In scope, sweep and significance the recent somewhat continuing protests against the removal of the so-called oil subsidy by the federal government featuring over 110% jump in the price of petrol are the most magnificent in our history comparable only to the anti-annulment upheaval of June, 1993. Over 25 lives were lost most if not all of them in direct encounters between law enforcement and protesters while official sources put the loss of revenue occasioned by the strike atN300billion. The protest themselves a spectacular outpouring of angst and anger invented like those of 1993 novel rebellious communication outlets; took on sometimes aspects of a carnival in which star musicians and comedians regaled an unprecedentedly huge audience with anti-establishment lyrics as well as employed the emergent social media to rail at, mock or denounce state officials. The political volcano had all the makings of a bourgeoning class war featuring a vivid and gargantuan interrogation of what is perhaps best described as a process of attempted reforms without reformers. Interestingly too, Nigerians in the Diaspora took up the gauntlet as they made common cause with a civil society beleaguered by what is in some respects a syndrome described famously by Cameroonian scholar Mbembe as the infinite capacity of the post-colonial state to inflict pain on its hapless subjects.It is necessary to recapitulate the germane dimensions of this extended subversive dialogue because Professor Paul Collier of Oxford University writing in theFinancial Times of Monday completely in my view misread the protest which he described as a 'tea party-style folly' as a case of the poor demonstrating for the retention of the privileges of the rich. Collier argues that fuel subsidy benefitted only the rich and that if the poor knew enough they would applaud rather than berate its removal by government. It should be noted in response to this argument that a number of influential commentators including the former Minister for Petroleum Resources Prof. Tam David West maintains that a subsidy only exists in the context of the inability or feigned inability of the state to run its own refineries as well as the exploitative sleight of hand in which the cost of producing and refining petrol is computed by reference to the opportunity cost in terms of import price equivalent rather than as should have sensibly been the case the actual cost of producing and refining petrol within Nigeria. Take along with this the stupendous racketeering and swindle which characterise the oil sector teeming with well heeled importers, state officials, and colluding regulatory agencies and you begin to get a drift of the Pandora's Box which led Nigeria to the tragic dark alley which occasioned last week's social tornado. In the aftermath of the protests, government has promised to sanitise the oil industry and bring to book both corrupt officials and the profiteering importers; although the question naturally arises whether this promise should not have been the first order of business in a policy universe which announces itself as a transformatory agenda. Over time and as a result of the advent of a succession of chaotically inept governments which are long on promises but short on performance, Nigerians have come to regard the relatively low price of petrol as the only welfare benefit they derive from a state which has practically orphaned them by denying them such amenities as good roads, potable water, regular electricity, healthcare, and a host of others which are more or less taken for granted in other countries including some in Africa which do not have oil. It is this context of a monumentally under-performing political and military elite in which hard currency goes into the private pockets of rotating and recycled power mongers while the people are fed with attractive slogans and promises which come to naught that provides the backdrop for the recent social upheaval. As I argued in a recent article entitledMathematics of Distrust, a long suffering people, used to violated pledges cannot be blamed for not trusting that government would honour a deal in which they are asked to pay astronomically more for an essential commodity in exchange for a doubtful arrangement in which they are offered palliatives which only scratch the surface of their woes. Admittedly, the Jonathan government alone is not to be blamed for this accumulated and vexed distrust of official rhetoric but if its sometimes severe reaction to popular protest is anything to go by, it is yet to grasp the relationship between governmental performance, accountability and social trust. Even in the best of circumstances, and in the most propitious governance clime, a price jerk of almost 120% on a vital commodity would be considered outrageous if not extremely disdainful of the populace. In the extremely distressing milieu in which life has become raw and nasty for most Nigerians, the strange New Year gift of an intolerable new price regime was regarded as a declaration of war on Nigerians. Indeed, so bizarre were some of the policy pronouncements and actions including for example, the gratuitous deployment of soldiers to Lagos that one of our brilliant columnists wondered aloud if there were some in power who were secretly working for the dismemberment of Nigeria as presently constituted. I have also myself queried the rationale behind government taking on the big fight of removing so-called petroleum subsidy at a time when the activities of Islamic insurgents were bringing the nation perilously close to the brink of cataclysm on the scale of a civil war. Obviously, we would not get answers to all of these puzzles; but it is clear that more stamina, more thoughtfulness and more innovativeness would have to be brought into governance in the wake of the recent social uprising. Urgent for instance is the need for government to abandon a creeping authoritarian temptation to which it has become increasingly prone before and during the anti-subsidy removal protest, if only to guarantee the survival of our besieged democracy.Instead of spending time and money on adverts which convey no further information than the predictable exploitation of popular protest by opposition politicians -as if that is not what their business is ' government should concentrate on tackling the fundamental malaise and deprivation which ignited the protest and brought the country to the brink of anarchy. The Jonathan government has a fighting chance of proving its critics wrong that the Kolade committee is no more than another time buying arrangement; beyond that it should push itself and the nation hard in the direction of affordable and reasonable petroleum prices by getting the refineries to work and bringing to book as it has promised the racketeers that brought us to this sorry pass.
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