It is said that Nigerians are the happiest people on the planet and it is easy to see why. If there is one thing we have become versed in, it is living in the hope that things are about to get better. In this instance, hoping that the change promised by President Muhammadu Buhari’s government will soon come. As the popular Nigerian parlance goes, “One day, one day, e go better.”
While we hope that the budget is speedily approved, fuel shortages end and electricity supply improved, we might as well be called “hope and change” (no pun intended). After all, hope maketh not ashamed and change is the only constant.
So, we are not ashamed that the budget is yet to receive presidential assent as lawmakers and the executives continue negotiations on what projects to restore or remove from the spending plan. Basically, it’s a political standoff between the two arms of government. Sadly, like the Nigerian adage goes, when two elephants fight, it’s the unfortunate grass underneath them that come off worse.
Recall, I warned that Nigerians should prepare for more drama because President Buhari wasn’t going to back down easily. The president wasn’t going to just close his eyes and let his pen slide to the dotted lines and append his signature to the budget. I can only imagine how much the president had to shine his eyes even with those pair of spectacles he uses.
A senior government official who didn’t want to be named said to me last week, “The president cannot sign such a mutilated document. It is a fraud. They removed serious projects such as the rail projects and replaced them with their constituencies’ projects. Senator Goje and others replaced rail projects that will have a positive impact on the lives of majority of Nigerians with boreholes and bicycles for their constituents. That will not work.”
Let us agree that this official was trying to vent his anger by painting a picture of trivial items included in the budget. But it is in fact a tradition now new for senators to include their constituency projects in the budget. But then, don’t you agree that there should be priorities for the greater good?
Typical of Nigerians, everybody latches onto the narrative of the budget has not been signed. Even the local pepper seller would tell you, “Madam no be me cause am, them never sign budget.”
I am hoping that the budget will be signed this week after the president and the National Assembly sort out their impasse. I think there will be some horse-trading and the president may end up signing this budget, and then submit a supplementary one at a later date. So we’ll continue to wait it out and hope that one day Nigeria and Nigerians will come first in the hearts of those who make decisions for the country.
On the fuel queues, it’s safe to say fuel scarcity is now part of our national life. The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) should hide its head in shame because despite several assurances and deadlines, shortages persist and the fuel queues have refused to go away. The irony of this latest round of scarcity is that in the midst of a global petrol supply glut, Nigeria, Africa’s biggest oil producer and the world’s eighth largest, is reeling from severe scarcity that has almost grounded the economy. Only a fool goes thirsty in the midst of water.
Yet, Nigerians are hopeful that one day all of these will end and things will change for the better.
Last week, the Federal Executive Council held one of its now unpredictable meetings. This was one of the president’s first appearances since his return from China. I can imagine the number of files on his table that he had to go through and the updates he would be given especially on the budget matter. (Don’t get me wrong here; the president receives briefs every day, no matter where he is.)
After the deals signed in China, I would imagine the president may want to deploy a let’s-take-a-step-back-and-watch-how-it-turns-out strategy. The currency swap deal was supposed to make a whole lot of difference and reduce pressures on our foreign exchange. Maybe it did because naira as reported to have firmed up. Naira gained in the parallel market from 322 to the dollar in the previous week to 317 last week as the Bureau de Change (BDC) operators claimed they were already seeing less dollar demand.
Well, I do not want to dwell on the currency swap deal, just to paint a picture of our president as a master chess-player, sitting behind his huge mahogany table in an all-white office, with his spectacles atop his nose watching the turn of events.
On the lighter side, let me take you back to where I started about hope for a change. The greatest strength of Nigerians is the fact that they have hope and they tend to turn every situation into something cheerful. They have successfully turned the hardship that comes with the fuel scarcity situation into something they can once again laugh about.
As I drove by a petrol station one night, just gauging the situation of the queues for myself, something brilliant caught my eyes. The queues which the NNPC presumed to have reduced were long and winding. A group of men wearing boxer shorts and white singlets lay on the bonnets of their cars conversing away. A few cars away, another man had put up a mosquito net covering his car, it was propped in a way that would allow him lie on the bonnet and still be protected from mosquitoes. I couldn’t stop myself from laughing and agreeing that Nigerians see fun in everything and that is how they survive such a horrible situation of queuing at the petrol station for hours on end and still go back home to darkness.
Well, President Buhari, I need not remind you that Nigerians have great hope in the change that you promised and are eagerly waiting for it. We are losing you. You are talking but we can no longer hear you, our sufferings are beginning to overwhelm us. Do something before our hope fails us.
Elizabeth Archibong
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