How We Help Governments to Fail: A Rejoinder to "Nigerians are to be Blamed for the Fuel Crisis"

It is shocking that a fellow Nigerian who goes through the pains of this fuel crisis will wake up and write a piece which says that Nigerians are to be blamed for the shortage in fuel supply. As I read that article, I was speechless especially given the examples the writer proffered to support the claim. For me, this is taking freedom of expression too far. It is like seeing a child in her mother's lap wailing at the top of its voice and then a passerby goes to blame the child for crying while condoling with the mother. A mother may not know what is wrong with her child but it is solely her responsibility to make sure the child stops crying. As such, she must do all she can to ensure the child is at peace.

I recently spoke with a friend who duly absolved this government of blame. His own response is that the marketers stopped lifting fuel because the President is insisting that their vessels must be sighted before subsidy payment is made. He claimed that under the previous government marketers collected payments without delivering the goods. It sounded very convincing and I sympathized with PMB - he must sure be a busy man in trying to keep tab of all the vessels that arrive our shores with PMS. It sure isn't an easy job as I contemplated what fool-proof means through which he makes sure that subsidy payments are made solely to those who actually bring in the product. In this man's explanation, I was made to refocus on what this government is doing right and ignore the unwarranted difficulty I am facing which goes against his campaign promises timeline.

As for if this isn't enough, a fuel attendant on hearing my complaint about the cost of the product tells me that we are just suffering what all the evils the previous government committed in the petroleum sector. I almost reminded him that fuel crisis in Nigeria pre-dates PDP governance. Then I saw that his face looked as if he's one of those born after the 1990s and I forgave his amnesia. I can understand during the campaign that every problem is Jonathan's. But now, a new and better Jonathan is in the saddle. Nigerians didn't vote him to give excuses with his predecessors, but for him to sort out the mess that they made. He may sure be doing that right now. But how do we know what he's doing when he hardly speaks to us?

Yet another person told me that the problem is because as two more refineries repaired by PMB are about to go into production, marketers have seen that their business of ripping us off is about to end, so they go into their grand finale in order to make their last monies before the golden era VP Osinbajo has been celebrating actually reaches every nook and cranny of the nation. The truth here is that Aso Rock insulates these our leaders, making them oblivious of the harsh realities Nigerians are facing. The worst enemies Nigerian leaders have are the aides the choose for themselves. They make or mar them! Blaming the average Nigerian who merely wants the basics of life which only government can provide is the highest level of rascality, callousness and insincerity. How on earth could any right thinking person blame me for wanting to fuel my car? How do you define panic buying when I need to go to work and I need my car to do it because there is no reliable alternative public transportation system? So if the fuel finishes in the tank, I should go and park the car in order to avert panic buying? The Dr. kachikwu that was talking, when was the last time he visited a petrol station to. It fuel for his car? Even he gets to an NNPC station, he will sure jump the queue. 

Nigerians are to be blamed, my foot!

In my line of work, am accustomed to students' discussions about their results:

"Babes, what did you get in that man's course."

"I got an A. Trust me nah!" comes the reply. "You, nko?"

"Hmmm! That wicked man gave me F."

"Haba! That's bad. What happened?"

"It's just God that will punish him. Idiot!"

They make A's but are given F's. This is what is happening here. I supported PMB, so I couldn't have been wrong. If there is a problem now, it has to be from the previous evil regime or it has to be Nigerians and their panic buying. And in this I ask: Where is the change? Have we forgotten so soon that "panic buying" response from Petroleum Ministers whenever there is fuel scarcity did not start today? It has always been the official line: "We have enough supply in our depots, Nigerians should not indulge in panic buying because it is creating artificial scarcity." And yet, the crisis persists!

Leadership is an act and needs to be shown. It is not executed by body language (a new addition to our lexicon since Baba entered Aso Rock). Allow me to go to Paris again and draw examples from a true leader, President Hollande. Since the Paris bombing, bros has addressed his people and just this evening, he is in Moscow after visiting Berlin, Washington, Rome to drum up support for the renewed fight against ISIS. Back home, his Interior Minister keeps the people abreast of developments through periodic press conferences, telling people what the government is doing and how far investigations are going. All these because of the shootings in Paris recently. The number of people that lost their lives there may not equal the number of victims of a single bomb blast - Yola or Kano. Yet, like the people we replaced them with, this government never deemed it fit to address us and reassure us that measures are being taken to stem the tide of terrorism here. We recently saw pictures of dead soldiers circulating on the Internet. Did anybody come up to tell us they were fabricated or give an explanation? No! It is bad for government, so who is that person that even circulated it in the first instance? They must be GEJ/PDP supporters.

I have said time without number that the problem with Nigeria is not PDP. The problem is our mind-set. We support the irrational and rationalize the indefensible just to retain parochial proclivities. While GEJ was there, some of us were shouting to the rooftops about the myriad misdeeds. But for some, why condemn him. He is one of us. And so what? I didn't support PMB even in my condemnation of GEJ. I wished there was a third choice. I wished the El Rufai's, even Sanusi's and Fashola's would have their time. I felt that the APC was wrong in its choice. Now, six months down the line, I am yet to be convinced that I was wrong. This government is failing in my eyes because it is showing the same signs of failure that its predecessors exhibited before their colossal defeat. A president that only speaks when he is abroad exudes something. Indescribable. I think that the fuel crisis has reached that point where we need to hear the national anthem played early evening or morning on TV and then we see our leader who incidentally is the "substantive" Minister of Petroleum tell us exactly what is happening. Do we know that there is a way that man will talk and Nigerians will happily go out and buy fuel at N400 per liter? That's leadership. 

President Hollande is doing it well. But I won't say the same for the leadership across its border. The Belgian government isn't saying anything about what it's doing. And just this evening, the reduction of the threat level is unjustified given that there was a threat against a mosque in Brussels even though it ended up being a hoax. Let it be discussion for another day. Make I sleep!