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Nigeria gravitates from one crisis to another negating every political and economic permutation initiated by the federal government to improve the life of the masses who are worse hit by the perennial conflicts in the country
| By Maureen Chigbo | Aug 22, 2016 @ 01:00 GMT |
THESE are trying times for Nigerians as the country oscillates from one crisis to another. From the east to the west, north to south, many people are moaning the enormity of the political, security and economic crises bedevilling the country.
In the North, the masses have been wringing their hands in anguish longing for a respite from the eight-year old lingering Boko Haram terrorism. Despite the fact that the federal government said that Boko Haram has been technically defeated, its onslaught in the North Eastern States of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe, has claimed more than 20,000 lives and displaced millions of people. The 1.7 million people, who are in the internally displaced persons, IDPs, camps are experiencing starvation with many, especially children dying daily, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund. The latest woe in the region is the resurfacing of the wild polio virus in the areas which were inaccessible due to Boko Haram hence preventing children from being vaccinated against the disease – two years after the country was declared polio free.
Prior to this, there was the skirmishes early in the year between the Army and the Shiites Muslim where bloods of the innocent and not so innocents numbering more than 300 flowed on the roads of Kaduna State the headquarters of the sect in Nigeria. The nation has not fully recovered from the horrific revelations that some of the victims were buried alive in graves hastily dug by the Nigerian army.
Also, in the South, there is rampant kidnapping, especially in the South East and South West. So many prominent people have been victims of this criminality with the latest being Goriola Oseni, Oba of Iba Community in Iba local council development Area of Lagos, who was luckily rescued in early August. Recently, in the East, the Independent People of Biafra whose leader Nnadi Kanu who is in detention troubled the region. Many died in the demonstration there with some security officials killed in addition to the hundreds who were slain by soldiers when the gathered in a Catholic Church in Nkpor, Anambra State for a thanksgiving mass to mark Biafra day on May 31.
Added to this, is the menace of the Fulani herdsmen which has claimed more than 2000 lives in one year across the country. The Agatu and Enugu killings stood out among the most heinous of cases.
Moving away from this, the nation is confronted with the bombing of militants by a combined force of the military in the creeks of Arepo, in Ogun State, South West Nigeria to stop the rapacious destruction of oil facilities and illicit oil bunkering. About 147 alleged militants died in the onslaught as the creeks were turned red with blood.
Apart from these, a new dimension of conflicts in the country now is being engineered by disgruntled politicians who are bent on heating up the polity for very selfish reasons. Politically, the major political parties in the country – the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, have failed to quench self-inflicted internal squabbles.
Starting with the APC, the party has woefully failed to get its act together to weave the country out of the woods of poverty and lack of the basic infrastructure, especially power. The ruling party has not been able to heal the self-inflicted wounds resulting from the crisis over the National Assembly leadership election last year. The party chieftains, who are still pained that their candidates did not emerge as leaders, are believed to be behind the lingering squabble in both the Senate where the two key principal officers – Bukola Saraki, senate president and his deputy, Ike Ekweremadu are standing trial for forgery. The trial of Saraki and Ekweremadu heated up the polity until it was shifted to September for hearing of the case to resume. Closely allied to this, is the controversy that assailed the nation because of the quarrel between Senator Oluremi Tinubu, wife of Bola Tinubu, former governor of Lagos State and a chieftain of the APC and Senator Dino Melaye. The cause of the brouhaha was because Oluremi allegedly called Melaye a thug and he retaliated by threatening to beat and impregnate her and nothing will happen.
The nationwide opprobrium over this matter hardly settled before another crisis over budget padding hit the House of Representatives. This fight is between Yakubu Dogara, speaker, House of Representatives and Abdulmumin Jibrin, former chairman, House Committee on Appropriation. Since then allegations and counter allegations of who padded or did not pad the budget has been on between two formers friends. Jibrin has petitioned the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC and the Police to investigate principal officer of the National Assembly. He has also urged the principal officers of the House of Representatives to resign including Dogara and Leo Ogor, minority leader from the Peoples Democratic Party. So far, no one has resigned over the budget padding. Dogara has also allegedly shunned police invitation for questioning over the allegation that he padded the budget with more than N40 billion. Dogara has also said that there is nothing like budget padding so long as the appropriation committee collectively decided to tinker with the budget which the executive arm of the government sent to the National Assembly.
On the other hand, the PDP has not known peace because of the leadership crisis rocking the party. Supporters of the two factional leaders – Ali Modu Sheriff and Senator Ahmed Makafi – have refused to sheathe their sword to allow the party offer credible opposition to the ruling APC. The factions have been in and out of court obtaining one judgement or the other to gain an upper hand thereby adding to the tension in the land. Right now, no one is certain the PDP party convention slated for August 17, will hold. Even if it holds nobody knows whether the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, will be there to witness the convention. This is because Sheriff had written INEC urging it to ignore the date fixed for the convention which was fixed by the Ahmed Markafi-led caretaker committee. INEC has not said anything as at press time.
No doubt, the trouble in the APC and PDP has affected the psyche of the masses who are definitely not getting the type of leadership they expected from the two leading parties in the country because while the infighting in the parties last, the grass in this cases the common man suffers.
Nonetheless, the most worrying aspect of the horrifying crisis ravaging the nation is the killing of three soldiers in the Niger Delta. Nigerians were shocked to their marrow when the story filtered from the Nembe community in the Niger Delta that there was exchange of gunfire between militants and the military on Monday, August 8. In the fight, suspected militants killed three soldiers attached to the Joint Task Force team code-named Operation Delta Safe in Bayelsa State. The incident happened around Tombi Jetty in Nembe Local Government Area of Bayelsa state. A report from the Channels Television said the militants were all dressed in white, pretending to be mourners returning from a burial in the morning. According to an eyewitness, “The attack was deadly and well planned. Nobody had expected that such a thing would happen at such a time when the jetties were busy with people preparing to go about their businesses.
“I am sure even the soldiers did not expect such an incident to happen at that time. Some persons who were already sailing out of Nembe said they saw the gunmen but thought they were mourners because of the way they dressed.” The militants also made away with gunboats and weapons belonging to the military.
This sad incident has generated more tension in Nigeria, especially in Bayelsa State. In order to douse the anger and prevent revenge killings in the community by the military, Governor Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa State has vowed to hunt down the killers. On Tuesday, August 9, Dickson said his administration would work with security operatives to smoke out the killers of the three soldiers in Nembe from their hideout and bring them to justice, adding that the government would not condone a situation whereby “the state would be used as a launching pad for violence and criminal activities.”
“Our duty is to work with the security agencies to ensure that the perpetrators do not rest and are followed up and hunted down. They must face justice. Maybe, from this incident we will also get a clue as to what happened last year and also some of the breaches of security in that part of our state.
“We condemn the incident in Nembe. The military high command understands that this was an isolated murder and has nothing to do with the peace-loving people of Ogbolomabiri, Nembe, in the Nembe local government area. I want to thank the military commander on the ground for that understanding.”
According to Dickson, “As soon as the incident occurred, I asked the deputy governor of the state, who incidentally is from the area to proceed and his visit gave us further insight and proved to be very helpful in dousing tension and apprehension. The Commander of Operation Delta Safe was physically on the ground and I want to thank him and all the various officers for the steps they took to reassure the law-abiding people of the area concerned.”
The State government has ignited its systems; its community information dissemination systems and the security agencies are all working together to unravel the true identity of the person or persons who carried out the dastardly act so that we can bring them to justice. “I will be summoning the traditional ruler of the area and the chairman of the council and after that I hope to have a meeting with critical players in the area to discuss the security development in that area,” Dickson said while on a radio programme.
As if this sad incident is not enough for the country, the Niger Delta Greenland Justice Mandate, NDJM, a new militant group barely 24 hours after it threatened to bomb oil installations in the Niger Delta region if the federal government did not stop its one-sided talks with the Ijaw ethnic nationality bombed an oil facility belonging to a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC. In a statement, General Aldo Agbalaja, NDJM spokesperson, said: “As a mark of our seriousness and to prove we are people of our words, at about 02.00hours of today; Wednesday, August 10, 2016, operatives of the Niger Delta Greenland Justice Mandate brought down a major trunk delivery line from Isoko to the Eriemu Manifold in Urhobo, belonging to the NPDC/Shoreline Resources
“We would also want to use this medium to give a very strong warning to the operatives of the asset NPDC/Shorelines not to commence repairs pending when they get signals from us, otherwise the inevitable may occur to their personnel as we have earlier warned them to begin evacuating the uplands”.
According to the militants, “This is just a glimpse of what is to come. There are several assets already penned down for destruction. This line of action has been made inevitable by an unjust system, which only responds to the violence to the detriment of the peaceful and law abiding,” it said.
Also, on the same Wednesday, hundreds of protesters stormed a Nigerian facility owned by Chevron demanding better jobs and forcing staff to be airlifted out of the environment to safety. Protesters from Ugborodo village, which is close to Chevron’s Escravos terminal want the company to relocate more of its Nigerian offices to the southern Delta state to secure work for people living in the oil-producing swampland. Ugborodo villagers have a history of staging protests against Chevron. Their complaints — focusing on jobs, community development and pollution — have stayed the same over the years.
As Nigeria gravitates from one crisis to another, Realnews investigations reveals that the masses have been the worst hit. The psyche of the people is at an all time low, especially as the economy is in “technical” recession, according to Kemi Adeosun, minister of finance. Nigerians are facing serious economic hardship as inflation is now more than 15 percent with rising cost and declining standard of living.
Part of the economic crisis in the country is the outcome of the devaluation of the Naira of the Naira from 197 to about N320 per dollar and the increase in the pump price of fuel from N86 to N145 per litre in April. Since then, prices of good and services have spiked. For instance, a bag of foreign rice selling for N8000 previously now sells for N21,000. A tuber of yam selling for N500 previously now sells for N1500.
With this development, civil servants and fixed income earners feel largely choked by the economic situation in the country. “It’s tough. No amount of money you take to the market is enough to get what my family needs. I was shocked when a bag of rice I priced last week is now N21,000. It was N15,000 last week. I had to buy a painter measure of rice. We only ate it twice and now it is finished. Only God will save my family,” Tonia Ejenike, a civil servant told Realnews.
Another source of outrage for a beleaguered country is that at a time when some manufacturing companies are looking for dollar to import raw material and parents scavenging for dollar to pay school fees of children abroad, came the news of a waiver for pilgrims to get the scarce foreign exchange at N197 per dollar instead of the current rate of about N320. This is because when the Central Bank of Nigeria introduced the flexible exchange rage, it was lauded by economic and finance experts. The current action of government appears to have sent the wrong signal to the market even though the apex bank explained that it did not give any preferential rate to the pilgrims.
However, the worst economic crisis that has hit the country is the nefarious activities of the Niger Delta militants where a major war is looming as President Muhammadu Buhari, last week asked the military to restore rule of law in the troubled region.
The presidential order came in the wake of militants, especially the Niger Delta Avengers blowing up oil installations. This has greatly affected Nigeria’s oil production which is now about 800,000 barrels per day as against about 2.2 million barrels the country was producing in 2015. It has also reduced the revenue accruing from it and the made nonsense of the forecast for the budget which was based on 2.2 million barrels per day. Only time will tell if military action will solve the problem in the Niger Delta.
Amidst all the problems, the federal government through the ministers has been staging town hall meetings across the six geopolitical zones in the country to calm frayed nerves and explain what it is doing to save the situation. The government has also promised to inject money to reflate the economy my budgetary allocations to critical sectors. It has also assembled an economic team and appointed an economic adviser to save the rudderless economy from caving in.
Nigerians are eagerly watching to see the magic wand the new economic and political advisers will wave to steady the ship of Nigeria already tortured by the waves of instability and perennial conflicts ravaging all sectors in the country much to the detriment of the masses groaning under severe hardship daily.
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