Fashola’s tollgates, Shiite mayhem, and the danger ahead

Above anyone else in President Muhammadu Buhari’s cabinet, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola, Minister of Power, Works and Housing, carries the hopes and expectations of Nigerians for change like no other. In the former Lagos state governor, millions of Nigerians see a man who is a performer, who can deliver, and one who is most appropriate to handle the highly-important ministries assigned him. I believe this confidence is justified. 

Much trust is put in Fashola not just because he proved his mettle during his eight years as Governor between May 2007 and May 2015, but for surpassing the expectations of Nigerians in many areas and raising the bar of governance in a country like ours where we’ve not been very fortunate to have many excellent and truly distinguished political leaders.

Indeed, aside upping the ante of governance in the Centre of Excellence, Fashola, also set new benchmarks by which the performance of succeeding governors in Lagos, and across the country, would be assessed.

Again, Fashola was one of the notable apostles of change who preached the APC gospel on different podiums across the country during campaigns for the last elections which Nigerians eagerly embraced.

That is why I was taken aback when he announced during his first ministerial press briefing in Abuja last Tuesday that the federal government will reintroduce tollgates in the country. According to media reports, the minister explained that revenue generated would be channelled towards sustaining and maintaining quality federal roads.

As if to assuage Nigerians, the minister further promised that money generated from the toll gates would be properly accounted for and judiciously put to use.

“We are setting up a robust maintenance regime to keep our highways in good shape. This shows tolling is necessary to support government funding. So, it will not be too much if we ask every road user to pay a little to augment government funding for road maintenance,” Fashola was quoted to have said.

Yes, Nigerians voted for change. But the reason why our roads have dilapidated and our highways are not in good shape over the years is not because of lack of funds but mainly because of the wicked looting of public funds by those at the helm of affairs. It’s worrisome if the change Nigerians voted for is paying for government failure!

Again, how much is ‘a little’? N50? N100? N200? N300? Or what?

Now, while the reintroduction of toll gates is not a bad idea in itself, I think it is an unnecessary burden being pushed on Nigerians by the government. The last time I checked, rebuilding tollgates that were demolished in 2004 during the Chief Olusegun Obasanjo Presidency and asking Nigerians to pay toll fees were certainly not one of the campaign promises of the ruling APC!

The concern for me is that in a society so battered and suffering from the devastating effects of government corruption which cuts across party lines, thus making citizens pessimistic about the intentions of public officials, how will Minister Fashola ensure that some light-fingered operating staff members don’t steal from the funds realised right at the toll plazas? How will he convince Nigerians that some godless officials won’t help themselves to parts of the funds before transferring to government coffers?

Moreover, how many times will a car owner who passes these incoming tollgates have to pay on a single day? And since tollgates also create their own problems as they result in traffic congestion, how does the minister hope to address these? What other alternatives does the government also intend providing citizens? If care is not taken, and these concerns which many Nigerians are expressing are left unaddressed, I fear we may end up solving one problem and creating many others.

Frankly speaking, if the government has to further bill Nigerians before it can maintain roads, aside the fact that Nigerians pay different kinds of tax, it shows, very simply, that Nigerians are being made the scapegoats of the failure of successive governments in this country. The type of government Nigerians want is one that is creative in handling the resources available and not one that taxes them to death despite the harsh economic situation in the country. That’s why they voted out the prodigal PDP which was in power for 16 years and embraced ‘change’ which the APC promised.

Therefore, before Mr. Fashola expects Nigerians to pay tolls in order to consistently enjoy good roads and to pay higher tariffs to enjoy constant power supply, I expect that he would first commit himself to giving citizens something to cheer about in the area of power, road infrastructure and housing. Nigerians believe he can do that. They believe in his capacity. They want to see and enjoy the change they voted for even with the limited resources available to the country at this time, not just in the area of fighting corruption. He can then later demand that to do much more, the government needs citizens to pay tolls to support government funding. I believe this would have been a more reasonable and compassionate option.

And concerning doing things in more reasonable ways, the mayhem at the weekend in Zaria over a bloody confrontation between members of the Shiite sect and the convoy of the Tukur Buratai, the Chief of Army Staff, for which different accounts are being given by the parties involved, should be of serious concern to all genuine patriots in this country with the manner it was handled.

Already, a picture of Ibrahim Zakzaky, leader of the Shiite sect, whom the military is currently holding in custody, showing him battered and bleeding after apparent torture, has gone viral. With the demonstrations in Kaduna,there is palpable tension too.

While the army blamed the sect for the violence, saying Buratai’s convoy was attacked in a bid to assassinate him, a claim the sect denied, the army chief, while directly addressing the media on the matter on Monday, said it was God who helped him escape the sect’s violence.

However, in a statement signed by the President of the sect’s media forum, Mallam Ibrahim Musa, the group explained that it was in the process of arresting its leader, that dozens of people, including his son, Sayyid Ibraheem Zakzaky, and his wife, Malama Zeenat Ibraheem, as well as the leader of the group’s Kano Centre, Sheikh Muhammad Turi; spokesman of the sect, Mallam Ibrahim Usman; and two leading members of the sect, Sister Jummai Gilima and Sayyid Ibraheem Zakzaky, were allegedly killed by soldiers even as Elzakzaky’s Gyellesu residence and the Hussainiyya Headquarters of the sect, located along Sokoto Road, Zaria, were also demolished by the army.

While something must certainly have ignited the violence, and I believe members of the sect would have their own blame in the matter, I still insist, just as I wrote in this column last week, that the penchant for shooting at unarmed citizens by our security forces at the slightest provocation can really not be justified. Nigeria will only be helping to create deviants who would be looking for ways to strike back at the country.

Furthermore, the way this matter is being handled clearly speaks to the value the government places on the lives of Nigerians. The Nigerian army, for ages, seem to be on a perpetual combative mode with citizens with its officers and men ever ready to handle matters that could be amicably settled with brute force. For the army to have killed members of the sect and destroyed their shrine in a country with the right to freedom of religion and freedom of peaceful assembly and association, it’s clear no serious lessons were learnt from how the Boko Haram insurgency started and degenerated when members of the sect were killed while its leader, Muhammed Yusuf, was arrested and also killed jungle justice style by the Nigeria Police in Maiduguri in July 2009.

Of course, the military and the Shiite sect have had confrontations before now. In 2014, the military killed two of the Zakzaky’s sons along with other worshipers. The group complained but it allowed the matter to die down until this current confrontation. Although there are those who see the sect as being above the law in Zaria, what Nigerians should be occupied with right now should be how to stop the confrontations going forward.

And just as Sa’ad Abubakar, the Sultan of Sokoto, has asked President Muhammadu Buhari to probe the clash, reminding the government that the Boko Haram insurgency started on a similar note, I also suggest the Sultan takes concrete leadership steps in calming frayed nerves and ensuring that members of the sect don’t take matters into their hands. Mr. President and his cabinet must also pay more attention to stopping the unnecessary security tension across the land. Nigerians want peace in their land because it’s a key ingredient for development. With the way the Nigerian Army has handled this matter so far, I just hope we are not creating another Boko Haram situation that will come back to haunt us later in future. That is the danger ahead.