INTELLECTUAL and spiritual poverty can cause people to believe just about anything, but thinking that there’s any glimmer of hope with the present policies of the Federal Government has to be classified as a form of mental illness. Last week, as a patriot, I made a number of practical suggestions to help the Bola Ahmed Tinubu government, and I do not know if they even attracted official notice, but there is one thing that’s incontestable: Nigerians are currently ‘collecting’ (suffering) by the dozens, loju paali, as the Yoruba would say. In street lingo, to “collect” is to endure deadly blows to your body, and that’s exactly what Nigerians are experiencing at the moment. But that’s not even the point: the point is that with the Presidency’s insistence on its fuel subsidy and naira floatation policies, the poverty that will afflict the Nigerian masses is actually only just lacing its shoes. There’s absolutely no hope on the horizon unless and until the government reverses these punitive policies. The government installed an unprecedentedly large cabinet, went after yachts and jets, and created new ministries and agencies, and somehow things are going to turn out well because the masses are now paying through the nose for thick darkness, and buying fuel at killer prices? Are you kidding your kidney?
I say again: most Nigerians CANNOT afford to eat yam: they are now looking at yam from afar. A regular tuber of yam costs around N4,000. We have a criminal collection of rulers here who believe that it is their job to keep the refineries in other countries busy while Nigeria’s literally rot. They eat palm oil, the product of refinement, daily, but expect ghosts to refine the oil Almighty God blessed Nigeria with, proving that they are nothing but agents of Lucifer. When, out of deep concern for the masses, you call these mad men bridegroom in order to get them out of your way, that is when their head swells up and they begin to speak British English while the people they preside over live worse than British dogs!! I am no longer appealing to anybody.
For weeks now, I have been focusing on the poverty in the land. That’s deliberate: the smith who applies the sledge hammer to a solitary spot isn’t engaging in it for sport: I am only documenting the pains of the masses and stacking up evidence against the rapacious, criminally illiterate, irredeemably corrupt rulership that parades the corridors of power in this clime. If Obafemi Awolowo had behaved like the criminals who rule us today, they would be wheel barrow pushers today, exchanging blows with their colleagues over cigarette butts, and killing their kidneys with sachet alcohol.
In his speech reacting to last week’s hunger protests, President Tinubu adopted a blatantly godless, devil-may-care, callous indifference to the people’s plight. Tinubu made it clear he’s in power for himself (Emilokan), not for the people, and certainly not for any protester even though in his days outside Aso Rock he had pretended to protest against the system that gave him stupendous wealth. Proverbs 6:9-11 says: “How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep? Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man.” Let those sleeping in presidential palaces take note. They will only breed poverty and despair.
The initial title I was going to give this piece was: the impending doom of the Nigerian masses. As a writer, I write exactly what I see and I am not beholden to anybody. It is true that I have spotted some humility in Tinubu but the speech he gave last week is nothing but outright demonism. And contrary to the lies peddled by our politicians, the capitalist countries they ape with ludicrous self-abnegation are subsidy payers par excellence. Anyone who believes that the criminal betrayal of the masses through the precipitate removal of subsidy and floatation of the naira is going to lead to a glorious dawn is an apprentice clown. The U.S. government heavily subsidizes its agric sector, oil and energy producers, automakers, housing, and healthcare. It even subsidizes other countries, giving over a trillion dollars in aid to just five countries between 1946 and 2024: Israel ($337.0 billion), Egypt ($198.9 billion), former South Vietnam ($193.8 billion), Afghanistan ($168.5 billion), and South Korea ($127.6 billion). It subsidizes the fossil fuel industry, and it is not alone: fossil fuel subsidies hit a global high of $1 trillion in 2022.
In December 2022, the Pedro Sánchez government approved new measures to alleviate inflation and protect the most vulnerable groups in that country whose football you so much loved to watch, particularly when CR7 used to ply his trade there. What did it do? It eliminated VAT on basic foodstuffs, gave money to families with low incomes, and extended the reduction of taxes on electricity and gas. In addition, it committed to revaluing pensions by 8.5 per cent in 2023 to assist pensioners. At the time, Sanchez said something no one should ever forget: the government was allocating necessary resources to protect the social majority of the country.
If the government had not done that, the people would have rioted and destroyed everything in sight. You think Europeans are gentlemen? Have you not seen English thugs scattering a stadium? Try and get on their nerves! As for Americans, they would have gunned you down before you realised what hit you! The majority of American youth are far more insane than Portable, and it is subsidy that is keeping them in check. When German lawmakers recently approved cuts to farmers’ fuel subsidies, it sparked angry protests. In any case, this year, the German government has a subsidy worth 5.5 billion euros to cushion the impact of electricity prices on consumers. From 2010 to 2013, French expenditure on subsidies hovered between 14.4 billion euros and 12.5 billion euros. French farmers currently receive an annual €1.7-billion to get cheaper diesel to run their machinery. If you are French, you are entitled to health, pension, life and disability insurance, death insurance, as well as unemployment benefits and workers’ compensation. What are we entitled to as Nigerians?
Re: Tinubu in troublous times
What a fantastic write-up as always. Well thought out. But I don’t see Tinubu having the “Courage and the Political Will” to implement those laudable and practical actions you highlighted in your article. Sanni Taofik: 0805 225 4329
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