Thoughts on palliatives and total cure

This process is fraught with a lot of risks. The most frequently encountered problem is that of flammability of the bitumen itself whilst the heating is going on, normally in open drums. The above preamble is just setting the stage for the analogy I will be making shortly as regards the present removal of subsidy. […]

This process is fraught with a lot of risks. The most frequently encountered problem is that of flammability of the bitumen itself whilst the heating is going on, normally in open drums. The above preamble is just setting the stage for the analogy I will be making shortly as regards the present removal of subsidy.

In a typical heating yard, while the heating of bitumen is in process, precautionary measures requires the ready availability of buckets of water coupled with handy sachets of detergents which are used in the frequent dousing of the flames that invariably come about from time to time.

Now for the sake of this analogy, let us imagine also that next to this heating yard is a large public vegetable garden that also requires water for its flourishing and also a laundry industry in need of the detergents for its use.

As long as the heating of the bitumen continues (and it must, to bring about the desired liquefication), the amount of water available to the public vegetable garden is minimal because most of it will be required for the inevitable frequent dousing of the flames, so also will the availability of the detergent to the launderette be in short supply.

Now we know as a fact from science that continuous combustion is aided by the continuous availability of oxygen and the converse is also true. In order therefore that the flammability of the bitumen in the drum be stopped completely while the needed heating is going on, a thick metal lid must be used to cover the drum to starve it of the oxygen that sustains the combustion.

The effect of this singular brave act (brave, in the sense that to cap an open drum under heating, one must come near the heat) of putting a lid on the drum is as follows:-

a) It stops the fire in the bitumen immediately by starving it of oxygen in one fell swoop. B) It frees up the whole buckets of water for use at the public vegetable garden with the attendant obvious benefits. C) It also frees up all the detergents for use at the launderette. D) It saves the bitumen in the drum from going up in flames thus making most of it available for the needed road works. E). It saves all concerned a lot of energy that would have been needed in the frequent dousing of the flames.

To bring my point home therefore, let me relate these objects/characters to the case at hand:

1) The oxygen that goes into the drum and causes combustion are the cartels that benefit from the subsidy. 2) The oxygen in the firewood is the mechanism of governance that drives the nation’s economy. 3) The metal lid used in starving the oxygen that finds its way frequently into the bitumen thus making it to combust is the full subsidy removal. 4) The buckets of water and detergents are the frequent insufficient interventions that past governments have been employing to free some needed money for development. 5) The public vegetable garden is the national infrastructure that has been suffering from years of neglect because part of the needed funds for development has always been wasted on the altar of subsidies. 6) By saving the “dousers” energy, it frees up the energy for use elsewhere, where it is properly required. From the above, one can deduce that the real culprit is the oxygen that goes into the bitumen in the drum from the top and not the one at the bottom that is doing the heating. The only thing I will implore Nigerians to do therefore is to protect the “freed water” from going to private vegetable gardens instead of fighting the courageous act of subsidy removal which is sine qua non to economic development

Abiodun  G. Samuel, a civil engineer, wrote in from Kaduna