Are We Better Off?
By Bisi Ojediran
I imagine how US President Barack Obama would have felt if he tried putting in a call to Nigerian authorities on hearing the news of Farouk Abdulmutallab’s attempt to detonate explosives on Delta Northwest Airlines Flight 253 with 278 passengers and crew aboard. That is if he had not expected a call from Nigeria, as he would have from another country in that situation. “President Umaru Yar’ Adua has been away in a Saudi hospital for over 30 days,” he would have been reminded. “And the Vice President Goodluck Jonathan can be of no immediate help because he is not in charge.
” “What a……” Obama would have been tempted to say (I don’t know him to use swear words). But certainly he would have been shocked about the current status of Nigeria, which in White House confidential records is one of the pillars for the emancipation of the impoverished and poorly governed African continent. That is how Nigerians are ending the year. No effective leader! Farouk Abdulmutallab is a Nigerian! And a silver-spoon son of a highly placed Nigerian for that matter! No matter how well his background is rationalized, no matter how strong the defence mechanism, he is a Nigerian who has thrown air travel around the world into chaos with untold hardship for travellers, now subjected to body search.
The introduction of a 3D scan that strips travellers naked on the security screen is now likely, in spite of the heavy criticism against its use. For all agonizing travellers now, Nigeria, a country notorious for scam and corruption has added to its pain stimuli. The country is ending the year on a bad note in international relations, caused principally by poor representation or absence at important international fora. Now, Farouk has caused another coating of tar on Nigeria’s international image. And bad time awaits Nigerian travellers. Extra attention is normally applied to passengers arriving from Nigeria at busy airports around the globe because of concerns over fraud and smuggling. Now, it is going to get worse. For President Obama, he is gradually confirming my fears that his relatively soft stance with terrorists may cost the US another attack that will not only make his name a hate word, but also ruin his presidency. But that is a subject of another Tolling Bells piece.
Farouk’s father reported him to US authorities and according to reports a file was opened on Farouk, but as one official said, “one part of the system that absolutely failed” was that Abdulmutallab was able to board a plane to the United States allegedly with PETN. Well, it emerged yesterday that Farouk had been barred from entering the UK. With a bruised image and limping on the global scene, Nigerians would have been compensated if they are better off at home during a year that will end in three days. Are we better off in 2009? Well, the Vice President may have provided an answer in Abuja over the weekend when he spoke after a Christmas thanksgiving service.
He said Farouk has compounded the country’s challenges of fuel scarcity, kidnapping, weak economy and poor state of infrastructure, among others. I like that honest talk! To have said otherwise would have been a negation of the socio-economic rights of the majority of Nigerians who have been impoverished during the year. In the books, the economy, with and overall real GDP growth averaged about 6 per cent during the first half of 2009, a National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) preliminary estimate of a real GDP growth rate of 7.6 percent during the third quarter of 2009, and a decline of year-on-year headline inflation, looks good. But that is yet to translate into better living standards.
The true measure of a good economy is the wellbeing of the average citizen or family. Has the individual or family experienced improvement in living standards – better access to social amenities like water, health, education and power supply? Has the quality or even quantity of food on the dining table increased? And have there been improved opportunities to earn a living? Well, with about 70 per cent of Nigerians in the poverty bracket, and with a high level of unemployment, the answer is obvious. Of course, with a raging global economic crisis and a depressed crude oil market, Nigeria started the year on a bad note. Revenue from both oil and non-oil sources were below projections for the first half of 2009, and the aggregate revenue available for distribution to the three tiers of government fell short of projected estimate by about 26 per cent. But that can hardly be a justification for the bitterness of many Nigerians during the year.
Any suggestion that the country fared better will shock many Nigerians who have been denied basic necessities of life, even at this festive period. For a major oil producing country with at least three refineries to deny its citizens fuel during this period is crass insensitivity. And to be insulted that the scarcity of petrol was caused by saboteurs, and not government, when an apology should have been made to Nigerians, is gross disrespect of our socio-economic rights. When did it become the lot of the governed to fight economic saboteurs or fuel subsidy racketeers? Many Nigerians know that the lingering fuel scarcity originated from the poor handling of the planned deregulation of the downstream petroleum sector by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation. With high prices of goods and services caused by the fuel scarcity and the hardship encountered in the sourcing of fuel by consumers, this festive season could have been better celebrated.
Reports of some lawmakers’ refusal to travel home for the fear of kidnapping should be funny, but it is depressing. Security, one of the key deliverables people look up to government for has also become a major challenge in the country. Security is a deliverable on government’s Seven –Point Agenda. So also is improved electricity supply, over which Nigerians perhaps feel the greatest disappointment. This is because not only was a promise made, huge sums of money was voted on a regular basis for it, and even when facts on the ground called for caution, those in charge boasted they could make it happen. A prominent minister from the South was so sure about it that he boasted it would be achieved during the year to turn the economy around. But as time wore on towards the deadline, and reality dawned, a defence mechanism started to be built. The high drama of it all was during the defence of her 2010 budget at the National Assembly.
A power outage had triggered calls of “6000 Mega Watts” and a question on the December deadline to which Information Minister Dora Akunyili responded, “I am not the minister of power.” Well, many Nigerians spent Xmas in darkness, as they have been in most of the year. That of course is not better life. Without electricity, there is not much the manufacturing sector can do. Investors in the sector are quick to say it is dead. May be not yet, but many companies, including vital ones like tyre companies, have closed shop. Survivors are bracing it but with worsening cost of production because they have to provide their own infrastructure, they say it is tough. Perhaps, the capital market is one area where the pain of Nigerians can be rationalised. The stock market crashed as did all other stock markets around the world. Many Nigerians, including former governor Chief Segun Osoba and the Oba of Lagos have lost millions. So have smaller investors.
But hope that the market would take a cue from recovering markets has been dashed. Return on Investment during the year declined by 65 per cent from the N280 billion paid out in 2008. The story of the money market is interesting. The other day, a worried investor said with so much money stolen by bank executives and the heavy losses declared by banks, Nigerians would have woken up one morning to discover that there are no banks in the country anymore. An exaggerated joke, but certainly the new CBN Governor Lamido Sanusi, has stemmed a dangerous trend and hopefully, sanity will be restored in the banking halls; hopefully the stock market which the reforms further shrank will recover; and hopefully the credit crunch will ease to get the economy growing again.
The judiciary has fared well, but not so the National Assembly, which is still on an ego trip. For example, there is no reason for the constitutional review process should be duplicated. People are also not comfortable with the many vital bills waiting to be passed. However, it is fair to say with the Amnesty in the Niger Delta, which has restored relative peace in the area, and the civil service reforms, President Yar’ Adua was doing a good home run for the year before he broke down. Governance has also improved in the states. I counted 12 with a high performing governor from a southern state last week, but with so much power and resources at the centre, poor performance at that level, easily rubs off on the nation. Although some ministries have done well, our concern is the over all well being of the people. From there, hope is fading. When hope fades, it makes space for depression. But depression is horrible in part because it cuts you off from your future or, more precisely, your sense of the future. The bleakness of the present is so oppressive just because you can’t imagine an alternative for tomorrow.
January 1, 2010
Tags: Mutallab, Nigeria, obama, Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, Yar’Adua Posted in: Bisi Ojediran
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