RANDOM MUSINGS:
THE MAKING OF A DICTATOR,
FUEL – GOING? GOING? AND ONE OTHER THING.
with
Ben C. Abraham.
THE MAKING OF A DICTATOR?
It is increasingly looking like what transpired between Comrade Joe Ajaero with his fellow chieftains on the one hand and the President on the other hand during the minimum wage negotiations did not sit right with Tinubu and his men. Since the N70,000 deal it has been one controversy or the other. The #endbadgovernance protests happened and a perfect setting was laid out for the Government to cut Ajaero to size. The Labour house was invaded and sensitive documents were allegedly retrieved. Then Ajaero was invited by the IRT, a police unit in Abuja. Days later he honoured the invitation but no sooner had he finished the 1-hour meeting than another invitation came, this time from the FCID, also in Abuja. The allegations bordered on cybercrime, breach of the peace and malicious damage of property inter alia. While all these happened, the NLC top echelon rallied and put all affiliates and unions on alert for another round of strike. As usual, arm chair analysts and influencers on Government payroll went to town to denounce Ajaero while accusing him of being politically motivated in his activities. Then on Monday 9th September, while on his way to UK for a global Trade Union meet Ajaero was picked up by the DSS at the Airport in Abuja. He was handed over to the NIA. The talk is that Ajaero had avoided several invitations by the Police and other security agencies based on several petitions against him. A petition concerning Air Peace was also mentioned. While that was playing out, SERAP, a civil society and good governance organization with a track record of performance cried out that men from the DSS also visited its office and invited a Director for a chat. In this season of the weaponization of treason and treasonable felony charges by the Government we don’t know what they will end up being accused of. SERAP has been a thorn in the butt of many Governments including the present one and they hate such guts. It is such guts that make Ajaero a target that must be weakened or outright eliminated. Meanwhile the NLC held an emergency meeting and put all its unions and affiliates on the highest level of alert. A dictator is in the making and incidentally many Nigerians are either too ignorant to read the script or they are happy seeing someone they hate being targeted by the Government. By the time the dust settles, there would be no more opposition and it will be full bloom dictatorship. The #endbadgovernance protests have armed the State with a ticket to pick up just about anyone and label him a treasonable felon. The next months will be interesting.
FUEL AND THE AUCTIONEER’s HAMMER;
N568 per litre going, going; N897 going, going; and who knows the next ‘bid’? maybe N1300 per litre, N2000 or even N5000 as speculated by a Labour Union chieftain. The progressive increase in fuel price in Nigeria is gradually looking like an auction. The difference in this ‘auction’ being that the increasing price is pushed down the throats of Nigerians by the auctioneer, NNPCL, without giving the supposed ‘bidders’ any say in the matter. On May 29 2023, our President, oven fresh and steaming hot at his inauguration had declared matter-of-factly that petrol subsidies had been wrenched off. Few months later, the CBN deregulated or floated the foreign exchange regime thus removing any Government control in the allocation of the precious dollar. President Tinubu was later to confess that he acted on the spur-of-the-moment as he was seized by some force on the day he made the end-of-subsidy declaration. Ever since then it has been more of the need to keep a strongman mien than any other economic or fiscal consideration that has prevented Tinubu from a volte-face. And since then the price of fuel has been doing the gwo gwo gwo ngwo dance made popular by the creative skit maker Brainjotter. On Tuesday 3rd September the NNPCL decided to up the pump price again after weeks of scarcity and speculation, this time to N897 per litre. As usual, the majority of Nigerians will buy from other major and independent outlets in the hinterland and far flung states where it is sold above N1000 per litre. In making the announcement, NNPCL stated that they were indebted to the tune of $6.8bn and were running short of supplies. How they incurred the debt we were not told but their spokesman had stated some time ago that they had stopped paying any Organization subsidy even though they also admitted to paying the difference between the actual cost and the selling price (another kind of subsidy). Earlier this year, the NNPCL had gleefully announced that they made a profit of about N3trn for the year 2023. We don’t know what to believe. Nigerians daily wake up to hear one story or another, stories that don’t change their lives or provide any let off from their yokes. Today the worst nightmares are here and the system has been so rigged that no messiah is in sight for Nigerians. Well, God dey.
……AND ONE OTHER THING:
THAT REPORT ON INSECURITY;
Last week, a report made available by Beacon Consulting revealed that insecurity had worsened under President Tinubu’s Government. The report stated that between May 2023 and September 2024, about 13,346 people had lost their lives to banditry, herdsmen attacks, terrorism and other forms of social disturbances. Not done, the report added that in the same time frame, 9,207 persons were abducted in various parts of the country. The reasons adduced for the spike in fatalities and abductions include economic hardship and disequilibrium. Sometime in July, Governors of the North west States organized a security and peace summit in Katsina and President Tinubu, in his address, described the ongoing insecurity as ‘inherited security compromises’. And this ‘inheritance’ has neither been contained nor reduced. It has worsened under Tinubu’s watch and he has not batted an eyelid. The report by Beacon Consulting, grim as it is, may not have captured everything that transpired in the period. Such reports are based on formal cases incidented or reported at the appropriate agencies. The numbers could very well be higher; deaths and abductions. The situation is getting out of hand and even the military looks overwhelmed especially in the Northern part of the country. Also last week, Governors in the North East end cried out over the pogrom that was carried out in Yobe. Over 300 were killed. Official reports put the figure at 87. ISWAP, a twig of the Islamic State Movement claimed responsibility for the massacre. President Tinubu was in faraway China when the news filtered in. Before then, Bello Turji’s ‘boys’ had filmed themselves as they decapitated two Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles of the Nigerian Army and scavenged its entire cargo chiefly ammunitions. The video went viral and the Army have struggled to explain what transpired. Not a few Nigerians speculate that it was a ‘donation’ or trade off. Nobody knows what to believe. The speculation gained much traction when some interest groups in the North warned Tinubu against making peace or striking a deal with Bello Turji. There is definitely something they know which the majority of Nigerians don’t. In all of this who is the victim? Poor Nigerians whose only mistake is being in a geographical space cursed with bad leadership.