• Tuesday, April 30, 2024
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BusinessDay

We all can now go to sleep

Thus saith the lord?

Happily, now that our top government leaders are just mute and staring at us like a spectator to a funeral procession, we can now go to sleep since we are in the era of autopilot.

Since it’s a funeral procession, the hearse is being glared at by the President, what else can the horses do if not to gloomily and persistently pull the carriage onward?

At first, it all started with a circus show of not going after the Non-State Actors who have sadly nationalised terror onto law-abiding citizens of Nigeria, but instead openly declaring that any citizen(s) that happened to make ransom payments to regain his or her freedom will be prosecuted with the full might of the state.

With so much alacrity, on 19 May 2021 Punchng reported that the Senate proposed a terrific 15-year jail term for Nigerians (only Nigerians) paying ransom to kidnappers. What were they expected to do? Perhaps families that have any member[s] being held hostage by kidnap cartels should have just gone to sleep on a five star hotel bed I guess.

Katsina and some other states quickly stepped up to the rostrum to explain why and why concerned families will not make payments to facilitate the freedom of abducted family members, with plenty of identical reasons as to why there are no payments for freedom.

I think that the show got so interesting when the NYSC top echelon started to urge Corp members to learn how to dialogue with bandits should they be kidnapped while serving the fatherland

As seen on ThisDay paper, The Special Adviser to Governor Bello Of Kastina State on Security Matters, Alhaji Ibrahim Ahmed said ransom payments means to encourage and empower bandits and kidnapping cartels.

No doubts to the obvious, but this he said without any alternative, directives or assistance as to how families could ensure the freedom of any abducted family member.

I think that the show got so interesting when the NYSC top echelon started to urge Corp members to learn how to dialogue with bandits should they be kidnapped while serving the father land.

Then again, the opera house opened for a vibrant rehearsal, the federal government just paid half salaries to university staffs.

Let’s keep on playing okay, even before the Infamous ASUU industrial action of 2022 was called off, all the negotiations were marred by obvious nonchalant behaviours of the various representatives government stake-holding department.

If you ask me, i will humbly suggest that the University staffs should not take the half payment to heart. At least for the nation’s good.

The academic union once again started to institute fear in the hearts of students, who were expecting another sad-long industrial action as a reaction from the union due to the embarrassing salaries paid by the government.

Maybe The DSS should be at the helm of affairs of NNPC and DPR matters, nice job done under hours than what the DPR and it’s sister agencies could ever achieve in the past years.

Where and what is the linkage between the Secret Service Police and The Department Of Petroleum Resources? So far this unseen linkage yields good nation building results, it is highly commendable.

Perhaps the Secret Service Police have seen the nonchalant, no goodwill atmosphere around the oil sector, hence its involvement.

Recall that before the DSS order, Premuim Motor Spirit (PMS) was sold at a whooping sum of Three Hundred Naira per litre in most states in the country.

This hike in petrol price by the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association Of Nigeria (IPMAN) came at the usual onset of Yuletide, which will definitely incite and excite avaricious persons to full exploits. The DSS order at the time ushered in a level of decency in pump prices, but at the moment the order have lost it’s taste. Now the order is no longer being obeyed.

From Owerri, Imo State to Lagos transporters have resolved to charge passengers the sum of Nineteen Thousand Naira, that’s if you are travelling by bus. While last year during the Christmas period the same service was paid for at Ten Thousand Naira, that is an increment of Nine Thousand Naira.

On the other hand Sienna transport services from the Eastern countryside to the West goes high up to Thirty Thousand Naira. A Civil servant’s monthly minimum wage gone in a matter of seconds.

The drivers says that it is the Petrol price that is the cause. For months now we have been looking up to the presidency to intervene, but then it is very obvious that the presidency is fast asleep and have engaged the nation in autopilot mode.

Away from the cost of transporting Nigerians around the country, foodstuff prices seems to be trying to lunch into outer space, even without the help of relevant space agencies. The prices are just too much for ordinary Nigerians.

Once again PMS price is being blamed and the minister for petroleum is seen everywhere around the globe telling country leaders how to promote sustainable growth and living in their respective country.

Read also: Insecurity, executive impunity may mar 2023 polls, says Yiaga Africa

After the ASUU strike, school fees for Federal Universities where raised way up above the living standards of citizens.

A once forsaken discipline such as Soil Science which no one was once attracted to earlier, now pays the sum of Eighty Thousand Naira per academic year in most Federal universities. This is soil science and not Medicine and Surgery or Engineering or Law.

Where will parents get such amazing amounts from, considering the no-fees no-exams by Federal universities, is it not just better to go asleep since the President is asleep too while the nation is in ruins?

It is a big shame that Nigeria is in such state yet no intervention from people that took months to campaign and beg for the masses votes to climb up the ladders of power, upon being granted power they have now left the same masses to rot in de-service.

It is an aberration, a fiasco that we are dying in our house from starvation and our father is around the neighbourhood preaching on how to sustain life and giving alms.

Since the arms of government are asleep and the nation is in autopilot, maybe we should catch a sleep too-but with one eye open.

Our voters card and might is our opened one eye, sleeping does not imply to slumber or comatose, let’s do something on February before they take away the essence and joy of living from us.

Allwell is a concerned Nigerian, keen on nation building