Buhari, Sanusi, NCC and contradictions of Nigeria

The contradictions of Nigeria under this administration are quite pathetic. You have a state government that cannot trace the killers of the wife of an evangelist beheaded in broad daylight in Kano even though the event was caught on camera. Then, you have another state government that is able to trace killers of hundreds of its own citizens to Cameroon and Niger and when they traced them did not apprehend them. Rather, they offered them money not to kill again. This is not an excerpt from Steven King’s latest horror book. This is an excerpt of life in the new and improved Nigeria!
In addition, the contradictions continue. On Monday November 5 2016, President Buhari complained about the demands that Nigerians were making and ended his lamentations by asking them not to make expensive demands of him.
A president who built an expensive helipad for his personal use in Daura with taxpayers’ money now asks taxpayers not to make expensive demands! Indeed, #ChangeBeginsWithMe!
If Muhammadu Buhari knew the demands of the office were too much for him then why did he contest for four times?
If I were to advice, I would tell him to choose his words carefully because his defensive words today may be offensive words tomorrow.
Yet, another contradiction is the ugly news from the NCC. When the madness from the Nigerian Communications Commission reared its head in the form of the attempt by the Buhari administration to hike the tariffs for GSM and Internet services, I immediately saw it as a desperate attempt by the federal government to source for funds to pay the 200,000 N-Power graduate employees it promised to employ.
After repeated promises to employ them and even more repeated delays, the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo eventually set a resumption date for the scheme as 1st December, 2016, the same date that the federal government through the NCC had set as the start date for the new tariffs.
Coincidence? As a life long student of mathematics, I am convinced that there are no coincidences and this latest ‘coincidence’ only crystallises my belief.
Like someone said on Twitter, other than Nigeria, I can not imagine another nation that will devalue its currency, increase fuel and electric cost yet leave wages the same!
Little did I know at the time I was reading that tweet the government was toying with another tariff increase.
In addition, when it suspended the data tariff hike, after public outcry, the NCC said it did so to enable it do consultations.
It is wrong really for officials whose electricity tariff, fuel and GSM plans are paid for by taxpayers to increase fuel, power and GSM plans of the people!
In truly progressive nations, it is the regulator that forces telecommunications firms to lower prices. I am dumbfounded that in our case, the regulator is the one seeking an increase. I thought the federal government said they were going to spend their way out of the recession. From the look of things, their plan seems to be to tax their way out of it!
Rather than direct GSM firms to hike rates, the NCC should invest in free public Wi-Fi for the advancement of knowledge in Nigeria.
It will enable unemployed youths gain access to a trove of publicly available information they can then apply to creative ventures that will lead to jobs, businesses and vocations. The human mind must be engaged and if it is not positively engaged then it will be negatively engaged.
I sympathise with the Buhari administration on its need to source for funds to pay for N-Power and other poverty alleviation initiatives. However, they should not tax the poor to provide for the poor. You tax the rich to provide for the poor.
On December 2, 2016, Forbes magazine reported that China has begun implementing a 10% additional tax on luxury cars.
In justifying the tax, the Chinese ministry of finance released a statement saying “In order to guide rational consumption and promote energy saving and emission reduction, the State Council [cabinet] has approved a consumption tax on luxury cars.”
Nigeria’s leaders expose their hypocrisy when they turn up for public events in their long convoys of very expensive and foreign cars!

Nigerian automobile manufactures now make bulletproof cars (partially made in Nigeria) so there is no reason for anyone, including the President, to drive in long convoys of obscenely expensive Mercedes Benz and BMWs. The Nigerian currency (Naira) hardly circulates within. Rather, government officials make the dollar, euro or Japanese Yen stronger by their purchase of foreign products!
Rather than increase the tariff on GSM and Internet rates, the federal government should direct the Federal Inland Revenue Service to take a cue from China and tax the super rich.
Instead of taxing the rich, the FIRS announced that it is about to implement a policy where Nigerians would have to show a tax clearance certificate before applying for an international passport.
What type of authoritarianism is this? An international passport is a right not a privilege. A government cannot deny it to its people.
Rather than target the long suffering masses, wealthy Nigerians can and should pay their fare share! We are all witnesses to the larger than life lifestyles of the rich.
Additionally, we all read how President Buhari, who has only brought austerity where he met prosperity, recently had his daughter betrothed to the son of a billionaire who splurged ₦44 million on gifts for the President’s daughter! The funniest thing is that a few miles from the house of the President’s would be in-laws are refugees from Borno who do not have enough to eat.
That these acts are occurring at a time when the government is toying with taxing the poor out of existence only shows that some are mourning while others are celebrating!
A situation where the cost of everything skyrockets except salary and wages should not continue into 2017 except it is a deliberate attempt by the Buhari administration to reduce Nigeria’s population through mass starvation!
Before former President Jonathan increased fuel prices, he increase salaries and wages for civil servants, the military, the paramilitary and for members of the National Youth Service Corp.
Let me touch on the fourth contradiction and say that the presidency’s response to the Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II is most pedestrian. How can anyone in his right mind call Sanusi Lamido ‘ignorant’!
Even if Garba Shehu was directed to issue that statement, he should also direct his mind to know that there is life after directives!
The same Sanusi was the poster boy of the All Progress Congress (APC) when he made allegations against the Jonathan administration to the effect that it was unable to account for $49 billion. At that time, the APC took out centre page advertorials promoting Sanusi and castigating the Jonathan administration.
I doubt if amongst the ministers and appointees of the Buhari administration there can be found any individual who is as knowledgeable as Sanusi.
Is it Buhari’s minister of finance who graduated from a polytechnic? (University of East London was a polytechnic when Kemi Adeosun attended it.) (Moreover, her highest academic qualification is BSc Economics and a postgraduate diploma) Is it the minister of budget that does not know how much Nigeria owes, or the sports minister that thinks Nigerian athletes are too hungry to go for the World Cup?
The Buhari administration would do well to listen more than it insults or the economy may collapse even further than it has. Then we will know who is truly ‘ignorant’!
They have blamed former President Jonathan, blamed ex President Obasanjo, blamed the Peoples Democratic Party, they have blamed Nigerians, they have blamed their perceived enemies and now after running out of people to blame, they are now blaming their friends