A pesident in a world of his own

If the president was on the same page with the rest of us, he would have noticed that even mavericks like Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin are being subdued, and are coming to the sensible realization that against the people, an individual, no matter how powerful, cannot but lose in the end. Barely five years […]

If the president was on the same page with the rest of us, he would have noticed that even mavericks like Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin are being subdued, and are coming to the sensible realization that against the people, an individual, no matter how powerful, cannot but lose in the end. Barely five years ago, nobody in Russia would have been suicidal enough to challenge Putin’s ‘decree’ in any matter; not only in Russia, but even among its nearest neighbours. The only man in Russia that was courageous (meaning stupid) enough to challenge Putin is today languishing in jail. That man, Kodorkovski, who is also Russia’s richest man, is actually lucky to be alive because several other anti Putin Russians, among them many journalists have either disappeared without a trace, or found murdered by yet-to-be identified criminals.

But Putin, the swaggering, arrogant, self-proclaimed Russian deity is eating humble pie today. After the Russian parliamentary elections recently, thousands of people came out to protest the slim margin by which Putin’s party won (or claimed to have won) the election. The protests have been going on for the last two weeks. In response, Putin has been exhibiting all the usual signs of a spent despot; first he blamed the Americans, then he admitted that there were flaws in the election and that the people have a right to protest, and then lately he is advocating that in future elections, cameras should be installed to monitor polling booths. Pushed to the wall, there is no force, apart from the Will of God, that a determined people cannot overrun. The so called ongoing Arab Spring is the most recent testimony to that.

Whether he is aware of the full implications of his actions or not, President Jonathan is pushing Nigerians to the wall by his obstinate resolve to remove subsidy on petrol against all entreaties from both friends and foes alike. The clearest sign so far that Mr Jonathan is going ahead with his unpopular policy is the absence of any budgetary provision for subsidy in the 2012 budget which the president submitted to the National Assembly last Tuesday. Unless the president is acting under some kind of spell, by now he ought to have realized the hollowness of his arguments justifying the removal of subsidy. The president and his people have at various times advanced two very weak arguments to justify the removal of fuel subsidy. First they say that they are removing it because over the years it (subsidy) has failed to serve the purpose for which it was introduced. To buttress their point the government two weeks ago revealed the identities of those it claims are the beneficiaries (as against the Nigerian people) of petroleum subsidy. Among the list were organizations that have nothing to do with the oil and gas industry; some in fact were construction companies.

It was a clever spin, if not a brilliant one; but like every argument in support of subsidy removal, that too had the unintended effect of boomeranging on the government. So if subsidy is not reaching the people because some people are stealing it along the way; and the government knows who those people are, what stops the government from grabbing those people, squeezing what it can out of them, and then blocking the leaking holes?

In effect, this is the argument that almost everybody is making. Earlier in the week, leader of the opposition Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) General Muhammadu Buhari gave the government a summary of the whole argument that Nigerians have been struggling, in vain, to make the president understand: “Forget subsidy, tackle corruption”. Unable to beat that argument, the government then went theoretical, claiming that as an economic policy, subsidy is not sustainable. But many Nigerians have pointed out to the government that subsidy need not be viewed solely from an economic perspective; it is also a moral responsibility for the government to make life easier for the people in whatever way possible. Many knowledgeable Nigerians pointed out that in America, where capitalism is religion, the US government subsidizes agriculture by as much as one billion dollars a day to prevent its farmers from going out of business.

But for some very curious reason bordering on hypocrisy, the government seems unable to assimilate these simple but unassailable posers. When Senator Bukola Saraki first raised the issue of subsidy on the floor of the Senate, his point was less about the removal or retention of subsidy than about the dangers of overshooting the amount budgeted for subsidy by some seven hundred billion naira. Senator Saraki had argued that here was the need to investigate how this carelessness occurred and where this colossal amount of money went.

If the government had built its actions on that credible argument, it would have had no need to go through the tenuous, often incomprehensible, totally unconvincing argument that removing subsidy is a cure for the endemic and ruthless corruption in the oil and gas sector. This is where the government, specifically the president, is not making any sense at all. If, as the government is saying, subsidy is not benefiting Nigerians, then why should removing it push up fuel price by about 100 per cent?

Then again, by now, it probably makes more sense not to expect anything sensible from the present government. Everything that is supposed to be going up, such as security, healthcare delivery, qualitative education, is going down; while those things that are supposed to be coming down, such as corruption and insecurity are rising exponentially. Some economic experts, commenting on the 2012 budget have wondered how a nation with such appalling infrastructure deficit like we have, can commit only 28 per cent of its budget to capital expenditure as against a huge 72 per cent to recurrent (salaries, allowances etc).

So the sensible thing to do, where the government is concerned, is to seek for comic relief, which would be in no short supply. Last Friday morning for instance, at a Christmas carol inside the presidential villa in Abuja, Dr Jonathan, draped in a glittering white attire, said among other things, that: “There is no day that I don’t interact with Nigerians” (NTA). It was from that hilariously obvious statement that the title of this article was derived; thanks Mr. President, this time, at least, you managed to communicate—or interact—from whichever world you dwell in.