Last week, one noted a handful of events that defined these difficult times and warranting comments from yours sincerely. The first would obviously be the fuel shortage that is stressing everybody to no end. The shortages crept slowly upon us from sometime in early February and culminated last week into an official acceptance that we might have to endure it for some time. No doubt, we have endured fuel shortages many times before, so we took this one also in our strides. We dutifully formed long queues in the filling stations and when one was in haste, bought the fuel at double or thrice the pump price from your usual urchins gallivanting the streets. Those without vehicles endured the sharp rise in taxi and bus fares without fuss.
When the fuel shortages began, it was explained away by the bigwigs in the NNPC as emanating from the importation of adulterated petrol, which necessitated shutting down some outlets until the bad fuel had been withdrawn from the market. NNPC assured the public that they had enough stock to end the shortage, while more supplies were expected by the end of February. “As of today, NNPC has over one billion litres of petrol stock that is safe for use in vehicles and machinery,” the company said. They further assured that: “As part of NNPC’s strategic restocking, over 2.3 billion litres of petrol is scheduled for delivery between now and end of February 2022, which will restore sufficiency level above the national target of 30 days.”
Now, some days after the end of February, the shortages are persisting and even spreading into other areas. Probably due to the upheavals in the fuel supply lines, electricity has also become epileptic in the past many days compounding the suffering of the citizen. All these coming at the beginning of the hot season is really frustrating. To compound matters, the month of Ramadan is less than a month away. The very thought of fasting in these conditions is galling enough.
No wonder, some others have decided to make light of the intense hardship citizens are undergoing. A video that had gone viral in the social media showed petrol being shared as souvenirs at a party held in an event centre in Lagos. Inscriptions on the gallons indicated that the petrol in mostly blue and white containers was distributed to guests at the event tagged Erelu Okin Foundation Installation party.
Apparently, the organisers of the party had with the ongoing scarcity, considered petrol a valuable enough commodity to be given away as souvenirs to guests at the party. The video caused a lot of laughter all round but I understand that the Lagos State Police Command was not amused and had gone on to seal the event centre where the party took place. The last I heard was that the surly police chiefs in Lagos are considering arresting the organisers of the event and prosecuting them in court for endangering the public. I wonder how they could do that when all this time no official of the government has been able to move against the street urchins selling petrol anyhow. In any case, our suffering might soon be over as the GMD of the NNPC, Mele Kyari, has even gotten off a foreign trip to supervise measures to end shortages.
The other event was the uproar in the premises of the National Assembly where an assemblage of women leaders and their foot soldiers gathered to protest the untidy treatment of gender issues at the ongoing voting on the amendment clauses of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. I cannot fathom how and why the gender issues were given the short thrift at the plenary. The issues are important and glaring enough. There is a dismal representation of women among elected officials. There is not a single lady state governor. There are only a handful of Senators with the entire northern states having to do with only one Senator (Aisha Dahiru Ahmed) representing Adamawa Central. The representation of women in the House of Representatives and Houses of Assemblies follow similar patterns.
Women do not fare better in appointive posts either. But these are not the only manifestation of discrimination against women. Probably, the worst forms of discrimination would be cultural. Most cultures in Nigeria, without any exception, manifest all sorts of unwholesome discriminatory practices against women be it in marriage and inheritance laws, access to education, employment opportunities, etc. The plenary would have been a good opportunity to attempt to right some of these wrongs by spelling out some of these affirmative actions in the constitution. I know that countless women pressure groups have been at it for years. But they must have lately gotten complacent considering the size of the defeat.
I guess all is not lost yet. Victories of this historic magnitude are only achieved through gruelling hard work. Bringing the First Lady on a token fleeting visit to the National Assembly has been shown not to do the trick. Women leaders need to go back to re-strategise and come out with a better reach-out plan before returning to the trenches.
