The Final Unravelling Of The Dubious Promise

By Anosike Wilson… Less than a year in office, the Buhari-led administration is telling us that campaigning in an election period does not matter. In fact, campaigns have simply been reduced to avenues for manipulating the masses to acquire power. Campaigns, they tell us, ought not to be based on reality or factual projections but obfuscations. The coupist turned overnight democrat or better put in the parlance of our learned men, born-again democrat has become a champion of Machiavellianism.

During his campaigns for the office of the President—among other balderdash—he uttered, one can note two outstanding issues. The first is his promise to reduce the pump price of petrol (Pms) and the second, to make sure that the disparity in exchange rate especially pertaining to the dollar is eliminated. In other words, he promised to make the Naira equal to the Dollar (US). Fast forward to May 12th 2016, his second in command in the Petroleum Ministry—since he is still the substantive Minister for Petroleum—announced an increase in the pump price of petrol(pms), to 145 Naira being over 50% increase on the existing pump price.

Now the problem is not just the increment in pump price rather the argument behind it. No matter any bogus grammar of “deregulating the downstream sector” or not, we were told that the difficulty in sourcing out foreign exchange, of course the Dollar is a major reason for the decision. In other words, marketers who source for FOREX in alternative or parallel markets as the parlance goes get higher than the CBN rate and of course will be forced to sell higher. Now one begins to wonder on the dubious electioneering promise of President Muhammadu Buhari. If the disparity between the Naira and the Dollar is reduced or can be reduced, what then is this blatant argument?

It was the Late Prime Minister Lee Kwan Yew of Singapore who wrote in The Singapore Story that the problem with politicians is that they think that the masses will go away after election. But alas, after one or two years, one finds out that they are still there. What Lee was saying in the actual fact is that we don’t suffer amnesia or dementia after elections, not even mass hypnosis. We are still here.

Campaigns and campaigning are avenues for politicians to convey to the citizens their knowledge of the “sociology” and “futurology” of the state so as to alleviate their fears on the future of the state. This is to say articulate the present state of affairs and then project into the future, all in the name of progress. Though nobody expects politicians to become soothsayers, rather we expect at the barest minimum, informed opinion or projections into the future. This is why politics is a science and most people in fact study Political Science. The aim is that political projections and reasoning are not made out of the blues but on factual and statistical grounds.

In our clime—as we are witnessing, the reverse is the case. Politicians will wake up one morning and project nonsense. It is worthy to note here that the President is not alone. Now imagine a situation where a governor of a state proclaims free education up to the University level, but the only state-owned University in his jurisdiction is on strike for over two months for non-payment of teachers’ salaries and many will still rationalize it as some are doing to the increase in the pump price of petrol

. Even before markets crash, as we witnessed in 2008, there will be signs. Markets don’t just crash overnight like buildings in Lagos. Any economist who refused to heed the warning signs will just be telling the world that he is a quack. And we have to always beware of quacks. A year could not have been long for the President and his team to understand that FOREX will be hard to source not to talk of making the Naira equal to the Dollar

. In Nigeria we have come full circle, power is now in the hands of illiterates or should I say pure liars and we must bear the consequences. Just imagine from Azikiwe to Buhari. (50 years) and we are still singing or reciting like kindergarten students “ the labours of our hero past shall not be in vain.”

Ripples Nigeria…without borders, without fears

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now