By Isidore Emeka Uzoatu
According to our lords and masters at the World Bank, our path to economic transformation depends on ‘sustaining critical reforms for at least 15 years’. Among these numbers are the following: the restoration and strengthening of macroeconomic stability and fundamentals.
By them this among others entails an unbiased investment in human capital; elimination of petroleum subsidy and the mobilization of domestic non-oil revenue.
We can go on. But suffice it by noting that by that reckoning Nigeria would have had a mere five years to full economic recovery had we not been thwarted by a quirky change of leadership midstream.
Yes, it’s not often that a nation loses an entire decade to the ineptitude of its rulers. But, all things being equal, that is what has come to pass here in Nigeria. And sadly, nobody appears to be batting an eyelid about it. The show has gone on as though such never came to pass before our very eyes.
So much that instead a rabble of enthusiasts are of the opinion that the same culprits should be applauded for their malfeasance. According to them, that action of theirs happens to be the only bold step ever taken by any of the political parties that have ever been in power in the country.
If you doubt me, revisit the recent interviews granted to a series of media spaces by Dr Doyin Okupe and his likes. To these and their ilk, our current leadership happens to be the only one that have ever taken our nation’s problem by the jugular.
Enough for parables. The topic on issue is the now beleaguered issue of the subsidy our various governments claim to have been paying to steady the price of petroleum products in the country.
With hindsight, this had been going on unobtrusively all these years. Until the GEJ/PDP regime thought otherwise. What with the World Bank and IMF acolytes he inherited from the OBJ days insisting it had to go for the country’s economy to take a breather.
Poor guy. No sooner did he make the announcement than the entire country – inclusive of me – descended on him with invectives. Unlike ever before, all the trade unions, civil liberty organisations, and opposition political parties took part in daily demonstrations denouncing the move. So much so that the overly disturbed guy had to eat his words.
Sadly, had we toed that path then, by now we would have surely more than halved the span the World Bank specified for our recovery. Indeed, one of the manifold outcomes of the debacle was his ‘loss’ of the 2015 presidential election to the same opponents of the move.
That this was to the very opposition that had spearheaded the demonstrations is really laughable. Most especially because as soon as they took over, many of us had testimonies to give at our various places of worship.
However, long after this remarkable transfer of guards from the PDP to the APC, many are now at a loss regarding the supposed change. Even those with microscopes are yet to find just one. As vicariously as they have laboured.
Most annoying is that under PMB at the time, it didn’t take hours for all the supposed gains achieved by the PDP to evaporate into thin air. In fact, before he left after his eight-year tenure, the country had comfortably earned the sobriquet of the poverty capital of the world.
Yet, much to the chagrin of the world, Nigerians once more ‘voted’ the APC back. Anyway, we were unblameable. After all, parties in power never lose in African elections.
Not even when the new presidential candidate, perhaps enamoured by the appalling records of his predecessor, promised to start from where he stopped. When reminded of the stark indices at play, he even had the temerity to state on the soapbox: Na statistics we go chop?
Then no sooner was he declared winner than he proceeded to remove the same subsidy he and his colleagues had taken to the streets to condemn. The same move that his diehard supporters claim to be his masterstroke. And this almost after a decade!
It sure brings to mind the events prior to when the British Empire changed from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar. It was of course engaged to bring them in line with the rest of Europe. Like it stood, the former loses one day every 128 years due to a miscalculation of the solar year by eleven minutes.
To make this possible, a total of eleven days had to be lost. Thus, following an ‘imperial order’ Wednesday the 2nd of September 1752, was followed by Thursday the 14th promoting a call by the people that the king return their missing days.
Subsequent to this, it’s quite apt to ask the government in power some questions. Aptly, we must ask them to give us back that lost decade of gradual removal of the subsidy on petroleum products as planned by GEJ. All the more so because they had not only so willfully truncated it but only succeeded to force the same on us sans any kind of cushion.
Akin to this too is their current efforts to make us start driving vehicles with Compressed Natural Gas (CNG). Like is well known, Malaysia that introduced CNG in the 1990s are now bent on stopping it in 2024. All protocols observed, this means that the APC in characteristic ineptitude is taking us 34 years backwards.
Perhaps, there’s no better time to call them to order. We cannot continue this game of omission and commission forever. After all, a stitch in time saves nine. Notwithstanding that petrol subsidy in mind we have lost ten.
Uzoatu wrote from Onitsha, Anambra State.