Nigeria
One Step Forward, Three Steps Backwards
Eze Onyeka, Benin City
The coup which overthrew the Shagari regime ushered in an advent of hope for Nigerians of all walks of life (at least the majority of us). Hopes that the corruption and indiscipline which plagued the Shagari regime and which the ex-President seemed either to condone, or at best, unable or unwilling to do anything about, was going to be put to rest were raised.
These hopes have not been in vain. So far, the performance of the Supreme Military Government in that direction has been commendable even if, as some sceptics say, this opinion has been borne out of the lack of information flow as a result of the fear of Decree No. 4.
The case of the Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Finance, Alhaji Abubakar Alhaji who claims to have lost a total of N40,000.00 in various foreign currencies in his hotel in Vienna where he was attending an OPEC meeting and the apparent silence of the SMC on the matter in spite of various protests voiced so far, however, cast clouds on this aspect of the SMC's performance and their vaunted determination to rid the country of indiscipline.
As I pointed out earlier, that has been one big step forward in a country where corruption and indiscipline is assumed to be part of the nature of the people and their psyche.
The launching of the War Against Indiscipline (WAI) has also succeeded in bringing some order in the everyday life of the average Nigerian.
Most people now queue to buy things in the shops and to transact business in the banks and other offices. People are being forced to use the pedestrian fly-overs instead of crossing busy express-ways and risking death,
There are a few miscreants though, but considering the magnitude of the problem before 31 December 1983, a lot has been achieved in that direction. There has been a really big step forward, no doubt. For the average Nigerian however, things have been turning from bad to worse with no hope in the future of relief.
The prices of consumer goods, especially food, have risen now almost beyond the reach of the average Niger- ian. A 50 kilogram bag of rice (Ameri- can long grain) which cost between N75.00-N90.00 in November 1983 under Shagari is now costing between N220.00 and N250.00!
A gallon tin of cooking oil which cost around N7.00 in November 1983 is now costing N33.00. A carton of Peak Milk (96 tins) which cost between N21.00 and N25.00 in November 1983 is now on the market for N60.00.
A cake of Lux toilet soap which cost 25k in November 1983 is now 75k (it cost N1.20 only two months ago!) and a large packet of Omo washing soap which cost N2.80 in November 1983 now costs N4.50 (this was also N8.00 two months ago!).
Gen Buhari
For some time now, reports of children being treated for "kwashiorkor" (a protein-deficiency disease) have filled the news pages of our newspapers.
This is a disease some of us naively thought affected only people in Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Ghana (where the name of the disease comes from), Chad and some of the "poor" countries in Africa - not Nigeria! Certainly not oil-rich Nigeria! But now, we have it with us and not on a small scale either.
Some time ago, we used to joke that it was only in Ghana that people queued for everything from rice to sardines, sugar, milk and toilet rolls. Now Nigerians are queueing not only for rice, sugar, sardines, cooking oil and milk but also for ordinary table salt. And Nigerians find themselves the butt of jokes by their ECOWAS brothers,
The tragedy of the situation does not lie just in the scarcities which have necessitated these queues, but in the loss of confidence in the government's ability to sustain supplies resulting in a mad rush to buy as much as possible to "hoard" (domestic hoarding, if you please) resulting in stampedes and regularly, in deaths in the queues.
At the last count, not less than 12 people have been reported killed either by crushing or suffocation in queues. There have also been a few babies delivered in queues too!
Then also is the retrenchments. It has been said, though not officially confirmed, that one of the conditions of the IMF for granting Nigeria her request for a loan to settle her external debts is the need to reduce the size of the public service.
This has resulted in mass retrenchments. At the last count again, the Nigerian Labour Congress laid-off, dismissed or retired 400,000 from the public service.
Meanwhile, school fees have been introduced in almost all of the 19 states of the Federation, including some of the areas in Papa Awo's Western States where education has been free from the Action Group days until 31 December 1983 when the present SMC took over.
Even in the federal universities, students and their parents have been forewarned to prepare to feed themselves as from the next academic year. Overseas scholarships have virtually been abolished and even those who are already outside studying are not getting the fees transferred to them - the result is that they are being sent out of their Universities and their flats for unpaid fees and rents!
The worst tragedy is first that nobody seems able to see in these sufferings a programme or ideology which will bring us to the "heaven" we all dream of which will make the suffering at least a lot more bearable, and that the Armed Forces, the ruling class now, do not seem to be part of this belt-tightening at all (they get these consumer goods at controlled prices regularly and there is no retrenchment instead it is being expanded!) The budget for the Armed Forces alone this year was more than half a billion naira!
This planlessness is quite disturbing and frustrating. So disturbing that the former Head of State Lt. Gene Olusegun Obasanjo has had to advise the present Federal Military Government of General Buhari to evolve specific goals and strategies that would both arrest the current dependence on imported food and raw materials and the general drift in the national policy.
Again, meanwhile a torrent of decrees have reduced that normally ebullient, expansive and confident Nigerian to a very circumspect, increasingly timid and frightened person.
It has become increasingly "unwise' to speak your mind freely on national issues without either being formally jailed by one of the numerous military tribunals like Thompson and Irabour of The Guardian or informally like Dr Tai Solarin of Mayflower College fame.
The personality and psyche of the Nigerian is steadily and consistently being destroyed by a myriad of decrees (25 now, over 8 months).
The situation has deteriorated to the point where a conference organised by the Armed Forces itself had to be abruptly stopped because of criticisms of the SMC by participants and a member of the SMC making it plain to the whole country that nobody should be under any illusions that the SMC was a military government and not a democratic one.
Meanwhile again, we are treated to a three-week diversion from the problems of the stomach, of jobs and livelihood and of personal freedom by the disgraceful and abortive kidnapping of Umaru Dikko. One step forward, three big steps backwards - we've made progress, haven't we?
