Written By Rotimi Fasan
There are actually very concrete ways to
measure the increasing cost of living in Nigeria
which in turn explains why Nigerians are
increasingly disenchanted with the Muhammadu
Buhari administration. A simple way to go about
this is to measure how the cost of common
household goods and foodstuffs have either
tripled or quadrupled in the last six months or
thereabout.
An example is rice, a
Nigerian staple that
the country invariably
imports from wherever
it could be found. It
isn’t that Nigeria does
not produce rice at all.
But as we’ve never
really paid more than
lip service to local
production of rice,
what we produce does
not amount to much
given our rate of consumption. In addition to
that, the local varieties of rice available are of
incredibly low grade even when we tend to make
a fetish of one or two highly rated varieties that
the people have to pay so much to buy owing to
limited supply. And so we pay N19, 000 now for
a 50kgs bag of rice that was N8, 000 last
December.
Until about two months ago Nigerians couldn’t
find tomatoes to buy in the market. Where they
were available they were simply unaffordable to
the average consumer. All kinds of excuses,
ranging from the logical, the merely speculative
to the outright stupid, were proffered for the
scarcity. It was clear that we were in a state of
emergency but we all soldiered on stoically until
the situation gradually started turning around.
While some said the problem was caused by the
scarcity of dollars, or simply the incompetence
of the Buhari administration and its inability to
grapple with simple problems, others said the
scarcity of tomato was the outcome of the
despoliation of farmlands by Fulani herdsmen.
But many settled for the tale of a virulent
disease that had taken over our tomato farms in
the last two years. What they did not and
probably could not satisfactorily explain was why
the tomato disease should suddenly become a
problem at the time it did. Even less explainable
is why tomato is again available in the market
even when nobody has told us that the disease
allegedly ravaging tomato farms has been
contained.
As it is with rice and tomatoes, so it has been
with other household goods and food items that
have gone out of the reach of Nigerians. A
people who have to pay more for electricity
(never mind the baloney by the government
ordering electricity companies to cut down their
tariffs) even when they spend a sizeable chunk
of their income to buy fuel to power their
generators cannot but be disenchanted.
Kerosene which the vast majority of Nigerians
use costs a lot more today than at any time in
the distant or recent past. Many have resorted to
alternative means of procuring energy that are
mostly harmful to their environment. Even when
people continue to bear the pain in silence it
does not look like there would be any respite any
time soon. Businesses are down and profit is
low. Companies are laying off workers and those
in government employ are not being paid their
salaries for many months at a time. More than 30
state governments in the country are unable to
pay salaries in spite of bail-out from Abuja.
There is a clear link between the increasing cost
of living and the steep drop in the price of oil in
the international market. Even the unborn know
that oil is the mainstay of the Nigerian economy.
It is the be-all and end-all of our survival as a
people, by far the main source of revenue for the
country. But in the last one and half year the
price of oil has continued to drop without
anything in sight to suggest a serious
improvement in the state of things. The little rise
in the price of the commodity in the last few
weeks has done nothing to raise hope in any
meaningful way. If anything it is a timely
reminder that our days of dependence on oil are
at an end. Not with the complication that has
been brought into the matter by mushrooming
groups of militants in different parts of the Niger
Delta. These mostly self-seeking groups causing
mayhem in the name of fighting for the survival
of the region have all but destroyed the
country’s capacity to make even modest income
from oil. Pipelines are being vandalized at a rate
that has left our economy gasping for breath.
With this state of social, economic and political
insecurity can it be any surprise that Nigerians
are increasingly impatient waiting for the change
promised them by a Buhari government that
anchored its campaign on the provision of
security? Can the people be blamed for venting
their anger at the failure or inability of
government to ameliorate their pain?
But does the justifiable anger of the people
mean that they made a mistake voting out the
inept government led by Goodluck Jonathan in
last year’s election? Or does the criticism of the
Buhari administration by some of those who had
supported it to victory mean an expression of
national regret in kicking out the corrupt
Jonathan administration? Where did any one of
those supporters of the Jonathan administration
now rearing their head to gloat foolishly at critics
of the Buhari government hear that calling for
the end of the Jonathan administration mean
unquestioning acceptance of whatever is offered
by the successor administration of Buhari, or a
suspension of our right to criticize what could be
wrong with the new administration? But that is
the nonsense that the Jonathanphiles would
want us to believe because it was the kind of
blind allegiance that they demonstrated to that
excuse of an administration.
For the avoidance of doubt, let those who have
forgotten be reminded that the situation Nigeria
finds itself today, a state of social and economic
insecurity and political instability, was brought
upon it by the Jonathan administration. The
corrupt legacy of that administration would take
a very long time to clear off and no amount of
wishful thinking and false attempt at
rehabilitating Jonathan can remove from the fact
that his administration made so much money
from oil sales but failed signally to save for the
future of this country. In being disenchanted with
this government and criticizing Buhari what
Nigerians are saying is that the administration
does not have eternity to bring about the change
it promised them. What they are saying is that
this government should double down to the
immediate task of bringing economic and social
relief to the people. Otherwise, they know the
source of their trouble: that the rain started to
beat them under Goodluck Jonathan.
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