Public pulse at tensest

The public pulse is presently at its tensest. A critical mass of citizens, many times over, currently has nothing to lose if anarchy, chaos and disorder descend. Nigeria is now needlessly more vulnerable to vampires and vultures than it has been since the 1967-1970 civil war.

Figures from the latest Multidimensional Poverty Index survey by the National Bureau of Statistics show 63% or 133 million persons living in Nigeria are multidimensionally poor. Worse still, 65% or 83 million of these people live in the north, with a 72% poverty prevalence rate in rural areas of the region. Highest deprivations are alarmingly recorded over basic necessities such as security, food, shelter, education, energy and medication with children constituting 51% of the victims. Over 20  million of the latter are also out-of-school.

Past the official figures, the picture is much more pathetic with the pervasiveness of the plague in the region of 90% and beyond. For the first time in decades, Nigerians are dying of hunger, insecurity, ignorance, inflation and other curable ailments in droves while the survivors battle penury and the plentiful post-traumatic stress disorders it produces. Persistent and punishing price increases for petroleum products still keep pushing the bar; making many to wonder whether President Bola Tinubu and his fellow politicians perceive where all these may take the nation.

Cluelessness cannot explain the unfolding catastrophe. As an accountant, the President knows that simultaneously ending electricity, fuel and foreign exchange subsidies and thereby increasing the cost-of-living by over 300% cannot be compensated for by a 60% rise in the national minimum wage. Political office holders at all levels are not oblivious of the venomous effects of the World Bank/IMF imposed neoliberal economic models.

What is most perplexing is how the politicians carry on as if they ought to be precluded from the pain and distress in the land. First, it was President Bola Ahmed Tinubu who “needed” a new airplane and acquired one at the cost of N150 billion or about one billion US dollars. According to Senate President Godswill Akpabio, the National Assembly endorsed the move because “the life of the President is more important than everything.” Actually, it was because it facilitated their acquisition of armoured SUVs and jerking up their own budget by over 300% with the 460 members currently going home with between N20-30 million per month each.

Vice-President Kashim Shettima now seems next in line for the acquisition of a new jet. Following his aborted his trip to the 2024 Commonwealth Heads of Government Summit in Samoa, the Speaker of the Borno State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Abdulkarim Lawan, said “the life of Vice-President is at risk as a result of the ‘faulty’ presidential aircraft he uses to attend official engagements across the globe.” A foreign object reportedly damaged the cockpit windscreen of the plane while on stopover at the JFK International Airport in New York, USA.

Instead for the Vice President to continue the trip on commercial flights as leaders of many more prosperous countries do, he turned back only for President Tinubu to approve a ministerial delegation to represent Nigeria at the summit while the plane was repaired. Aborting an assignment on this account only shows Nigerians how entitled their leaders are even in an era of extreme austerity.

This type of body-language only means Nigerians should be bracing for further rounds of extortions, price increases, shakedowns and tax hikes in the coming months and years. Posting these calamities is the only way the government may service its multibillion dollar debts and finance its own lavish lifestyle. Nigeria’s international debt now stands at over $24 billion with at least $6.5 billion from these bloodsucking multilateral financiers collected in the last 12 months alone. It is difficult to see how the present set of political leaders will jettison the Bretton-woods institutions and their toxic prescriptions for the poor.

While the World Bank and the IMF are acting as the economic hit-men, it is the international oil companies and the military industrial complex from the West that are the vampires and vultures. What our political potentates probably do not realise is that these entities are enjoying the status quo but stand to gain even more when the country collapses. It is they who would supply the arms we would be using to kill off ourselves while they steal even more oil, mineral and other natural resources. If, and when peace returns, it is their contractors who will corner the reconstruction projects and charge as costly as they can.

Already, the country loses over 25% or almost 500,000 barrels of its daily oil production to these thieves. Porous air, land and sea borders explain the ease with which a common bandit, cultist, criminal or kidnapper can acquire AK-47 rifles and machine-guns. The arms and ammunition to fuel the impending anarchy may have already arrived in the country going by the recent incredible seizures of illegal weapons at the nation’s seaports.

What options are there out of the quagmire strangulating this highly endowed nation? Patriotic prayers as well as personal patience and perseverance are a good starting point but the people must push the envelope a notch more. Polls to elect leaders must henceforth be taken very seriously. Screening candidates’ characters and policies should be taken as seriously as the vetting of medical practitioners or more.

Peaceful but poignant protests against poor or downright subversive and anti-people policies are also not only a right but a necessity at this point. Sometimes, just knowing that the citizens can summarily choose this route may deter or end unpopular policies and unpalatable programmes. In any case, doing nothing at all may amount to connivance. As someone said, all that is required for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.

Muhammad Hassan-Tom writes from Abuja.