress have vowed to resist the subsidy removal agenda. The leaders of both unions – Mr. Omar Abdulwaheed of NLC and Peter Esele of TUC have vowed to mobilise Nigerians against the government plan. Apart from the organised labour, opposition political parties have also condemned the arrangement. For example, the Chairman of All Nigerian Peoples Party, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, has said removing it could further add to the myriad of problems confronting the citizenry. Nigerians, he said, are currently finding it hard to feed themselves. He said it was unfortunate that Nigerians were already beginning to find it difficult to send their children to schools due to lack of money, adding that the planned removal of petroleum subsidy would add to the several problems confronting them.
He said, “As I speak, Nigerians are crying. Nigerians are weeping. Nigerians are unhappy because never before in our history, has so much hardship been inflicted on our people. Nigerians are finding it harder and harder to feed. Nigerians are finding it almost impossible to send their children to good schools because most of them do not have the money to pay school fees. Nigerians now sleep with both eyes open because nobody is sure of when a bomb blast could occur, or when armed robbers would strike or even when a kidnapper could kidnap one’s child or even a grown up adult. Efforts are on to make Nigerians to pay more for fuel and other petroleum products in large measure to hide much inefficiency in the system. And as if to add pepper to an open injury, the cost of electricity tariff will also go up.”
The Congress for Progressive Change has also called on Nigerians to resist the hike in the petroleum products. The National Publicity Secretary of the party, Mr. Rotimi Fashakin, who spoke on behalf of the party in a telephone interview with our correspondent, described the Federal Government action as betrayal. He said since the President and his political party, the Peoples Democratic Party did not tell Nigerians that the subsidy would be removed during electioneering, it would be wrong for the government to now want to make life harder for the citizens of the country. He said it was unfortunate that the leadership of the country would be listening to world bodies like the IMF and the Wold Bank instead of listening to Nigerians.
He said, “We said it that instead of relieving Nigerians of their burden, this government is out to add to their loads. This is government of deceit. Did they tell Nigerians that their suffering would be doubled during the electioneering? Did tell them that their currency would be devalued? It is unfortunate that the government would prefer to listen to foreigners instead of listening to Nigerians. Perhaps, this could be one of the reasons why the World Bank released Dr. Ngozi Okonjo –Iweala to us – to come and add to our troubles.”
However, the most ferocious challenge likely to face Nigerians might be the activities of the dreaded Boko Haram. Since the emergence of the sect, more than 460 Nigerians, including eight corps members had been killed. The Christmas Day bombing at the St. Theresa Catholic Church in Madalla, Niger State and the reactions that followed it, could be an indication that dangerous days could be ahead. Already, the Federal Government had admitted that 34 people were killed while 62 others sustained injury during the attack.
The pronouncement by the President of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, that Nigerian Christians were fast losing confidence in the ability of the government to protect them could also signal a dangerous dimension as this could mean that Nigerians could start resorting to self help in the face of assault. Oritsejafor was at the Presidential Villa where he and other officials of CAN met with the President on the Madalla bombing. He said that the Christian community was fast losing confidence in Federal Government’s ability to protect their rights to religious liberties and life. With this, he said that the consensus was that the Christian community nationwide would be left with no other option than to respond appropriately if there are any further attacks on Christians, churches and their properties.
The visibly angry clergyman said the concern of the Christian community was further heightened by the admittance by government that it had knowledge of the perpetrators of these crimes and unfortunately there were no convincing high-profile arrests to assuage public anxiety over the matter. He said, “CAN has found the responses of the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs and other Islamic bodies on this matter to be unacceptable and abdication of their responsibilities over their extremist members. It is on record that most religious, traditional and political leaders in the North have not come out openly to condemn the extremist activities of Boko Haram; we hold them responsible for what is happening, because they have not taken concrete steps to check the excesses of their members.
“The Christian Community is fast losing confidence in government’s ability to protect our rights to religious liberties and life. The consensus is that the Christian community nationwide would be left with no other option than to respond appropriately if there are any further attacks on our members, churches and properties.” In his response, Jonathan said the terror attack was new to him but assured the delegation that “we are doing our best to make sure that we get over it. At the security level, we are doing our best, we will restructure, we will re-adjust and make sure we get a team that will meet with the challenge we are facing today.” That challenge may also include how to bring back peace to the troubled town of Jos, Plateau State where a family of three was again eliminated in a renewed tribal war on Tuesday night. History has shown that reprisal attack always follow any hit in the town.
Also, a former Head of State, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), has said anarchy looms ahead for the nation. Buhari said, “Nigeria is now a fractured society, violence everywhere, a sense of helplessness and hopelessness nearly everywhere.” He said unless the leaders of the country moved fast to arrest the situation, chaos was imminent.
