Corruption

RE: Nigeria: Revolution is Our Last Option

/ Adeola / 6 Comments

Here is another article published earlier this year. We must never forget these things.

First Published February 27 2011

Adeola Aderounmu

The most consistent message from my articles since 2002 is that without a revolution ordinary Nigerians-more than 70% of the population- will never experience the good life and that the situation will get worse as the status quo in Nigeria is maintained or sustained.

This means that unless something drastic happens in Nigeria [something with magnitude and effect greater than the Northern African revolutions] mass poverty and penury will remain the portion of the larger percentage of the people.

In general the decadence in the society and the hopelessness that affects more than 90m Nigerians today will persist. More than any other country in the world Nigeria needs a revolution.

Just the other day Dimeji Bankole consoled himself on his personal fears and anxiety about a Nigerian revolution that will consume him and his likes. He said Nigerians have democracy and that the types of revolutions we see in North Africa cannot happen in Nigeria.

Does this dude even know that the standard of living under a dictatorial Mubarak was fear better than all the stupid forms of government that Nigerians have experienced and endured?

I have written several times that anyone that says that Nigeria is democratic country needs to see a doctor to ascertain the state of his/ her mental health.

I don’t know if Dimeji and all the politicians parading Nigeria and looting at will need a reminder of how they got their political appointments or selections. To make a generalization-almost all the political offices in Nigeria in the forth coming April elections are already determined and known.

I see a collective madness when the generality of Nigerians subscribe to the word “democracy”. Nigeria’s mad politics needs to be defined and explained. This is going to be a long essay.

In Tunisia the people rose against a family that controlled more than half of the country’s economy. In Nigeria the task is bigger. We are not dealing with a family. We are up against a gang of political robbers spread across Nigeria who with the consent and support of a few among us have found ways to suppress the genuine aspirations of the good people in Nigeria. We live as slaves and subjects. The expression “fellow Nigerians” that usually comes from Nigerian rulers is a figment of their imaginations.

In Nigeria we are dealing situations that have been made complicated by the exploitation of our cultural and ethnic diversities. The things that should have been used for the development and progress of Nigeria have been hijacked by these evil manipulators to create disunity and a perpetual means to enrich a few and enslave the rest of us. I refused to be manipulated.

Has anyone suggested to Jonathan, Dimeji and David Mark that they should all try to live on the minimum wage of N18 000/month for at least 3 months? These people are heartless bloodsuckers!

When I wrote My message to Nigerians in 2011 stop saying it’s God, I was emphatic on the need for Nigerians to emerge from their places of worship and confront the order of things. I was calling for a mass revolt that will overthrow the persistent illegitimacy in Nigeria and put a final end to the deep-rooted corruption in the system.

When I wrote is revolution our last option, I already knew it is the only way forward for Nigeria. In the last paragraph I stated that: this country belongs to all of us and it is our right to participate in the matters that shape our lives. The last probable option will be to do it by force. The people must utilize the best option that is open to them so that prosperity can be a bestowment to the generations unborn from this land flowing with milk and honey. That option in other words is the revolution.

When I wrote what happened to a cup of rice at 30kobo, my idea was that we must take back Nigeria now so that it will be ready for our great grandchildren by the turn of the next century. My views remain the same. Nigeria must be taken back from the oppressors, thieves and looters.

When I wrote who planned our lives in Nigeria, the aim was to sensitize Nigerians on the need to choke the greedy people out of Nigeria and for us to start a new plan. Sweden started with great reforms about 100 years ago and Tunisians are writing a new chapter in their history. All great countries made changes and reforms, at some points in their histories.

My code red to NVS was a message that I wrote specifically calling for the overthrow of corrupt regimes in Abuja and across all the states in Nigeria by the ordinary people who love Nigeria. In that essay I mentioned that it was time to move our online activism and demonstrations overseas back to Nigeria where the real action is.

I was called a preacher man. In the Middle East they are called “The Generation changing the world” (Time Magazine Feb 28). No one mocks people calling for changes that are overdue.

I haven’t read anywhere online or elsewhere where Egyptians at home are calling on Egyptians abroad to come home to lead a revolution. Libyans at home are doing the work while those abroad are mounting international pressures. What has also happened as we see even in Bahrain is that exiled politicians are returning home to join the revolts and to contribute to the new reawakening.

As recent as December 2010 a friend spoke to me in Nigeria and said, Adeola why don’t you come back home and write all these stuffs. Nigerians have been poisoned by this sort of layback mentality. I didn’t have enough time to tell him the risk some people are taking for Nigeria even after liberating themselves from the social malady and absolute madness in Nigeria.

I didn’t have the time to tell him about the various types of emails that I have been receiving from across the world and the fact that when I walk down the streets of Lagos I don’t know how anonymous I am really. My pictures are all over the web and my real names go with my opinions. Even the people who love me have warned me not to step into Nigeria or they encourage me to take alternative routes to Nigeria.

Nigerians need a revolution now, not later. It is not even worth waiting for the forthcoming election that has already resulted in the murder of several Nigerians and which, if care is not taken, may rank among the bloodiest elections in Nigeria. Jos and Maiduguri are indicators that cannot be overlooked or underrated.

Nigerians should come out in their millions and take back their country from the people in Abuja and other parts of Nigeria. Six months ago no one thought that Ben Ali dynasty could be wiped away from the surface of the earth. But it happened! Nothing is impossible. Where there is a will, there is a way.

Ben Ali was swept away. Why not Babangida as a Nigerian example? This man should be arrested and all the treasures of Nigeria in Minna, Paris, Switzerland and all other places should be taken back. Tunisians took their stuff from the former first family and burnt the rest. Nigerians must have clear cut goals and pursue them to the last letter.

Obasanjo should be made to return anything in excess of his salary from 1999-2007. Let’s do the calculations, how much do these rogues earn? How much do they have in their bank accounts through self-enrichment and abuse of offices?

Nigeria’s revolution should usher in the longest trial of corrupt people in human history. At that point Dimeji’s razzmatazz would not save him from all the allegations of looting hanging on his neck.

Nigerians can do the work that Ribadu refused to do because he was one of them anyway.

The Nigerian revolution should sweep away all undesirable elements in the Nigerian public service. David Mark, Dimeji Bankole and all the gangs in the Nigerian National Assembly and the House of Representatives should be made to return all the excess monies they have taken since 1999. How on earth can these rogues be allowed to take away 25% of Nigeria’s wealth while the rest of us are suffering?

Imagine how much monies the governors and ministers have stolen in Nigeria! What about commissioners and the rest of them?

In the whole world there is no greater need for revolution than in Nigeria.

Nigeria has reached the turning point. She must not refuse to turn. The momentum and impulse sweeping across Africa and the Mideast must not be allowed to hover around Nigeria just like that. Nigerians must harness and impact the wind of change.

There is a global support for change to usher in a better world; Nigerians cannot afford the luxury of wasting this golden moment in history. Change is now.

Change is now because even as I ponder this article a friend told me: Adeola, look, if you are a Nigerian politician, you must steal! He gave me the alternatives. If you don’t steal, you will be killed! If you don’t steal, the people under you will implicate you in deals. If you don’t steal, you will have problems.

This line of argument-that I must steal-is like a recurring decimal. I don’t win because Nigerians have a malformed mindset of the meaning of governance and public service. I have not been able to convince any Nigerian that rather than steal or loot, I will leave office or even die. They said it doesn’t happen in Nigeria.

I cannot wish more for a revolution than now and today. Many Nigerians have been brainwashed and even brain-damaged that they speak unthinkable things and give their supports to extreme anomalies like corruption, tribalism, nepotism, national character, sabotage, looting and many other vices.

My point?

We cannot continue to live with these anomalies and aberrations. Despite all the corrupt people and all the people who are waiting for their turn to loot or benefit from loot, there are people in Nigeria who can rescue Nigeria.

But the challenges are hard and difficult.

When I walk down the streets of Lagos I see that the people are totally disconnected from the politicians who are looting and deceiving them. The hopelessness and struggles in the Nigerian society has rendered millions of Nigerians powerless and voiceless.

Many are disillusioned by perpetual failure of governance and unmet expectations.

We described Nigerians as resilient people whereas in actual fact it is the government that has systematically zombified the populace. Imagine that Nigerians are going to vote and try to protect their votes in elections that some people already know the outcomes.

If you make a simple prayer like “May Sango strike dead any Nigerian politician that try to cheat in the forthcoming elections”, no Nigerian politician will dare say Amen or Amin.

The revolution coming to Nigeria must help us do away with this type of banana republic where a group of politicians prepare election results, force their way to INEC offices, bribe the soldiers with N50 000 each and announce the results they have made to tally with estimated voters from each constituencies.

This according to Obasanjo, has been the tradition since 1959 and in 1999 Atiku and Obasanjo perfected the same stupid strategy for the PDP. In 2007 Obasanjo, Iwu and Ibori did the dirty jobs for Yar Adua and Jonathan.

Since 1999 I have been careful not to carelessly address any Nigerian ruler as president. I have also been careful not to succumb to using the phrase “elected into office”. I refused to live with the nonsense that Nigerians called politics or elections.

I want to continue to raise my heads high. I also want to be able to say one day “there are no bases to lower the cognitive abilities and intellectuality of the black people using Nigerians living in Nigeria as the yardstick and our electoral process as a parameter”. Today the arguments are not in my favour so I don’t undertake them.

Today I cannot prove that a godfather collecting N25m monthly from a state is not mentally deranged or intellectually fatigued. Those giving away the funds too must be mad or something but then it’s called payback. In today’s Nigeria it is hard to prove that the people in the Nigerian senate and house of assembly are not deficient in their cognitive abilities if they earn the most money in the world doing almost nothing and living among the poorest people on earth.

In the future someday our great grandchildren will be able to use other parameters like GDP, family planning, level education, level of infrastructure, equality, growth index, social awareness, social justice, national insurance policy and several more as the lasting bridges of common human intellectual capacities.

The foundation for such a future must be laid now and revolution is the only way out.

The present government in Nigeria was borne out of illegality in 2007 and should be flushed away. The attempt to legalise it this April 2011 is not coming with a promise of better life. In such a short time, the illegal government of Jonathan has almost drain Nigeria’s foreign reserves. What a prodigal son!

Still Mr. Jonathan owes the people of Bayelsa both apologies and restitutions for the funds that were looted by him and his boss Diepreye Alamieyeseigha. Jonathan’s wife may suffer the same fate as Ben Ali’s second wife if our revolution takes place today.

I am talking about sending not only Jonathan to exile but also members of his family and over 120 personal assistants.

Together they are sucking the people dry in probably the most expensive government in the world.

Those who say revolution is not possible in Nigeria are viewing the extent of the damage that has been done over the past 50 years and counting on the mummification of Nigerians. But why should they also neglect the possibility of changes and the hope of a better future for our grandchildren that are not yet born.

Who says it’s too late?

Everything that is wrong and bad in Nigeria can be corrected through this revolution that will send all corrupt people to either jail or exile. It will serve as a long lasting solution to addressing national issues. The revolution will not end after one night and the changes will not appear in a fortnight. These things are processes. A journey of a thousand miles still needs one bold step to begin.

The greatest crime ordinary Nigerians are committing against themselves is their collective passivity and their continuous hope even in the face of outright hopelessness.

What is imperative now is that we need a revolution in Nigeria and it is something we must undertake.

Nobody has to worry about leading the revolt. Revolution takes its own shape as it unfolds. The prime thing is to have agenda, demands and the right to self-determination.

I have seen different Nigerian groups on Facebook. What we need is a group of selfless individuals who can harness these various groups under one umbrella. Nigerians must find their common grounds. If we succeed we will create the largest online revolt forum. From that point we can start to see and take our destinies in our hands.

I have no doubt in my minds since I wrote my first major article in 2002-why politicians steal-that the only option for Nigeria is a revolution.

While Discussing NLC, Mass Revolt and the Coming Revolution 2 years ago I thought that the nationwide protests by the NLC could usher in the revolution but it didn’t. Such demonstrations must now return with full force because together they still represent a viable option to rescue Nigerians.

The future of Nigeria is in the hands of Nigerians.

The outcome of a Nigerian revolution will help the Nigerian people to negotiate on the way they want to pursue their lives, how to seek happiness within Nigeria or without it. The sum of all our collective decisions will help us to determine the way forward.

Nigeria’s politics today is the single biggest investment for fraudulent minds. It is a disgrace to the intellectuality of the African race. It does not represent the change we seek and it does not signify the hope we can believe in.
Nigeria needs something that will bring all the corrupt rulers and politicians- both in past and present dispensations to justice now. Enough is enough, it’s been 50 years of waste and rot.

I am sure that it is only a revolution that can bring about a new order and glimpse of hope for the future for Nigerians.

Every Nigerian Family To Get N1 billion For Food?

/ Adeola / 2 Comments

Why Every Nigerian Family Should Get N1 Billion As Feeding Allowance..!

BY Adeola Aderounmu

Goodluck Jonathan receives a monthly salary as the president of Nigeria. But it appears he needs subsidy (tax-payers money) to be able to feed his family.

I think this is both a shame and a scandal. He is planning to take away fuel subsidy but he is providing food subsidy for his family.

Why can’t Jonathan feed his family? Nigerians should be asking questions and not just follow-follow!

Why must the presidency claim almost N1 billion from tax-payers money for food?

If Jonathan needs N1 billion to feed his family why does the budget not include a similar amount for every Nigerian family? Don’t we all need food?

We, as Nigerians, are given N18 000 monthly as our basic minimum salary and we are expected to pay our rents and feed our families from this meagre sum.

But a man who sits in Abuja controlling all the monies in Nigeria had the guts to make a separate N1 billion Naira to feed his family. By the way, what are they eating?

Nigerians should tell Jonathan that they cannot pay his salary and feed him at the same time. He must learn to be content with his salary.

We are told that Nigeria borrowed money to supplement the 2011 Budget. What nonsense! Was part of the borrowed money also to feed the president and his family?

Nigerians have a moral obligation to end the reign of the PDP and start a new form of government operated from the regions and full of accountability. The time has never been so right..!

The War on Fuel Subsidy: Isn’t It Time for Jonathan To Get Out of the Way?

/ Adeola / 2 Comments

By Adeola Aderounmu

By removing subsidy Mr. Jonathan and Mrs. Iweala are trying to save N1 000 000 000 000 but together with others before them they have all stolen more than N60 800 000 000 000. Is it not wiser to try to recover the stolen monies by fighting corruption TOTALLY? So much for Iweala’s Havard Education and IMF employment.

If Jonathan and PDP remain in 2012, I won’t recover from the shock..!

Nigerians should resist by any/all possible means the proposed removal of the subsidy on petroleum products.

If the pump price of petrol hits N140/per liter Nigerians have a duty and the obligation to make the country ungovernable for Mr. Jonathan. Since Nigerians insisted in April 2011 that they voted for Jonathan and not the PDP, then a moral obligation here is to ensure that they remove the evil they accidentally or stupidly voted for.

At that time, Nigerians should demand for the sack of Ngozi Iweala. This is the same woman who in connivance with Obasanjo ensured that Abacha’s loots disappeared into thin air. Now she is the champion for the removal of subsidy.

No Nigerian politician or Minister will be affected by this policy because they steal and loot as they like. Instead it the people who are already poor that will become poorer. More than 90m Nigerians live from hand-to-mouth, mostly on less than 2 dollars / day.

Already since many years now, many civil servants don’t go to work daily because of insecurity and the cost of transportation. With the removal of subsidy the cost of transportation will be one of the highest in the world on some of the world’s worst roads!

When the cost of transportation increases, the cost of food will increase and hunger will become more rampant. A spiral effect will ensure and the cost of housing increases. In a country where unemployment is a way of life, crime will increase and insecurity will reach an unprecedented height.

And the thieves in Aso rock and other government houses will continue to merry and loot. This is probably the last chance for the Nigerian revolution!

It is time for the people to seize their regions and stop this homage to Abuja. For the government that has always denied the people an open referendum for how to lead their lives, there will probably be no better opportunity for self-determination than now.

Jonathan as a typical corrupt Nigerian politician has refused to confront the hydra-headed problem which itself is corruption. If you are corrupt or you have skeletons in you cupboards, then it is clear you cannot fight corruption.

The same goes for Mrs. Iweala and the zeal with which she is pursuing this evil agenda.

Otherwise all the corrupt people in NNPC should have been prosecuted by now. All the corruption around the Nigerian oil should have been tackled by now. Jonathan came to power in April 2011 and it is business as usual.

Instead of rolling out a blue print for Agriculture and how our mineral sources (including Uranium) will be used in 2012, Mr. Jonathan and Mrs Iweala are reading out riots acts. Jonathan stated that he is ready to confront the demonstrations that will follow.

It appears that N921.9 billion for “war” in the 2012 budget was not only for BOKO HARAM war. Part of it will be used to fight the people and kill the voters if possible. The evil in PDP will be manifested more than ever before in 2012.

Iweala and Jonathan want to save N1 Trillion. I challenged both to them to prosecute all the corrupt politicians in Nigeria, they will emerge with more than N60 Trillion.

They can start with the USD12 billion that Babangida cannot account for. They can then proceed to the N16 billion that melted away under Obasanjo while pretending to be fixing the power problem.

Even Abacha’s loot should be retraced and Iweala can tell us what exactly happened to the recovered loot. What she must not say this time is the lie she told a few years ago: that the money was used to execute projects that pre-dated the recovered loot.

In several ways and through several avenues, Nigeria can recover billions of dollars of stolen funds that will make the proposed removal of fuel subsidy a useless adventure.

In that sense Nigeria needs strong men who can take actions and prosecute thieves and loots. We are tired of weak men and weak women like Mr. Jonathan and Mrs. Iweala.

Nigerians have only one major obligation in 2012, to end the PDP Regime in any way they can as a way forward..!

Nigeria’s EFCC, Toothless Bulldog Just Fooling Around..!

/ Adeola / 1 Comment

By Adeola Aderounmu

It does not matter..!

EFCC is not about Ribadu who Obasanjo messed up with the third term wahala. It is not even about Waziri who like her boss Yar Adua wasted both space and time. And who is the new, old guy in the hermaphrodite commission.

Let’s get it straight. We have a system that needs to be overhauled. This means that 99.9% of the people ruling Nigeria today need to be swept aside and sent to kirikiri or mental homes for their incurable lootocracies!

All these stories about change of EFCC bosses every now and then are meant to create distractions and media entertainments. Imagine the parties and ceremonies that would have been thrown by those whose candidate is now the head.

In a country where the police are efficient the likes of the people ruling Nigeria today will be cooling off, marking time. They won’t even be there to change the redundant and figure head anti-corruption bosses.

We know that no country is free of corruption but when the thieves are known and walking free, even oppressing us, it is too shameful and over scandalous!

When the Jonathans were still in Bayelsa Mrs. Jonathan was twice accused of stealing. The tragedy is that the two cases were inconclusive. What would have been the true stories if all the corruption cases in Nigeria are allowed to run conclusively?

Who knows where the Bankole story will end.

Many things trouble me, even the thoughts of David Mark and his presence in the looting business since the days of Babangida or before. Incomprehensible it is..!

The euphoria of the change of baton will soon simmer and looting as usual will continue. As the years go by, the loot increases and the poverty level in Nigeria gets bigger and more devastating. This is the greatest pain ever in my heart, to see a people suffer in the midst of plenty and doing nothing about it.

Nigerians are not too serious. They are not demanding. Else the 12 billion from the gulf war will surface tomorrow morning because Babangida who stole or took or kept them is still alive.

If that new, old guy at EFCC wants me to take him seriously he should open the case and put Babangida on his toes, not just for the 12 billon dollars oil windfall but for all the looted funds that covers 8 wasteful years.

When he is done with that, then he can proceed to the next big deal which is the open files that Obasanjo and Atiku made available to the press during the third term roforofo fight. Everyday in the newspapers we saw original copies of looted funds by Obasanjo and Atiku. It was a fight to finish but we let them off the hooks, just like that!

So if EFCC has no work, they should at least open those files and bring these thieves to judgement.
After that he can even arrest or press Ribadu so that he can release all the files about all the corrupt governors that he promised to prosecute when the immunity shield was over in 2007.

What I am trying to say is that the EFCC is a toothless bulldog and has no real function or meaning compare to the scale of corruption, looting and impunity in Nigeria.

The EFCC will never be able to deviate from his selective prosecution process. Somehow some people are mildly punished like Bode George and Tafa Balogun and Igbinedion. They get to keep most of the loots after plea bargaining or 6 months to 2 luxurious years behind bars.

EFCC cannot deviate from selective prosecution because of the way Nigeria’s primitive politics is operated. The system is completely jagajaga. Sanity is an aberration in the Nigeria’s corridor of power.

There is no genuine anticorruption war that the EFCC will start that will not consume all the past and present governors, past and present Ministers, past and present legislators-federal and state, past and present commissioners, past and present local government chairpersons. Even personal assistant and media spokespersons will be consumed, they are all corrupt o jare !

I state boldly and categorically that there is no genuine anti-corruption war that the EFCC will start that will not consume the past presidents and the serving president in the person of Goodluck Jonathan.

Why are we fooling ourselves?

In Nigeria corruption is a way of life.

Nigeria’s needs to be straightened up and this must start from the top. If the head of the fish is rotten the entire body is bad, smelly and cannot be eaten.

Nigerians should do all they can to replace their “heads”. The heads should be cut off or replace every time it goes bad so that the body is not infected or contaminated.

Nigerians are the ones who need the power, not the EFCC. It is sad though because Nigerians don’t know how to utilize people power which is a function of numbers.

Until Nigerians learn to use their numerical strengths to change the order of things, 90% of the population or more will seep deeply into poverty level. They may never recover!

So the debate is not about EFCC but what the people can do to save the regions or the country itself and make it habitable for the unborn generations.

Have a good life Mrs Farida Waziri. Enjoy all the money you stole or recovered loots that have no traces. It is not different from Abacha’s loot that Obasanjo and our imported finance Minister did abracadabra with.

Enjoy all the gifts and all that.

What a country..!

I agree with Reuben Abati: It is Time to Stone Those in Power

/ Adeola / 1 Comment

By Adeola Aderounmu

In 2009 Reuben Abati recommended that it will soon be time to start stoning the economists in the corridor of power in Abuja. In 2011 I strongly recommend that everyone in the corridor of power and all those who are called stakeholders who have supported the removal of the subsidy on oil and oil products should be stoned.

Goodluck Jonathan has pinned the reactions of Nigerians to the proposed removal of subsidy on those who want to throw him out of office. I say that he fired the first rounds of shots on his legs. If this will mark the beginning of the end for his insensitive regime, let the occupation starts.

I want to ask the same questions that Reuben Abati asked in 2009: How? Where is this subsidy that government talks about? How was it disbursed?

Reuben Abati wrote in that headline that Nigerians will soon be trekking. Sadly enough Nigerians have actually been trekking before 2009. I remembered trekking from festac town to CMUL during the 2001/2002 fuel scarcity. I had obligations that couldn’t wait.

In 2011 Nigerians are not only willing to trek, they appear ready to march down the Jonathan government that has come to be characterized by weakness in all its ramifications.

From one generation to another, the Nigerian government presents a constant image of a permanent aggregation of dubious elements. In my personal opinion I have concluded that no amount of additional suggestions or written essays can solve Nigeria’s problems.

Are there problems facing Nigerians that the solutions have not been proffered here in the Nigerian Village Square or elsewhere where Nigerians display their intellectual capabilities? Do we have problems in Nigeria that we have no discussed about openly? What has happened to their implementations?

I believe so much in the solution proffered by Reuben Abati. Even so because when it is carried out it will consume people like him. I like such solutions that will not spare the hypocrites, the pretenders, the sycophant and the famously corrupt people in government, many of whom have recently been rewarded by meaningless national awards over several years.

I can’t imagine how people receive national awards in one of the most corrupt countries in the world. How does it feel to receive national awards in a country with one of the highest child and maternal mortalities in Africa? How does it feel to receive awards in a country where electricity is almost absent? How does it feel to receive national awards in a country where public education is almost grounded?

If Nigerians obey Abati’s call by simply rising up and stoning the people in the corridor of power, I am convinced that the revolution we long sought will start. It might be ultimate the clean-up we have waited from since 1960.
It is sad how things have turned out for the ordinary Nigerians. On a poverty wage of USD 113/ month, a Nigerian is expected to pay his rent, bills, and sundries. There is no greater miracle on planet earth than a Nigerian living on N18 000 per month.

In a country where more than 20% of the population is unemployed, I have found it hard to find a greater tragedy against the back drop of the immense natural resources and potential human resources.

If there is any country in Africa where the government should be giving relief packages to her citizens after 50 years of misrule and leadership failure, that country is Nigeria.

In a twist of test of resiliency the ordinary masses will be insulted further. For failing the build or maintain functional refineries, for failing to fight or curb systemic corruption, for failing to deliver on the so-called dividends of democracy, the insensitive Nigerian government now headed by Goodluck Jonathan will make Nigerians suffer even more.

Rather than relief package the economic team of Goodluck Jonathan, his executive council and the so-called stakeholders will deliver loads of additional burden onto Nigeria.

The arguments are hinged on the famous textbook concepts rather than the realities on the ground. There are no arguments that the Jonathan government has put forward that is different from what Obasanjo and late Yar Adua proposed. In all the previous partial or total removal of subsidies that have been used to increase the pump price of petroleum products, there has never been a corresponding increase in the quality of lives of the Nigerian people.

There is absolutely no reason to believe or trust the Jonathan government. It represents the PDP government that has held sway since 1999. The PDP is the largest aggregation of corrupt people in Africa. Under the PDP the quality of life has declined sharply at the same time that the cost of it has continued to increase unhindered.

This, as Jonathan feared in his recent utterances that the opposition wants to bring down his government, must be the last test of resiliency for Nigerians. Any attempt to increase the burden of Nigerians should be met with the highest possible resistance. The opposition that I see is the over 90m Nigerians living below the poverty level.

The argument that the state governors are in support of the removal of fuel subsidy does not hold water. Which governors? We know they want more money from the 52% that the federal government has been looting for several years because they are all the same birds. Why should what the governor wants be a benchmark for what the people want?

Why do the extremely rich but corrupt people in the corridor of power think that they know what is good for the suffering masses? When will the voices of the people start to matter democratically, if truly we are under a democracy?

I think it is sad and disappointing that Jonathan think that only the people in the middle class who have 4-5 jeeps will be affected by the subsidy removal. A lot of middle class Nigerians are even still struggling to maintain their statuses and to continue to pursue a happy life.

The dynamics of the Nigerian economy certainly reveals that the masses are the end-receivers of failed policies. When the subsidy is removed there is no doubt that the cost of transportation that is already exorbitant will increase further and the prices of dietary and other consumable products will follow the same curve.

We cannot live in denial and allow those who are shielded from the reality of everyday existence since they got to the corrupt corridor of power speak for us any longer. Reuben Abati and the other advisers cannot speak for the masses. Nigeria has not improved since this administration started wasting our time. Policies or parameters that neither put food on the table nor increase the quality/standard of living are abstract and worthless.

The practical situation in Nigeria today is worse and even more deplorable compared to 2004. Someone, an ordinary Nigerian who knows where the shoes hurt, wrote today that Nigerians should be ready to turn sand to food. In all sincerity he was not joking and he didn’t think we should laugh about his comment. People are suffering.
Nigerians need relief packages and they should be brought forward now.

If this virtual subsidy on oil products is removed and Nigerians remain resilient, it means our collective “suffering and smiling” will continue. It also means that People Deceiving People Party and the team of political and economic looters who are blind to the reality of a daily Nigerian life have succeeded again. Our glory is not yet come and that is so sad and disheartening.

aderounmu@gmail.com