By: Herbert Pepple
“The citizens of this country are mature enough to make their own choices, just as they have the right to make their own mistakes”. Odimegwu Ojukwu.
Whenever I find the time, I indulge my wife by driving her to Creek Road Market, Port Harcourt, to do some shopping and foodstuff stock up. It’s not always fun. There’s practically no parking space and the market has overflown like a rogue flood into adjoining streets making the once carefully planned and serene old township a receptacle of silt and litter, and a breeding ground for hoodlums and a free-for-all for ragtag tasks-force. Creek Road Market in its original form no longer exists.
Food prices are lightyears away from the pocket and wallets of the ordinary man and his family. Traders and their customers have become estranged by just too many haggling and price fights and the usual banter and laugher have diminished. Very recently, as I helped my wife upload stuff into the trunk, I could sense her unease and utter displeasure at the turn of events. I could see the reduction in regular volume of her purchase and I knew well not to ask for the things absent. We would have to make some adjustments and visit the market again.
On this particular day, as I waited for my wife, I could not but overhear the conversation of a group of youths nearby. The discussion bothered around the economy and the failure of government. It was like the President was in a witness box and they were both judge and jury. It was a sad, painful and gut checking conversation to listen to. The youngmen were livid, they called Mr. President and his team all manner of names. Many economic questions were extrapolated, the Niger Delta and the Avengers, the dwindling price of oil and the apparent lack of macroeconomic mastery by the leadership, rising insecurity and more. One even suggested getting two professor each (one specializing in Micro Economics and the other Macro) from all the federal universities across the nation, and quartering them for at least sixty days in a standard hotel in Abuja. Their mission? Develop a fast track blueprint for getting the nation out of its economic entanglement.
As I listened to their impassioned and yet patriotic arguments, it felt sad that neither the President nor any of his operatives could listen in. I hope, perhaps one day, they’ll read this blog. But I had another feeling, peculiar to every true Nigerian freeborn, we are specialists in every field. Coaches to national coaches, commanders of army generals; we even tell prophets how to see visions and hear from God and direct surgeons on how to cut. Telling the President how to do his job is our specialty. But we mean well. We are all stake holders, we triumph and perish together.
The President needs to listen. I’ve heard the president empathizing with Nigerians telling us he understands what we are going through and how the government is working hard to fix the situation. Does he really understand? Perhaps not as well or we wouldn’t be hearing palliatives and half measures. The nation is in a Recession, Mr. President. There is famine and hunger in the land.
The people are fighting for their lives and the future of their loved ones. Salaries are long delayed and in most cases not paid. What little people have can buy even less every day. There is fear and desperation. A fifty year old father of two took his life recently. His suicide note blamed the harsh economy. A starving, unpaid secondary school teacher stole her neighbour’s amala to eat with her children sauced with palm oil.
Criminals have become daring and audacious, robbing people of their money and dignity even in front of police posts and stations. It is happening both on land and sea. Have you heard of the plight of the Bonny people in the hands of sea pirates, how women of all ages are raped in mangrove swamps in broad daylight? Jobs are evaporating and sieving through the hands of Nigerian workers as companies close business. I am sure you are aware of airlines shutting operations and shipping companies closing shop.
This is happening under your watch Mr. President. The pills of change have become too bitter to swallow. A little sugar will help to make the medicine go down. Do we need the medication? Yes, but we don’t have to die taking it?
It is true that corruption is being checked, especially in public procurement. The nation has saved and earned a lot of money from many sources including recovered loot, oil subsidy, the TSA and others. We understand that government income is low and things are touch and the national cake has lost most of its size and icing but must the people starve? With hunger, poverty, insecurity and unemployment increasing, is it possible you’re not getting a few things right and the people are paying dearly for it?
Let the pundits argue all they want and government spin artists sell the balloons all over the nation. These balloons, the stories you tell us, your economic policies are bursting as they make contact with the needles of the people’s sufferings. Listen closely, can you a thousand balloons bursting per second? The Recession has become the reality of the people and you know what? The office of statistics needn’t sell it as a trophy.
Here’s how the Recession translates to the man and woman on the streets. High cost of food and everything else. Increase in school fees, shoes, sandals and books. Irregular and less sumptuous pots of soup and half rations of eba. Starvation, homelessness, death. How many Nigerians have lost their jobs this year? How many jobs have the federal and state governments created?
Don’t get me wrong, now. Change is good. The nation needed it. The people knew it was going to be touch and what ought to be done should be done, but is it possible you have handled the matter less effectively? Is it possible your government took the plane off the ground without a travel plan and half tank of gas? Nigerians are worried and are asking several troubling questions.
Why is the transition from change to progress so dire, painful and bitter for the citizens of this country? Is there no way to sweeten this vinegar of change to lessen the burden on the people so they can breathe? They gnash their teeth when you talk about progress, they groan when billions are spent on Hajj (you promised to put a stop to this), they sob in their closets as law makers pad their private lives with luxury.They are aghast when governors and leaders are only concerned about their political relevance and pay little attention to growing the economy of the states and creating new opportunities. It is sad that most governors have no clue and seem to have adorned themselves in the emperor’s new clothes.
The antithesis of your “I am for everybody, I am for nobody” posturing is the nagging discomfort whether you are for anybody at all. Somebody will have to explain to Nigerians today, and for posterity, what is really happening to the nation as we are experiencing it today. That someone, Mr. President, is you.
Is this pain worth the remedy? The discomfort worth the expected change as promised? Nigerians are totally lost to what change means right now. To many it means lack and hunger, to some job loss and to others fear, doubt and desperation. Did you hear of the man who recently exchanged two siblings aged 8 and 13 for two bags of rice?
We have heard how that the economy shrank 2% but we are yet to hear how we can get back that 2% or how long it will take. To whom much is given much is expected and you need to know, Mr. President, you’re not meeting our expectation.
Ok, yes, some trains are working and people are traveling across the country with a bit more ease but several roads are still deplorable. Can you just fix the roads, please?Are you familiar with the challenges in the east?
One year is too short, they say, too short to assess the president and his team. Well, ok, but one year is also too short a time for the people to lose everything and not have the least idea what happened to their livelihood. The people need to be alive to enjoy this change, but they are dying. Maybe, just maybe, the country is being saved from the grips of corruption and corruption is really bad, but the ordinary man has got to eat. You can’t cure a man of his promiscuity by cutting off his testicles.
Whatever you’re doing now isn’t working. Maybe it will work in the future, who knows? It is not working today and the people are groaning. Make some drastic changes. Bring in better people, your current team is failing – they don’t have a grasp of the situation. The epic fail at the 2016 Olympics is epitomic of the poor handling of matters across sectors of the economy. You can’t judge the economy by the rosy cheeks, rounded bellies and curves of the members of population of the FCT.
I remember the words of “Lest we should be the last” by Kwesi Brew. We have followed “the winding way to your hut” depriving ourselves holding on to “the flowing milk of your words.” Today we are in shocking amazement as we manage the hurt of what we see and hear. We can’t go back to the past but the future seems unsure.
One thing you can be sure of is that the Nigerian people made a choice in 2015 (and will live with it), we are almost thinking it was a mistake and if it turns out to be, we are not going to make it twice. I pray everyday that the government in this dispensation succeeds and that we achieve good change and economic prosperity for all of us. But every bit of change has its own expiry date and every Nigerian knows this.
This is your one and only chance. I wish you the best of luck, Mr. President.
