ADVERTISEMENT
That there is always a raging battle between the governed and government is understandable.
The former, made up of fortune-seekers, experiencing varying degrees of insanity, are often not conscious of the sources of their nightmare. The latter, in power at the behest of the rich owners of society understands very clearly that their mandate is to maintain a delicate balance between the masses and their oppressors whose only desire is to preside over an empire of slaves. However, because of few evil men and women in government, the masses as Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, then Minister of Finance, found out during the 2012 fuel subsidy debacle, are often “cynical and distrustful of government”.
Unfortunately, journalists who as students of society understand that it is the governed that needs the government more are the same people that often portray government as Leviathan, a fearful sea monster that must be brought down. Government job is not made any easier by the fact that it is almost impossible to serve as an impartial umpire in the battle between the parasitic owners of society and the masses on whose blood they feed.
A quick journey through memory will show how demonization of government by the media in recent years has only prolonged our nightmare.
Between 1979 and 1983, Adisa Akinloye, Shehu Shagari and their National Party of Nigeria (NPN), despite warning by Chief Obafemi Awolowo that the ship of state was heading for the rock, crashed the economy through massive consumption of imported branded Champagne, rice and other manufactured goods from Europe. And fearing the loss of the 1983 election, they adopted Walter Ofonagoro’s dubious theory of “landslide and seaslide victory’ in opposition strong holds, to steal the 1983 presidential election.
Then their nemesis came in the person of Muhammadu Buhari. Although burning with a patriotic zeal to serve, he was ill-trained in the art of managing society. He betrayed his incompetence when he threw all politicians irrespective of the level of the guilt into detention without following due judicial process. Ill-advised, he dared the West by rejecting unsolicited IMF loan. He then challenged Nigerian consumers of foreign goods to produce their own wheat if they wanted bread or starve if they could not plant their own rice. I think Nehru, who insisted Indians should go naked if they could not make their own clothes was his role model. He took the battle to nosey journalists, jailing reporters for reporting the truth and executing drug pushers with a decree with a retroactive power.
Buhari is unhinged, so declared Nigerian journalists. To show the pen is mightier than the sword, journalists mobilized human rights lawyers and civil society groups to wage a vicious war with Buhari. Why would he not provide palliatives before asking us to plant our own wheat; we demanded. We played into the hands of America, who working hand in gloves with greedy Nigerian importers of labour of other nations, sponsored Bababngida’s palace coup.
For betraying Buhari and the Nigerian masses, some leading light of our profession such as Chief Duro Onabule (editor of National Concord) became Babangida’s Chief Press Secretary while Tony Momoh, a celebrated editor of the Daily Times became Minister for Information. Babangida despite opposition of Nigerians, took the IMF loan, and in the name of Structural Adjustment Programme, opened our country to importation of goods from all over the world.
Our budding industries, textile, pharmaceuticals, electronics, car and truck assembly plants collapsed. Our naira that was in 1983 stronger than the dollar exchanged for $1 to N6 by 1986. The JAPA syndrome started with our university lecturers and experienced doctors migrating to Europe and Canada.
But it was a payback for the media. While Buhari only jailed journalists for reporting the truth, Babangida according to Gani Fawehinmi, parcel-bombed Dele Giwa in his study. Journalists went Afghanistan or underground. His henchmen, Uche Chuwumerije and Walter Ofonagoro closed down all private newspapers throwing all journalists into the labour market. Babangida and Abacha waged war against Nigeria until 1998.
In 2012, we once again betrayed Nigeria. In 2009, a sub-committee on fuel subsidy regime headed by Isa Yuguda, a former managing director of NAL, a former governor of Bauchi and a former minister of state, aviation, had confirmed the fuel subsidy program was a scam. A similar probe by the National Assembly in 2011 also confirmed that against NNPC 59m litres per day claim, the nation was consuming only 35litres, resulting in the theft of some N667billion daily by some Nigerians. In 2012, President Jonathan’s Imoukhuede Committee on Fuel Subsidy indicted 21 firms and directed recovery of N382 billion. President Jonathan decided to end the fuel subsidy scam.
Again it was the media, the self-declared hero of the masses that led the war against President Jonathan. Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN) organized a town hall meeting to provide a platform for self-serving human rights lawyers and civil society groups, NLC and NUT to blackmail Jonathan.
Okonjo-Iweala, the Minister for Finance said ‘removal of fuel subsidy will free N500b as intervention fund and another N500m for infrastructure”. Her argument was rejected because of what she described as “cynicism and mistrust of government”.
Sanusi the CBN governor’s argument that to “continue borrowing and subsidising fuel consumption is to saddle the next government with a heavy sovereign debt crisis”; and that spending N13 trillion on fuel subsidy, will not allow us to “build up our reserve, stabilise our exchange rate, maintain stable rate of inflation and sustainable debt’ fell on deaf ears.
The Nigerian Labour Congress NLC, Trade Union Congress (TUC) mobilized “the fit, sick, rich or poor, young or old, artisan and professional, religious leaders’ across the nation for mass protest. Octogenarians including Tunji Braithwaite, Kalu Idika Kalu and Ben Nwabueze were not left out in all-out war against Jonathan. The Convener of Save Nigeria Group (SNG) Pastor Tunde Bakare anchored the protest”.
In 2012, inflation projection was 14%; today it is 24%; the nation’s debt profile has moved from N7,564.4 billion to N49.85 trillion; fuel subsidy expenditure has also moved from N1,23 trillion to N400b monthly. Today, “the smuggling of subsidized petrol”, according to President Tinubu “depletes Nigeria’s economy by as much as N4.88 trillion yearly”. That only confirmed his unassailable position that fuel subsidy scam must go on the first day of his presidency.
Dear compatriots, even with all the facts before Nigerians, labour, promoted by segment of the media is still threatening to go on strike except palliative is first provided as we did back in the eighties. Those who think we can continue to do the same thing and expect different result are supporters of our enemies, the parasitic rent seekers and evil men in government including the one from whose house EFCC allegedly found about 40 state-of-the-art cars and tons of naira equivalent of about N70b last week.
Yuguda, asked by Channels Television what he thought emboldened Tinubu to do what Presidents Jonathan and Buhari could not do, spoke of political will and fear of owners of society. But if you ask me, I will say courage failed them because they were betrayed by the media. The difference today is that, those who engage in balance of terror through misinformation, mischief and blackmail and falsely swear in the name of the masses even as they serve the owners of society as slaves, understand that with President Tinubu, it is now going to be a balance of intellectual engagement.
Peoplesmind
