Sign of the times

These are exciting times. In addition to the count down to Christmas and the New Year, this is the time of year in years past that Banks and other enterprises awarded bonuses to workers and even paid a salary for the 13th month. There is also the excitement from politicians who are making statements about […]

These are exciting times. In addition to the count down to Christmas and the New Year, this is the time of year in years past that Banks and other enterprises awarded bonuses to workers and even paid a salary for the 13th month. There is also the excitement from politicians who are making statements about life more abundantly if they are voted – re-voted – to power. Sometimes it seems as if Nigerians have short memories and seem to forget the extent past political pledges have been redeemed or observed in the breach. There were – and has always been – the promises of moving Nigeria forward and providing jobs but, for all intents and purposes, jobs continue to be scarce. Instead of real jobs, Jobs, jobs and more jobs have transformed into some a huge scam. There are advertisements on street walls for jobs, some of these ads even indicate salaries. All of a sudden, there are jobs aplenty at least as advertised.  Are these real jobs, so plentiful now as to be widely advertised on every city wall?  I have heard someone warn in faraway Yola that some who called the phone numbers for “jobs” were confronted by offers most would not touch with a 10-foot pole – recruitment into Boko Haram ranks. In some other locations, there are fears that the recruiters might use the ads for easy prey for ritual sacrifice. Where are the security agencies in all these?

The ruling party ran an election campaign for jobs, jobs and pledged to create one million jobs annually. There is silence about the numbers created in the past two years. So, when another set of politicians reissues such promises, it is not just a case of déjà vu but one of déjà voodoo.

A visit to most state capitals show, not as many new roads but a plethora of posters about why the incumbent governor should be returned to government house. They harangue the electorate with all sorts of clichés: 4+4 in a sudden return to primary school Arithmetic; one good term deserves another, but no one is latched unto 1+1. They do not indicate how the current term was adjudged as good and what criteria were used. There are also lectures by the benefits of continuity but no one is asking continuity of what. In the previous dispensation, Governor Namadi Sambo, before he was kicked upstairs to become the Vice President, had a unique slogan, daram dam dam. I wonder if this seems to have gone into oblivion. 

I find the slogan in Benue for Governor Samuel Ortom very imaginative in combining a pun as well as a new vocabulary. His aspiration, to return to GHM is said to be ORTOMATIC; he later said it is a divine aspiration. Here and in all other states, the campaigners are silent about the performance, including the obvious challenge of salary payments.  Plateau State seems to be different, the workers, rather than campaigners now call the governor Simon Bako Laalert, instead of Lalong. He is said to have cleared salary arrears as well sends payment alerts before the end of each month. So salaries are being paid as and when due.

Beyond salary payments and other measures of achievement, others currently out in the cold are angling for power. There are big names as well as little known people. Alhaji Abubakar Atiku seem certain to take another shot at the Presidency. Given his antecedents, will he change parties again if his return to the People’s Democratic Party does not reward him with the presidential ticket? The word is now out, from the horse’s mouth that the incumbent President, Muhammadu Daura, intends to run again in 2019 – check out the various mobilization of the Buhari Solidarity Group. Also, some form of debate has commenced between President Buhari and the Atiku camp. The latter allege that the APC has failed to deliver on most of its promises. Also, the Buhari campaign has taken a swipe at the People Democratic Party for moneybag politics in the recently held convention. 

The debate, for all intents and purposes, has commenced between those acting out their ambition. There is however, some worry – the return of the same old hands who have little to show from past stints in power. This is the real problem for Nigeria – how long will the country lie supine for the same old politicians? The debate has revolved mostly around the same issues: access roads, water and electricity. I lost faith in their capacity for providing electricity when they brought back the forgotten dance step of DISCO! Are there no new hands to rise up and move the debate in some other direction, including the nature of insecurity and why there are multiple flashpoints; what to do about unemployment and the fate of youth who graduate from tertiary institutions annually? What about the bigger issues about the value of the currency which tumbled in the life of the current regime from N150/dollar to the current N320/dollar, supposedly due to market forces?   

The new issue is about petrol which in spite of huge jump in the pump price by this regime from N97 to N145 has suddenly vanished from the pumps. At first, the scarcity was only in a few locations, now it is nationwide. The rhetoric is however the same – some greedy dealers; some panic buyer and all the pathos. No one has explained why it seems so easy for greedy dealers to have their way in the distribution chain and who would be indulging in panic buying in an age where it is easier to find a needle in a haystack than getting the naira in the wallet.

The prognoses do not look good that the current situation would be resolved before Christmas, and thus placing enormous pressure on travellers for the holiday.  For petrol, all deadlines posted have passed with little improvements; in many towns the initial improvements have been replaced with longer queues. Then what is the fate of workers owed several months salary? When President Buhari met with the Governors two weeks ago, it was announced that 50 percent of the Paris Club refunds would be released to enable governors owing salaries to clear these before Christmas. In at least one state, the governor has said categorically that the fact of the Paris Club is true but any deadline of when salaries arrears should be cleared is a “misunderstanding” of what the President said. The unsaid reality is that anyone expecting all arrears cleared before Xmas would be sorely disappointed. 

And as the days roll past to bring in 2018, what really can we expect?  Would there, for once, be political parties which are founded on some ideology rather than the bland cliché of moving Nigeria forward? Would any party for the so-called common man, similar to Aminu Kano’s concern with the talakawa, eventually emerge? When would the real debate about where the privatization bazar and the sales of public property at rock bottom, and alternative development agenda begin? Would the intermittent fuel crises continue or would Nigeria now refine enough fuel for its domestic consumption? The idea of importing refined fuel is like asking my yam producing people in Benue State and elsewhere to send the yams somewhere to be pounded and buy the pounded stuff. Would there be any dint on youth employment, insecurity including kidnapping? Well, for the daily drudgery it all portends to be, in the words of a the famous Calabar man, life hard-ro.

Professor Alubo is on sabbatical leave at the Federal University Lafia