Crazy hike in prices: Time to birth new orientation
Nigerians are stretched beyond the limit. Things have never been so out of hands. It is unbearable. Hardship stalks the land in fury, eliciting excruciating suffering and groaning. Prices of commodities have gone up astronomically, far beyond the reach of the common man. How can a bag of rice be sold for N75, 000? A bag of beans for N100, 000! A bag of garri for 16, 000! A pack of spaghetti for N14, 000? A bag of cement for N14, 000! A kongo of rice is now sold at the price a bag is sold about 12 years ago. Prices of every commodity have criminally and crazily skyrocketed. This is in the face of low income earnings. Businesses are crashing and shutting down at an alarming rate, pushing many more people into the labour market. In the face of this food anomie the age-long assertion that we don’t see hunger-induced corpse on the street might become outdated. Though it appears to be a global trend Nigerians shouldn’t be experiencing such despair. Nigeria is a blessed country with large reserves of natural resources that can be turned into plenty. We have only failed to harness the resources to create wealth and abundance. It is a perfect reflection of suffering in the midst of profusion. This shouldn’t be so. We however push out the argument that we are all as a people responsible for the price calamity besieging us, though governments we agree take the bulk of the knock for their ineptitude and lack of vision. We submit further that Nigerians generally perhaps never understood properly the nitty-gritty of modern governance; hence the blithe latitude afforded the leadership class. There are several ways to portray this detachment and disconnection from governance by the people. Government is powerful but Nigerians make them more powerful by the excessive reverence accorded the functionaries of government, an attitude fueled by cupidity for immediate benefits. A religious house will elaborately celebrate a visiting top government functionary, heaping encomiums on him even amid the present price quagmire. The congregation though famished and heckled by privation will be carried away for that moment, overwhelmed by pleasure to being host to such “dignitary,” moreover by an expectation of donation. The visitor departs with a deep sense of fulfillment, pleased by the warm reception, without a glimpse of discontent in the visage of the congregation. The exhilaration masks the true feeling of the people. In the same manner, we lack courage to say it as it is to government. We are rather master grumblers. We are never strategic, we never allowed coordination to take root, we are haphazard and weak, and these, the government leaders exploit to perpetuate their insensitive acts. Our prejudice is another factor taken advantage of by the people’s exploiters. Someone belonging to our religious faith, our tribe, our clan we most times refrain from dragging when he foists misrule; we form shield of protection round him and he too, knowing he has the back of some people, is not challenged to selflessly seek and proffer solutions to the problems assailing the nation. He continues to be lackadaisical while the nation reels in despondency. In addition, despicable sabotaging just to ensure failure of a government is always rife in the country. Many subterranean plots, conspiracies are often hatched for selfish reasons, borne by envy to provoke failure and present a particular government as clueless.
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The calamity that has befallen the nation is a collective responsibility that requires joint effort to topple. It is a cumulation of decades of retrogression, recklessness and bad governance. Government is the major culprit as highlighted. They have extensive resources at their disposal with which they could change the narrative but lack the stimuli to do so. Insecurity is a major disincentive; the government can do much more in tackling the menace but doesn’t position itself to do so. Farmers have abandoned farms due to the nefarious activities of bandits and herdsmen. Government falters in that direction and the victims persist to languish in lamentation, thereby engendering food shortage. Government closes borders without corresponding effort such as giving incentives to stimulate local production. Naira continues to dip abysmally against major currencies in the face of stringent policies and almost absent domestic production. Speculators and manipulators are active driven by greed to rip the system.
On a final note, the government of President Bola Tinubu is challenged to engineer feasible programmes and policies to halt the slide. It is believed he was quite aware of the enormity of the crisis before setting out to assume the task. His best effort so far has failed to yield the required results. His constant promises of renewed hope, of a good life to be unraveled are becoming stale, now being seen as a scam. They have all been rhetoric. The only thing that can renew people’s hope is to begin to witness positive change. Since the advent of his administration, nothing can be pointed to as a heartwarming achievement. Even the N35, 000 wage award he promised federal workers is not being implemented. What has been happening to the humongous amount accumulated from stoppage of fuel subsidy? Roads under construction before his coming are now being abandoned. Electricity supply has gone worse. Gloom engulfs the land. The whole ground is strewed with craziness. But more importantly, the people are enjoined to begin to imbibe a new growth-inducing orientation. We need to change our mindset individually and collectively. We need to murder the pull-him-down syndrome deeply entrenched in us, and start to look at the bright and good aspects of things/individuals rather than always focusing and exacerbating the dark dimensions. People who are within the orbit of our influence who could have initiated little little developmental programmes and efforts we hastily judge, run down maliciously and scare away. The attitude of over-sabi, though we are ignorant also needs to be snuffed out. The culture of conspiratorial, mischief and envy-engendered criticism is deep too, and also is stagnating the system. Or why does every measure of reform fail? Still emphasizing on this, there are many who will pour into the street today if there is military putsch in the country as if that is will set us permanently in the path of achieving our dreamed country. It will only bring temporary relief and soon the country will revert back to the era of the locust. What we need is to be more involved, stop looking at government functionaries as all-in-all, as a clan that can’t be chastised face-to-face or publicly. We need to extricate our fears of government. These are few of the things we are of the view will help to get back our country. A critical look at our miniature societies mirrors this, yet we are hypocritical. If we cannot manage ourselves effectively at a micro level, how will we at a bigger stage?
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