FUEL PRICE HIKE, 2012/2016 PROTESTS AND SOCIAL MEDIA ACTIVISM

The recent fuel price hike as recently announced by the Buhari’s

government has understandably generated a lot of comments, opinions, appeals, and reactions on many platforms, especially on the social media. More regrettably has been the tendency and resort to abuse and counter abuse by die hard supporters of Buhari’s government and those against the price hike.  Of course, there many shades of supporters from those who believe him and that his government can never do wrong, to those who are mildly supportive, and those who are passive supporters. On the other side of the divide are those who never believe anything good can come from Buhari given the manner he got to power, those who are mildly critical and those who are passively non fans of the government. However, much unsettling is the crude language and subtle insults employed on various sides that has left much of the issues unattended to and has played into the hands of the political and economic elites including the government that speaks from different sides of the mouth.
Questions has been asked on why some participated in 2012 fuel hike protest and not in the 2016 protest. Answers given varied from one person to another and while some are stories, others have provided grounds to abstain from the current protest. Let’s be clear about certain facts going forward. Each man has the right to believe whatever he wants to believe. His beliefs are personal to him and guaranteed in the laws of the land. So also, each person has the right to support whatever policy and whoever he/she wants to believe. It is therefore beside the point whether some individuals and groups, including NLC demonstrate/protest and some individual and groups do not. Individuals and groups reserves the right to engage or not to engage in the protest. What is not found in the constitution is the right to verbally assault another because he/she holds a different opinion or view. Individual rights are not limitless. They have obligations and responsibilities in view of the privileges those rights confer on individuals. Individuals have the right to engage others with facts and figures, criticise and even tell stories, without descending into abusive words and gestures. Most people are passionate about Nigeria and it is not for one side to decide who is a saboteur or patriot. Nigeria belongs to all.
It is a pity that the Buhari’s government has still not get its act together economically with almost a year in power. As discussed in one of my articles, there is no clear cut economic framework except trial and error approach. The fact is that circumstances surrounding the 2012 fuel price hike has not fundamentally changed from what it is now in 2016. For example, the number of hungry and jobless Nigerians has not reduced but increased; the electricity situation has not changed and has become worse inspite of increment in tariff; the production and manufacturing sector is getting increasingly worse with attendant youth and general unemployment, whose woes are compounded with lack of access to forex, and consumption and income has dropped to a record low of less than half a dollar per day for most Nigerians! What has however changed has been that ‘Nigeria is broke’, with this evident even under Jonathan and the situation getting increasingly worse now; the new personnel/brokers in power, and creation of new sets of pseudo online party activists most of whom pretend to be apolitical. Those who drove the country to its present state are found mostly in both APC and PDP, and it will be disingenuous to pretend that APC is guiltless. Even among the so called traditional APC political class, many of them have been part of the government as legislators or governors or a player in the political scene and are part of the degeneration of the Nigerian economy to its present state. Examples are everywhere.
It is also worth stating that the comparison and recycled arguments being done by some people about Saudi Arabia, USA, Venezuala and others are not grounded in logic and economic reality. The truth is that the minimum wage and living conditions in the oil producing countries which had witnessed price hike cannot be compared to Nigeria, where the living conditions remains historically and comparatively low. None of these countries have unemployment of the scale currently being witnessed in Nigeria and figures being bandied of persons laid off in these countries is very small compared to millions already laid off and without employment in the first place in Nigeria. It would have been better that more solid arguments be found or procured than to resort to facts and figures that are not tenable comparatively. Millions of Nigerians would gladly trek or walk to US, Saudia Arabia, Kuwait or any of those countries if it is a visa free country! That is how desperate the situation is in Nigeria.
However, such pseudo online or otherwise activists are to be expected since in less developed societies, they are creations of the socio-economic and political system that relies on secondary sources to serve as agents but disguising, pretending and proclaiming their independence and altruism. It is a product (such activists) associated with society that is parochial and under the grip of selfish and punitive ruling class. We can refer to them as lunpen activist(s). This I have attempted to explain in the Sociology of Politics article. More of this explanation will appear in subsequent articles.
More untenable and insulting the intelligence of Nigerians is the continuous appeal to Nigerians to bear the pain. Additional pains? Pains that is almost killing them? But the other questions are; how many of the ruling class, whether serving or not, feels the pinch or pains of the mass of Nigerians? How many of the members of the executive and legislators have reduced the millions of salaries and allowances they collect in view of the fact that ‘Nigeria is broke’? Are Nigerians not aware how Governors, Ministers, Senators and all sundry political office holders and their aides suddenly becomes millionaires overnight once they get to power? Why is it that it is mostly in Nigeria that public office holders enjoy and not suffer pains as being preached by the government and its fans? Why can’t they bear the irresponsibility of their actions instead of passing the burden to the mass of the people? Can Tinubu, Gbajabiamila, Ngige, Dogara and other fat cats preaching that economic pain management say in good conscience that they don’t eat more than three (3) square meals? It is absurd and illogical to preach fasting and pain management when they are the cause of the problem and feeding fat, yet imploring others to manage and bear the pain!      
To argue that corruption has distorted the subsidy regime is to show the helplessness and hopelessness of the government. Those who corruptly enrich themselves are human beings and not ghost. They can be apprehended and dealt with. Sane societies functions on the basis of rewards and sanctions. The basic function of any government is to serve the people it superintends. To claim that there are individuals and groups more powerful than it, shows that the government is not worth the paper on which its name is written. Like I have argued in another article, it doesn’t cost the government anything to build refineries and drive down the price of goods and services, especially the fuel price. This poignant lack of vision, patriotism, foresight as well as viable and visible economic template has always been the bane of successive Nigerian governments including the current regime. It permeates the private and social lives of public officials. The craze to get to public office without any vision or governance template is so common in Nigerian body politic.
Furthermore, assumed integrity of one man is different from competence. While integrity may stabilize things, competence is what will drive the needed change. For example, competency will dictate that it is economically unviable and politically a hard sell to keep paying unsustainable mind boggling amounts of money to legislators and members of the executive while telling Nigerians that tomorrow will be better. Which future? Please. Only diehard fans will believe that lie. Thus, both integrity and competence are needed to get Nigeria out of the woods and desperately so. But competence is sorely lacking presently and the assumed integrity is suspect, questionable and is being eroded.
 Hence in conclusion, the arguments for fuel price hike has not really addressed the fundamental issues like policy on forex, spending on over bloated overhead costs, unsustainable maintenance of national assembly, frugality in government spending and expenses and effective performance of governmental duties (state effectiveness) except appeals which has no economic value; profligacy and waste that stands in contrast to what they preach/say (Nigeria is broke);  arguments that are not comparatively sound and sustainable as well as deployment of pseudo online and non-online activists that are not disconnected from the realities Nigerians daily go through. The honeymoon will soon be over.

Olugbemiga Afolabi