27th May, 2015
Nigerians are in pains. Their anguish is too much to bear. For weeks, they had no fuel to power their electricity generating sets, their only source of regular electricity supply. They had no fuel for their motor vehicles as the commodity remained scarce owing the debacle between the Federal Government and oil marketers over subsidy payment. At a point, a litre of petrol was sold for about N500 in the black market, while most filling stations were shut.
Things got so bad that small businesses were collapsing especially in the cities where fuel scarcity was biting harder. As things are, Nigerians are eagerly waiting for president Goodluck Jonathan’s administration to come to an end this Friday, 29 May.
This is an uncaring government that boasted after it lost the general elections in March and April that it is still in charge. Nothing shows that there is a government still in charge when the most basic things such as electricity supply and fuel are not available. The government can only be said to be in control because Jonathan is sacking people and appointing new ones.
Never in the recent history of Nigeria has the economy been so bad. Coincidentally, Muhammadu Buhari, who will be taking over from Jonathan on Friday, was the military head of state who inherited a similar economy from President Shehu Shagari on 31 December, 1983. Like Jonathan’s administration, Shagari’s profligate and inept government was running the economy aground and had to introduce austerity measures to arrest the drift but failed.
It took military intervention to rescue the nation from the precipice but Buhari and his team were not allowed to complete the restoration process before General Babangida came with his band and caused further damage to the economy for almost eight years.
In other societies, the current situation could have led to violent protests nationwide. But Nigerians don’t want to play into the hands of those who have plunged the nation into this mess. After contending with this unmitigated disaster for about a month from this callous government, expectations are high that the incoming Buhari administrations has what it takes to fix the mess being left behind by President Jonathan and his failed ministers.
We remind Jonathan that it is not the best way to bow out of power. Hundreds of thousands of civil servants have not been paid several months of arrears of salaries. Their families and relatives are bearing the brunt and cursing those behind their plight. Nigeria’s debt now stands at $63 billion. This is a burden for Buhari to bear. It is this dismal situation Jonathan is leaving behind.