Last week, the video clip of Nollywood popular actress, Adah Ameh trended like the notorious coronavirus all over the social media space. She simply reminded those in authority what they already know but have refused to do. She was pointedly bitter and blunt in her submissions. She vented her spleen on a system that takes under performance as its benchmark. Tears coursed down her cheeks as she lamented the devil in us since Saleh Mamam , minister of power and his employers have not been able to improve the horrible power situation in the country. If the power backwardness has been tolerated all this while, not when the president gave an order that Nigerians should sit at home in response to the corrosive effect of coronavirus that has become a global pandemic. Sitting at home also meant people would have to stock food and other items that would suffice for those number of days. In a country of over 100 million people still luxuriating within the concentric circle of the world’s extreme poverty dimension, where unemployment rate continues to grow in a geometric proportion, that presidential order easily exposed the numerous socio-economic potholes in the system across the land.
Adah Ameh, one of the Nollywood thespians, was not speaking for herself, but for the voiceless majority who have been forced to adopt an unusual lifestyle and adapt to a situation that further worsen their pitiable plight. The power resource, which should be the least expectation from government, is a scarce commodity. Even though we all know how bad the power situation has been, the forced holiday further exposed its rotten underbelly. Added to this was the initial directive for increase in tarriff that was to take effect on 1st April, to further exacerbate an already bad situation. For the bad timing, the National Electricity Regulatory Commission, (NERC), had to put that increment on hold. The two weeks lockdown came with its unfamiliar dirge. People had managed to stock food with the last drop of their disposable income, cooked soup that should last them for the period, bought perishable goods that would serve their needs, but the storage facility to preserve them, cannot be powered because of power outage. In the midst of this madness was the volume of unquantifiable generator noises that created its own mixed grill around the vicinity and neighbourhood of those who are at the receiving end of nature’s viccissitudes.
The noises were not only deafening, but created a colony of psychological trauma and torment amid the stark reality of extreme poverty that stares the people in the face. From the slums of Ajegunle to the dingy setting of Dugbe in Ibadan to the rustic Nyanya and Karmo in Abuja, the visible symptoms of extreme poverty unsettled the powerless conscience of the majority. Tucked in the backwaters of society’s inelegant footprints of a failed system, the hoi-polloi who are at the lowest rung of the ladder were visited with double jeopardy during the lockdown. This was what infuriated citizen Adah Ameh to unleash her bottled-up frustrations on a system that is embellished in, and with failure. When you add up the frustrations of the ordinary folks out there; no electricity, no water, no good roads, high rent, paying for darkness, no shelter, no jobs, no social security and a litany of other setbacks, it is understandable why it takes more than humanity to be called a Nigerian. When you reconcile this with the exploitation by the elite class, it is hellish to survive as an average Nigerian. Just imagine the donations by the so-called billionaire bankers and the deductions from depositors’ bank transactions thereafter, you will understand why the common man is perpetually being milked in a most draconian manner. That exactly is the Nigerian story.
Back in Nigeria, government gets applause for doing practically nothing. They get praised for doing what they were recruited to do. When the praises are not pouring in, they hire praise singers to engage in ostentatious display on the highways, streets and public places. They spend more money in carrying out the public drama than what was spent on the so-called “achievement”. The citizens practically beg to hear from their president at times of trouble. Getting to hear from their president is a resource that must be celebrated with relish. Any protest against any misgovernance is easily treated as treason, to deliberately eliminate citizen participation in holding government accountable to the people. There is a limit to which famished stomachs can raise dust or voice. To harbour 100 million Nigerians who are suffering from extreme poverty is no tea party, it is a time bomb waiting to explode some day. And the lockdown has further asphyxiated this ugly reality. Imagine the economic loss and the concommitant impact that would have on a people who have long been crippled by bad economic policies and socio-political dislocations.
How do you address the economics of the “poorest of the poor”, a new tag on those who are at the lowest rung of the ladder? Is it by giving them N5,000 or by creating enabling environment that would drive productivity and commerce? Is it by clustering them in open spaces to collect such pittance or creating bank accounts that would make for financial inclusion for accountability purpose? At a time when social distancing was recommended by government as a step against the spread of the coronavirus, we saw footages of people clustering around government officials to receive a $10 cushion. What a world! Just imagine the economic dislocation the lockdown would have caused to those who depend largely on daily income to eke a living: the barbers, the hairdressers, bricklayers, vulcanizers, taxi drivers, uber drivers, akara (bean cake) sellers, the market women, kiosk operators, wheelbarrow pushers, bar tenders, car washers, newspaper vendors, just to mention but a few. The pressure that the lockdown puts on this category of persons will become more manifest when the holiday is over. There will surely be increase in crime rate as the government battles the symptoms of economic recession that are home with us.
From every economic indices, there is cause for worry. With a growing apprehension about the bleak economic future of most mono-economies, following the strains on oil production and sale, Nigeria is in for serious trouble. While government has not been able to find handy response to the economic downturn in the country, the lockdown has compounded an already worse situation. Unemployment will surely grow at a more frightening rate, under-employment will get worse, while job losses will increase. A combination of these scenarios will only produce a civil populace that is far-flong from government, with forlorn hope, struggling to endure the hardships that are peculiar with such economic cul-de-sac. What manner of a citizenry do we expect to see after this whole exercise? A citizenry that is hypertensive, angry, provoked, frontal and ready to unleash violence at the slightest prompting. The rich cannot close their eyes at sleep when the poor are famished. A hungry man is an angry man. The rich can only enjoy their space when the poor are catered for. This is why government must urgently unlock the lockdown and set the tone for new economic initiatives that will look into the troubles we have been plunged in an era of oil gloom.
The conditional cash transfer has needlessly become easy conduit for financial profligacy. In an era of increased call for cashless economy, government still rejoices in physical distribution of cash in billions mark. How do we score accountability with such practice? How do we define money laundering in such situation? What has been government’s response to the pandemic since the lockdown? Aside from Lagos state government that has put a human face to this fight, the Federal Government seems to be at sea with what to do. The market fumigation exercise was a mockery of our nationhood; too much of crudity and primitiveness in a new, digital world. Isn’t it about time for our scientists to begin inventing solutions to our developmental problems? How long are we going to be locked down by poverty of ideas and crudity of intentions? If we are not inviting Chinese Doctors, we are scrambling for Chinese engineers and labourers. Can’t we for once lock our scientists in the laboratories to generate problem-solving ideas to unlock our huge potentials? With prices of oil scaling down the slope, do we need any fortune teller to tell us harder times are here with us? The only cheering news in this lockdown thus far, is the reported onslaught against Abubakar Shekau, the notorious Boko Haram kingpin, by the Chadian soldiers led by President Iddriss Derby. That’s a good reprieve at a time the world is in a perpetual flux.
NB: Prince Kassim Afegbua, a former Commissioner for Information and Orientation in Edo State wrote in for The New Diplomat from Abuja.
