On Sun, Aug 7, 2016 at 7:33 AM Moses Ebe Ochonu <meochonu@gmail.com> wrote:
You assume that removing fuel subsidy was a gesture of resistance to the fuel cartel. You are wrong, with all due respect. Raising the pump price was a capitulation to the oil cartel; that's precisely what they wanted and lobbied Buhari to do--- to "deregulate" the sector. He basically caved to their demands and was aided in doing so by the apathy of the middle class, who decided that having fuel (at whatever cost) was more important to them than advocating for the cause of the poor and protecting the economy as a whole from imploding.As we speak, the same oil cartel is lobbying for another increase. I saw them (the importers/marketers) on Nigerian TV at a conference in Lagos arguing that the increase was "partial deregulation" and that unless there was "total deregulation" (that is, no price ceiling on imported petrol), there would soon be another scarcity as the Naira had depreciated further and increased the cost of importing fuel. Alternatively, they want the government to subsidize Forex for them, which would be a disguised resumption of subsidy and which would mean that they would enjoy both subsidy and high prices and make a killing at the expense of Nigerians and the Nigerian economy.This is a never ending hostage situation as long we we continue to import fuel instead of ending it. Everyone knows that capitulating to hostage takers only encourages them to repeat the gambit. Successive presidents from Obasanjo to Buhari have capitulated to the oil cartel's demands for pump price increases instead of revamping domestic refining. Buhari vowed to take a different approach, to upend the tradition of kowtowing to the cartel, to revamp domestic refining, and to even reduce the pump price. He has unapologetically and lazily abandoned that promise. He has chosen the easy way out by washing its hands off the problem and burdening Nigerians with the cost instead of doing the hard work of cleaning up the corruption in the subsidy regime as a short term measure and rebuilding Nigeria's refining capacity as a long term measure of ending importation.Quite frankly I can understand the argument about activist fatigue, the argument that having fought unsuccessfully against an increase in 2012, the middle class had no appetite for another fight. I can understand that. Fatigue is a natural human reaction to successive failures. What I cannot understand or excuse is the cheerleading and vocal support for a policy that everyone knew would be detrimental to the economy, to the poor masses, and ultimately to many in the middle class, whose middle class status is precarious and whose financial responsibilities to poor relatives have now increased in the wake of the inflationary tsunami unleashed by the 70 percent increase in the pump price. That's why I argue that their decision to support the government's decision is self-defeating.--On Sat, Aug 6, 2016 at 8:23 PM, Bode <ominira@gmail.com> wrote:These are very complicated and interconnected socio-economic crises. You and I lived through the absolute unpredictability of life in Nigeria starting with the endless transition of Babangida. Inflation is a terrible thing. But the constant threat of instability does as much to damage the psyche of the people and destroy any potential of economic and social development. You are suggesting mass opposition to the decision of government to raise the pump price of fuel. But The people you are talking to know what that means : their responsibilities to their poor family members will not go away, the inflation they are trying to prevent will set in anyway when another cycle of disrruption is initiated and their lives come to a standstill. Given the options, i think it is a painful and regrettable choice that I can understand. Last year Buhari was about to remove subsidy and reduce the pump price of petrol but the chattel got in the way. The chattel is the enemy. Not the people. Another matrix of Buhari's success will be if he succeeds in rooting out the oil chattel. If he does he would have succeeded where Obasanjo failed. The signs are not promising if that is what you are saying.--On Sat, Aug 6, 2016 at 8:51 PM Moses Ebe Ochonu <meochonu@gmail.com> wrote:Bode,I wish my Nigerian middle class interlocutors were as sophisticated in their support for the fuel pump price as you are ascribing to them. Every single one of them said simply that they were already paying close to the new price anyway and that the product was scarce. It is a discourse of surrender, apathy, and shortsighted selfishness. The most sophisticated excuse for middle class apathy I heard (and this came in response to my Facebook update) is that having fought against a fuel price increase in 2012 and failed to effect any meaningful change in the sector, middle class activists were simply tired and wanted to give this government the benefit of the doubt and the latitude to try out its idea of deregulation. For ALL those I spoke to in Nigeria, their logic was simple: ready availability of fuel--at whatever cost--trumps all else. It is in my opinion a very myopic, selfish, choice, if you want to call it a choice. Look at what their acquiescence to the price increase has done to the economy by way of inflation and impoverishment. During my stay in the country a bag of rice went from N15,000 to N18,500 and it is still rising. That is just rice. There is unprecedented inflation and suffering in the land, much of it a fallout of the fuel pump price increase. Is destroying the economy through hyperinflation worth having gas in your tank? That's the stupid choice you're dignifying as pragmatic.I completely reject your analogy of Democratic voters in the US. Middle class voters in America make their voting decisions based on higher order anxieties and priorities, not on lower order issues and basic items such as fuel, food, electricity, water, roads, etc, all of which are already available.--On Sat, Aug 6, 2016 at 6:26 PM, Bode <ominira@gmail.com> wrote:Most people are pragmatic not ideological, and most prefer stability even if it means paying some price for it. It is the same logic that most middle class Americans vote democratic even when they know it may mean higher taxes. The bet is that by paying more you can have better infrastructure etc. it is a rational economic choice. The real target here ought to be the oil chattel and failure of the government for upwards of three decades to break its stranglehold by refining petroleum locally. The country is hostage to the chattel period. That should be the obvious target.--On Sat, Aug 6, 2016 at 6:07 PM Moses Ebe Ochonu <meochonu@gmail.com> wrote:Still on the theme of Nigerian middle class complicity in the ongoing implosion, this is what I wrote on my Facebook wall two days ago.NIGERIA'S SELF-DEFEATING MIDDLE CLASS
It does not give me pleasure to say this but the Nigerian middle class--whatever is left of it--is a reactionary, myopic one. It is complacent and complicit in its own victimization by our rulers. It is selfish and shortsighted.
During my recent trip to Nigeria, I cannot remember the number of times I heard my middle class acquaintances say the decision to increase the pump price of petrol was the right one since "we were already paying this price for petrol anyway and couldn't find the product to buy." Asking the question of why fuel was scarce in the first place and why they were paying a price way above the official price for the product would have led them to demand that the government make fuel available at the official price by fixing the problems in the sector. But Middle class Nigerians rarely ask such tough questions of government. If there is a problem that affects them, they look for shortcuts, easy ways out, in collaboration with the government, even if these quick fixes further impoverish the poor.
Middle class Nigerians just wanted access to fuel at whatever cost, since they can afford it, and are unconcerned about whatever the price increase does to the economy in terms of inflation--since they can also afford to absorb this into their budgets. There is very little thought for the poor whose lives would be (and have been) devastated by the runaway inflation caused by the increase in petrol pump price.
A responsible, selfless, activist middle class would have, instead of cheerleading the price increase, pushed the government to solve the problem at its root rather than washing its hands off it and unburdening its cost on already struggling Nigerians. A change-inclined middle class would have pressured the government to, in the short term, deal with the corruption that plagued the fuel subsidy regime and in the long term revamp local refining capacity to meet fuel demand and make fuel importation unnecessary.
Middle class Nigerians could not look beyond their car fuel tanks. As long as they have fuel in their cars, they reckon that this is what matters, a crassly individualistic and selfish disposition that supposes that the middle class will be shielded from the growing inflationary consequences of the fuel price increase.
This is a tragic, self-defeatist mistake on the part of the Nigerian middle class. The African extended family network ensures that no class of people can remain protected from the negative outcomes of national economic policies. No rich or middle class Nigerian exists without relatives who are poor and who need financial assistance from time to time.
The fuel price policy that middle class Nigerians are cheerleading has further raised the cost of living and undermined the standard of living of their poor relatives, ensuring that, sooner to later, these ostensibly comfortable and shielded middle class Nigerians will have to pick up the slack and be asked to pitch in to support their relatives whose lives and economic independence have been destroyed by the so-called removal of fuel subsidy.
If, as a middle class Nigerian, you do not push for economic policies friendly to and protective of the interests of poor people, your poor relatives will make sure that you do not enjoy your barricaded life of middle class comfort. You may have fuel in your car, which is what you wanted, but you will be surrounded by poorer, more desperate relatives that will increasingly depend on you for survival.
One way or the other, you will pay for failing to hold the government accountable, for failing to oppose policies detrimental to the poor, and for subsidizing the laziness of those in government.
At any rate, if the inflationary trend sparked by the fuel price increase and by the recent Naira devaluation continues, it is only a matter of time before many of those who think they occupy secure Middle class perches lose their middle class status and join their poor relatives in the lower socioeconomic rungs.
--On Sat, Aug 6, 2016 at 4:12 PM, Bode <ominira@gmail.com> wrote:Yes, and that sinking began last year!--On Sat, Aug 6, 2016 at 5:09 PM Obododimma Oha <obodooha@gmail.com> wrote:You are not wrong, Farooq. Nigeria is sinking. Sorry for some
Nigerians who pretend everything is OK.
Nigeria's future is already here -- at the doorsteps!
-- Obododimma.
On 8/6/16, Farooq A. Kperogi <farooqkperogi@gmail.com> wrote:
> *By Farooq A. Kperogi. Ph.D.*
>
> *Twitter:@farooqkperogi <https://twitter.com/farooqkperogi>*
>
>
> I was in Nigeria with my family for a month between late June and late
> July. In my one-month stay there, I developed a heightened awareness of two
> uncomfortable truths about Nigeria that I had always known but hadn't quite
> come to terms with.
>
>
> The first uncomfortable truth is that government is practically
> non-existent in the quotidian lives of everyday Nigerians, and we might as
> well formalize anarchism—or some notion of libertarianism— as our system of
> government. The second uncomfortable truth is that the Nigerian middle
> class will, through its newfound troubling insouciance and smug
> self-satisfaction, dig our country's grave.
>
> <https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFk-CLv2iOi2cFExKSOPhen6K4QSh8QIQaxoT3URyzhwSHoA0CNq2JFZq5iCoAQ5_smiXYhU6O_Std0ocLiWru-Rjbs0HzfkwhmVFg35M9QGMi4J4Hs6HzCp6M6KVfUQ1pzYMrkQNc8BI/s1600/Anarchy-Nigeria.jpg>
>
>
> Anarchists and libertarians are often thought of as representing two
> extreme ends on the ideological spectrum, at least in American political
> discourse, but they are nonetheless united in their common hatred for
> government. While anarchism advocates the total extirpation of even the
> vaguest vestiges of government, American notions of libertarianism advocate
> the least possible presence of government in the affairs of individuals.
>
>
> Well, in a perverse way, Nigeria is at once an anarchist and libertarian
> paradise, but it is one that neither Western anarchists nor American
> libertarians would want to live in and that would explode the philosophical
> foundations of their theories.
>
>
> On issues that really matter to the survival and progress of individuals,
> the Nigerian government is noticeably absent. For instance, in the three
> weeks I stayed in my hometown, I provided my own electricity. The entire
> Baruten Local Government Area in Kwara State where my hometown is located
> has not had even a watt of electricity for more than a year, and there is
> no hope they ever would any time soon.
>
>
> Their experience mirrors the fate of several rural and urban communities in
> Nigeria. On several occasions, Nigerian newspapers have reported that
> electricity generation fell to exactly zero megawatts. I stayed for a week
> in two different hotels in the federal capital, and both hotels generated
> their own electricity. No one depends on the government for electricity
> now. This is a wretched new low even by Nigeria's sordid standards.
>
>
> Government also barely provides water. People who can't afford to build
> their own boreholes (like I did for my parents) are condemned to drink
> water from unsanitary wells and streams in rural communities— and from
> bedraggled hawkers selling water in unkempt cans in urban areas. This isn't
> a new problem, but it seems to be exacerbating.
>
>
> Except in Abuja, the federal capital territory, and a few state capitals,
> governments at all levels have abandoned their responsibility to build
> roads or to maintain existing ones. We wanted to visit New Bussa in Niger
> State, my wife's place of birth, which also used to be my local government
> headquarters until 1988, but we couldn't because all the roads that lead to
> the town from my part of Borgu (now called Baruten in Kwara State) are
> practically impassable to motorists. (The roads in Benin Republic Borgu,
> which we visited, were as good as any road in America!)
>
>
> But the lowest watermark of governmental absence in the life of Nigerians,
> for me, is the total collapse of primary education in Nigeria. When I grew
> up in Nigeria in the 1970s and 1980s, private primary schools were few and
> far between, and the existing ones at the time had a need to boldly
> inscribe on their signposts that they were "government approved" to
> legitimize their existence. Even so, private primary schools were almost
> completely absent in rural Nigeria.
>
>
> During my last visit to Nigeria, the only primary schools that were in
> session in the whole of Kwara State (and this is true of most other states)
> were private primary schools. Government primary schools were closed
> because teachers were on strike to protest months of unpaid salaries.
> Several people told me even if teachers weren't on strike people with even
> a little means have learned not to send their children to government
> primary schools because government schools have become the graveyards of
> learning and creativity.
>
>
> This made me shed a tear. This is precisely where the intergenerational
> perpetuation of social and economic inequality starts. Only the children of
> the desperately poor go to government schools, which are hardly in session
> because teachers aren't paid salaries. This ensures that children of the
> poor stand no earthly chance of breaking from the cycle of poverty and
> social oppression into which they are born. This is replicated at all
> levels of education.
>
>
> I can go on, but the stark, unsettling truth is that ordinary Nigerians
> have no need for government, and government has no reason to exist. The
> only reason government exists in Nigeria now, it would seem, is to
> supervise the dispensation of our national patrimony to the ruling elite
> and to pauperize an already traumatized and dispossessed citizenry.
>
> <https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8jgxzF65Ds7S6mtLFSSsNW9p_IzjkTGTrjAwdkDsUHOKjAp9CXbVCvkjYubh77iSnNgorfkQmBm1VRlSaAGS1Kg4gAFKrHidG99NNNhpH4wd0Jm9bUO2o5wPrfut3BRIBa_GJOypd_Rk/s1600/Nigeria+as+Anarchist+paradise.jpg>
>
>
> That is why a government that is incapable of providing basic necessities
> for its citizens to justify its existence is quick to remove subsidies from
> everything except the sybaritic lavishness of the ruling elites and their
> cronies. When French philosopher Voltaire said, "In general, the art of
> government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of
> citizens to give to another," he could well be describing governance in
> Nigeria.
>
>
> But what is even more tragic than the incompetence and uselessness of
> government in Nigeria is the indolence and complacency of Nigeria's
> hitherto vibrant and critical middle class. All that the Nigerian middle
> class does now is chatter idly on social media, engage in conspicuous
> consumption, and watch listlessly as the government abdicates its most
> basic responsibilities and robs the poor to enrich the rich.
>
>
> In all my life, I had never seen the depth and ferocity of suffering that I
> saw in Nigeria. Vast swathes of people are writhing in excruciating
> existential pains as a direct result of the insensitive and intellectually
> lazy increase in the price of petrol, which has ignited an unprecedented
> hyperinflationary conflagration.
>
>
> Most middle-class Nigerians I met during my visit appeared to be relieved
> that they have access to petrol irrespective of the price. They don't pause
> to ponder that the next round of scarcity-first-and-price-increase-later is
> on the way, and that this might ultimately strip many of them of their
> current comfort and make them indistinguishable from the hordes of people
> who are struggling to stay alive in Nigeria.
>
>
> When you combine a witless, ill-prepared, incompetent, and irresponsible
> government with a docile, self-satisfied middle class, you not only have a
> perverse anarchist paradise, you also have a perfect World Bank/IMF
> nirvana. If this trend continues, by the time Buhari is done, there would
> probably be no Nigeria to speak of. I hope and pray that I am wrong.
>
>
>
> Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.
> Associate Professor
> Journalism & Emerging Media
> School of Communication & Media
> Social Science Building
> Room 5092 MD 2207
> 402 Bartow Avenue
> Kennesaw State University
> Kennesaw, Georgia, USA 30144
> Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.com
> <http://www.farooqkperogi.blogspot.com>
> Twitter: @farooqkperog <https://twitter.com/#%21/farooqkperogi>
> Author of *Glocal English: The Changing Face and Forms of Nigerian English
> in a Global World
> <http://www.amazon.com/Glocal-English-Changing-Linguistics-Semiotics/dp/1433129264/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1436569864&sr=1-1>*
>
> "The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either
> proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will
>
> --
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--
--
B.A.,First Class Honours (English & Literary Studies);
M.A., Ph.D. (English Language);
M.Sc. (Legal, Criminological & Security Psychology);
Professor of Cultural Semiotics & Stylistics,
Department of English,
University of Ibadan.
Fellow,
Centre for Peace & Conflict Studies,
University of Ibadan.
COORDINATES:
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