ANOTHER PROPHET NATHAN STORY

It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself. 
- Eleanor Roosevelt (1884 -1962)

If you were a bible-story loving kid, then you’ll remember the story Prophet Nathan used to illustrate to King David, his greed in going to sleep with another man’s wife- Beersheba, trying to get the man- Uriah- to cover up his (David’s) act by asking him to leave the field of battle and go home and lie with his wife, finally killing the man when his cover-up attempts failed, and taking the man’s only wife to be one of his wives. There’s also the story of Jezebel’s act of ordering the false accusation and subsequent killing of Nabaoth just so that her husband, King Ahab, could acquire Nabaoth’s garden, after Nabaoth had refused to bequeath his family-inherited garden to the king. These two bible stories are very similar in that the rich tried to exploit the poor of the little they had; and when their attempts failed, they resorted to eliminating the obstacles in their way- the poor. Incidentally, these stories don’t happen only in the bible.

A news headline on Channels (or was it AIT?) caught my eye this evening- “NNPC explains why kerosene is being sold above the official price, wants more Nigerians to use cooking gas.” My first reaction was, “Are these guys for real? Where do they expect the 70.8% of Nigerians that live on less than $1 per day to get the money to buy and maintain cooking gas from?” And then pondering further, I even got more agitated- "What’s wrong with kerosene being the major cooking fuel in Nigeria? Why can’t it remain at its current N 50 per litre naa?" Sifting through recent news items on the matter, I came across an interview granted by NNPC’s MD, Andrew Yakubu, wherein he stated that diversion of the kerosene products by marketers and sharp practices by middle men were the reasons why the price of kerosene skyrocketed from N 50 to N 150 per litre overnight. He also mentioned plans to remove subsidy on kerosene! Does that sound familiar? Similar reasons were given by Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala and co when they had to take out the subsidy on PMS.

Which reminds me, where is that subsidy money sef? Apart from the YouWIN programme which I believe is purely based on merit, what are the rest of the PMS subsidy funds being used for? I know for sure that buying of buses for states- were those buses for commercial or state government use sef?- and paying stipends to the elderly are just cover-ups for some heavy money looting. And that Graduate Internship Scheme that pays N 25k per month that will perpetually keep its participants within the 70.8% living on less $1 per day, considering that they’ll be expected to send money home from time to time. Apart from these four projects, what else is the SURE-P using the $1.2 billion the government would have spent on fuel subsidy annually for?

And let me even get to that NNPC sef. Was it not towards the end of last year that CBN governor, Mallam Sanusi Lamido, wrote to President Jonathan, pointing out to him that NNPC has stolen $49.8 billion meant from the Nigerian Treasury? That’s the one he and his team found out oh. What about other frauds yet uncovered? And NNPC has the guts to ask the rest of us to either stick it out with the 200% increase in kerosene price or save ourselves the trouble and go get a cooking gas! Meanwhile, refilling a 21 kg cooking gas cylinder costs 'only' N 3, 300.

For how long will the petroleum regulatory agencies in Nigeria allow themselves to be cowed and bullied by so-called cabals, marketers and middlemen? When will the masses stop paying the price for the outrageous malpractices of the Ogas-at-the-top? Is it not high time the Nigerian government started living up to its primary definition as the group of people with the sole authority to govern a country or state? And most importantly, when will our leaders finally start to sacrifice portions of their obese salaries and allowances to alleviate the suffering of its followers, since they are unable to overcome the strong hands looting our commonwealth daily? We can't continue to be the only ones making these huge sacrifices while our leaders go home everyday with huge Ghana-must-go bags.

It's very sad that Nigeria is a nation where the government is sooo disconnected from the people that appointed leaders in various positions can institute careless policies, come to the media and shamelessly defend them and still the people don’t argue or revolt but just mentally recalculate how they are going to adjust to the latest dictatorship situation. Good luck to us as we continue in this manner. I just hope that most of us don’t eventually get eliminated under these burdens, because some of us, most certainly, will.