The Mad Doctor And His Killer Prescriptions

Imagine a doctor who walks
into an emergency room of a
medical clinic to conduct
routine ward rounds; he
approaches a particular
patient who is critically down
with chronic anaemia. The
doctor instinctively
brandishes his stethoscope,
inserts the earpieces in his
ear canals and places the
head on the patient’s
shrivelled chest. He then
performs some “scientific
abracadabra” and finally
declares to the bewildered
patient as follows: “if you
want me to cure you of your
deadly anaemia, you must
first be ready to donate your
blood to me.”
As bizarre as this story might
sound, it has found concrete
expression in the way the
Nigerian government treats –
and relates with – its citizens.
Just on Thursday, 10th May,
2012, the National Economic
Council (NEC) in what could
be described as the most
patent irrational resolution,
announced plans to jack up
electricity tariff in the country
from the new month of June,
2012.
Governor Peter Obi of
Anambra state had, after the
meeting, informed that “the
Council considered and
approved the five-year tariff
plan to enable investors in
the power sector to recover
their cost.” As if to insulate
himself from the
repercussions of the Council’s
collective irrationality, he
quickly added that “we as
governors of the poor states
cannot allow our people to go
through more difficulties; the
tariff that is coming up is at
least 40 per cent lower than
what you can pay, say in
Ghana.” Uncertain about the
efficacy of his watery alibi, he
further assured that “the
Federal Government has
provided N50 billion in the
2012 budget to subsidize
electricity supply to the urban
and rural poor.” What a
marvellous narrative!
When one considers the
reasons adduced by the
government to justify the
latest round of hike in
electricity tariff, it becomes
safe to argue that the
government is doing serious
violence to commonsense
and basic logic. Upon a closer
examination, it will become
clear that the underlying
assumptions which inform
the new tariff hike are replete
with irreconcilable
contradictions, wilful
distortions, mind-boggling
ambiguities and palpable
confusion.
First, there is something
revoltingly evil about the idea
of increasing tariff for a
service that is virtually non-
existent or, at best, skeletal.
It is unthinkable that the
consuming public are
currently paying dearly for
electricity that they are not
enjoying. More so, it amounts
to a show of audacious insult
for the government to
contemplate asking the same
public to bestir themselves
for even higher tariff,
unmindful of the fact that its
citizens are already being
short-changed, cheated and
frustrated by the gross
inefficiency of their
government to provide stable
power. By forcing people to
pay for what they are not
using, the government has
fundamentally acquired
notoriety in daylight robbery,
pure and simple!
Second, there is the much-
taunted fallacy which posits
that “a higher tariff regime
will invariably attract foreign
investment in the power
sector and ultimately lead to
an improvement in the
supply of electricity supply.”
With the benefit of hindsight
however, one can cogently
argue that the proponents of
this idea are merely being
intelligent by half. It is
patently wrong and
misleading to suggest that
foreign investment is dictated
solely by higher prices. In
reality, there are the more
important questions of
entrenched, systemic
corruption, the legal and
regulatory frameworks, the
conduciveness and
predictability of the
operational environment, the
state of security as well as
the commitment of the
government to issues of
accountability, transparency
and the rule of law.
Let me pause to remind
Nigerians that it is the same
wretched argument that was
deployed by the Jonathan
government to rationalize the
increase in fuel price earlier
in January this year. The
contention was that once the
price of fuel was increased
and made to become more
competitive, it will rake in
profit-minded investors. As it
stands today, we are yet to
be told how many new
refineries the last fuel hike
has attracted to the oil
industry. It is indeed doubtful
if anything has changed ever
since.
Third, there is a notorious
penchant on the part of
government officials to
engage in comparisons that
defy intelligibility and
disregard the unique material
conditions and realities of
each country. It amounts to a
demonstration of intellectual
bankruptcy for Governor
Peter Obi to insinuate that
the new tariff “is at least 40
per cent lower than what you
can pay, say in Ghana.” Does
it make any sense to be
comparing Nigerians with
Ghanaians when, by the
governor’s own calculation,
Ghanaians pay 100 per cent
to enjoy uninterrupted power
supply while their Nigerian
counterparts spend 60 per
cent just to “monetize
darkness.” Again, this sounds
like the familiar cliché which
holds that “because the
citizens of Benin Republic
buy fuel for the equivalent of
N500 per litre, Nigerians
should – and must –
purchase fuel at a
corresponding amount. Such
easy comparisons, to put it
mildly, are chronically bereft
of empirical validity.
Fourth, there is neither the
assurance nor the possibility
of the government’s
cultivating the needed
political will to carry through
the requisite reforms,
beginning with the issue of
tackling the endemic
corruption which pervades
every facet of the country’s
national life – including the
power sector. The Elumelu
probe report on the power
sector has, for all practical
purposes, been interned in
the cemetery of Nigeria’s
history. The huge sums of
money purportedly expended
on phoney power projects
have only yielded diminishing
returns to the Nigerian
populace. Yet, the incumbent
political regime continues to
make a caricature of fighting
corruption and of pursuing a
transformation agenda.
Despite the impression of
enormous activism in the
reform of the country’s
power sector, why is it that
the power situation in the
country today has become
terribly worse and painfully
traumatic than when the
incumbent president took
over the reigns of power?
Why is that all through the
period of his electioneering
campaigns for the office of
the presidency, there was a
marked improvement and
relative stability in the supply
of power in most parts of the
country? What has suddenly
gone wrong that today
Nigerians are being reduced
to the status of “nocturnal
animals” with whole families
waking up by 2 am in the
night when the electric bulb
suddenly blinks; husband and
wife suspending their
romance and quarrelling over
who will first use the electric
iron to press rumpled cloths;
children exchanging some
“hot blows” over who will
first use the charger to revive
dead and energy-starved
phones, all in the knowledge
that in the next 20 minutes,
there will be no electricity
until the next 3 days.
Certainly, there is something
about the power sector that
Nigerians are yet to come to
terms with.
Most significantly, why is it
that President Jonathan’s
biceps usually get unduly
enlarged (and his masculinity
becomes disproportionately
assertive) whenever the issue
has to do with passing the
burden of the government’s
inefficiency to the ordinary
citizens and wrestling them
to submission? Still, when
similar situations and
circumstances beckon on him
to demonstrate same valour
and toughness of character in
fighting oppressive corruption
and dealing with the
notorious cabals both within
and outside his regime, he
disappointingly becomes as
“frightened as Macbeth
before the ghost of Banquo?”
Why is it that when the issue
at stake is the
implementation of the
various probe reports of the
National Assembly, his
Minister of Justice will begin
to seek out a line of escapism
by pleading the need for
“more forensic
investigations.”
The Nigerian government
should, advisedly, refrain
from the practice of acting
like a white-witch doctor who
takes sadistic delight in
inflicting his patients with
terrible pain while pretending
to be interested in their
healing and speedy recovery.
The proposed hike in
electricity tariff is an
aberration and a terrible on
at that.
Ugoray2010@yahoo.co.uk

#CONSENSUS 2015