By Maiwada Dammallam
His Excellency, Governor Dikko Umaru Radda of Katsina State added color to the ongoing debates between APC, Nigeria’s ruling party, and ADC, a newly organized movement aspiring to grow into a political party to fill the void created by the
timely demise of the PDP.
By highlighting few of the deceptive albeit well disguised advocacies of kingpins of the ADC pressure group, Malam Dikko sent the entire machinery of the movement into a frenzy; with some running around like headless chickens while the best brains are left confused like final year students of a sociology class trapped in the wrong examination hall of students of architecture class, all in a frenzy to respond to the well cut, direct and very relevant posers Governor Radda threw at the ADC movement.
Governor Radda’s posers were simple. He asked if the kingpins of the movement are going to bring back fuel subsidy if they are able to dupe their way into power? This is a poser intended to balance the aspirations of the kingpins and their mostly ignominious past leadership antecedents. It’s a fact that majority of the kingpins were either actively involved in the processes that led to the removal of fuel subsidy or watched passively when the decision was taken.
Asking the question is therefore quite significant and relevant as it could sober the polity by accurately pinpointing and isolating the desperate motives behind the ADC movement while painting in 3D the political and socio-economic realities of Nigeria. In simple language, Governor Radda only highlighted the dangers of falling for the trick of disguising genuine, accumulated and unintended socio-economic problems brought forward from previous administrations as deliberately imposed hardships unleashed on the citizenry by a single, barely 2-year old administration as being done by the kingpins of the ADC movement. Truly, this is an insult to collective public sensibility and intelligence especially given the contributions of the majority members of the ADC movement.
For instance, let’s talk about the fuel subsidy removal which on which the movement is resting its entire hope of reclaiming political relevance and its pecks. So, where was Malam Nasir El-Rufai when the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) was passed into law and subsequently became an Act (PIA)? I’m sure the best brains of the movement will recall El-Rufa’i was a governor when the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) arrived the National Assembly packed with the components intended to liberalize the downstream sector and was passed as tabled — conclusively removing fuel subsidy without any ambiguity.
To those ignorant about it, this is the reason why fPMB’s last and final budget did not make any provision for payment of fuel of subsidy because the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) has liberalized the sector and removed government participation in the sector except in areas where regulatory policies are necessarily required.
I’m also sure any critic worth his/her name is aware there were public hearings by the National Assembly intended for people with reservations or complains about the Bill or any part of it to come and show reason(s) why components of the Bill they believe are harmful and anti-people should be removed.
Malam El-Rufai as former minister and a governor, Ameachi as former governor and a minister, Aregbesola as a former governor and a minister back then, neither went to the National Assembly to fight the fuel subsidy nor mobilize people to do so given their powerful present and past positions. Apparently back then they were either anti-people (if being in power equals being anti-people as they some of their foot soldiers are painting) or, they were less enlightened to grasp and calculate the possible consequences of the fuel subsidy removal on the Nigerian masses if passed as tabled before the National Assembly. Then, I won’t expect them to grasp the economic logic of the fuel subsidy removal or the mechanisms put in place to address the possible repercussions of the removal which unfortunately where poorly implemented for different reasons that are still subject to expert analysis.
Perhaps back then, the brains of these saviours were numbed by their blaring sirens while their perceptions about the masses were totally distorted by just as intimidating and intoxicating convoys to care about the details of the safety mechanisms put in place to cushion the effect of the subsidy removal much less, enforce the workability of the mechanisms. Most of them spent time harassing the masses with dangerous policy experiments; even sending some citizens they are deceptively pretending to be working to rescue today into their early graves. It’s not a distant history that El-Rufai was at war with NLC and just about every labor union in Kaduna State for ills identical to those he’s pretending to rescue Nigeria from today. This is saying, If Nigerian masses need to be rescued from anything it couldn’t be more than this ambition-laced politics of deception disguised as a rescue mission and that’s what Governor Radda’s introspective call is all about. SHINE YA EYES!
On the matter of fuel subsidy removal, the chief financier of the “rescue Nigeria movement,” former VP Atiku Abubakar, can excused for not being aware about the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) into law because back then he was in UAE in a prolonged mourning; ruing another lost presidential ambition while holidaying and waiting for the next round of presidential elections to come and play a usually very entertaining role as a career presidential candidate cum saviour of the Nigerian masses.
Later we will discuss how former VP Atiku and his boss, former President Obasanjo, became the first major beneficiaries of the deliberate bastardization of Nigeria’s educational institutions under their watch — a time when the declination of public universities was spiraling out of control, a window of opportunity which the two grabbed and established their private elitist universities, Bell University and ABTI-America in Ota and Yola respectively between 2003 and 2004. Far from the saviour he’s claiming to be today, Atiku is part of the rot Nigeria need to be rescued from.
To “rescuer” Ameachi, it’s too soon to forget both Ameachi’s low standards on governance and administrative morality on one hand, and his total disconnect with the Nigerian masses on the other. To prove his disconnect to the masses, only recently he was on a national television using the N1m school fees of the elitist Baze University Abuja as a baseline for measuring hardships among Nigerian masses. Not that I blame him for not knowing there are other worlds beside his elitist world of Baze, ABTI-America and Bell Universities. I blame Nigeria for tolerating insensitive and non-value adding characters like him.
Ameachi is the same character who, as a minister, was accused by one of the heads of agencies under his supervision for causing her suspension on phantom allegations of non-remittance of revenues — allegations that were later found to be false and induced by selfish motives. She accused Ameachi of orchestrating the allegations for the simple reason that she did nothing for him, “never even gave him a birthday present” — if you can beat that.
As for the remaining barely visible, politically disoriented, self-blindfolded, neither-here-nor-there “10 for 10 Kobo” run of the mill foot soldiers of the movement who are always waiting for the highest bidder on the political exchange where survivability defends largely on inter/intra-party conflicts and chaos, let’s not get distracted by their loud howling. I don’t expect reasonable arguments from this crowd. Beside, the noise from these foot soldiers is a mere mating call intended to attract the highest bidder.
So, let’s talk a bit more about the focus of the ADC movement’s deceptive campaigns — fuel subsidy removal. For clarity, the PIB, after languishing in the corridors of the National Assembly since 2000, was, in August 2021 signed into a law by former President Buhari. The Act effectively removed fuel subsidy without ambiguity as I mentioned earlier. Among those who celebrated Buhari for the passage of the bill were the 23 All Progressives Congress (APC) governors under the umbrella of Progressive Governors Forum (PGF) among them, Malam Nasir El-Rufai.
The PGF, according to The Guardian’s report of 19/8/21, described the PIA as “APC’s convincing credential to restructure the Nigerian economy through the democratic process. They expressed their excitement over the prospect of additional oil revenue earnings following enactment of the PIB into law. The PGF commended President Muhammadu Buhari for the historic feat of moving the nation forward and the National Assembly for their parliamentary input in articulating the Bill after several years of abandonment.” End of quote. I believe Malam El-Rufai must have slept through the meeting where the PGF took a decision to endorse the PIA and commend former President Buhari for the feat hence, his decision to embark on a mission to rescue Nigeria from effects of the PIA.
Therefore, Governor Radda’s poser to the ADC movement; asking if they are going to bring back fuel subsidy is very relevant and timely. Nigerians need to know why they sat aloof in their cozy government houses and their luxurious Federal Secretariat ministerial offices refusing to prevent the removal of fuel and how they intend to bring it back?
Rather than embark on a pretentious effort to rescue Nigeria, kingpins of the movement could do better filling the gaps in their notes. For instance, Ameachi, who couldn’t rescue Rivers State when he served the state as a 2-term Speaker, a 2-term governor and served the nation as a powerful minister for 7 years, will do better explaining to Nigerians how his expectations of patronage by a head of an agency under his supervision align with a rescue mission of any sort.
By the way, I’m yet to hear “rescuer-Ameachi” threatening to go to court or calling for President Tinubu to release the forensic audit reports of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) part of which indicted Ameachi’s wife for being paid a princely N4bn monthly for training women as alleged by Minister of the FCT, Nyesom Wike. With all these loose ends, one is left with no option but to agree that a lamb is better off being rescued by a wolf than poor Nigerians being rescued by Ameachi and his co-pretenders.
To the most vociferous of the “rescue-Nigeria-from-the-APC” gang, Malam Nasir El-Rufai. The last time I checked, Hon. Bello Nasir El-Rufai (Reps, Kaduna North Federal Constituency), is still a member of the APC and yet to be rescued from the party by his father, Malam Nasir El-Rufai. Certainly something big is missing here. If APC is the devil Nigeria needs to be rescued from by El-Rufai, why is he abandoning his son in the deepest part of the devil’s lair? This is even more compounding considering that Hon. Bello need not resign his position as a member of the lower chamber. Then, El-Rufai’s refusal to convince or coerce his son to resign from the APC says only one thing, that El-Rufai is only fighting to rescue himself from living on the other side of power. Once again, Governor Radda’s message to Nigerians is a simple one: SHINE YA EYES!
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