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“Now that we have entered the third wave of the pandemic and the wisemen of the Buhari government have come up with another N5000 palliative to cushion the effect of subsidy removal from 40million Nigerians out of 200million, yours sincerely is asking, is Saka the carpenter with and advance payment for a carpentry job included?”
PEGASUS REPORTERS, LAGOS | DECEMBER 20, 2021
It started as a rumour and it caught fervency forcing the poor carpenter to rush back to his banker to ensure that he qualified for the rumoured N5k or 10k that will be credited to the “vulnerables” account by the Central Bank of Nigeria, (CBN). All he had to do was to withdraw the N95,000 he got from a client to purchase material for an ongoing building project.
Saka, for that is his name, learnt the carpentry trade and just did his freedom, (graduation) after more than 8 years or apprenticeship. A nuclear family of 6 and an aged mother to take care of as the eldest child from the maternal side of a polygamous house, Saka has 6 dependents that he must feed, clothe, house and provide their health needs on a daily basis. Money the family could manage very effectively for three months barring any unforeseen circumstances. Dutifully, Iya Tobi, the wife advised Saka to put the cash away in the bank since a forced stay-at-home order or social distancing decreed by government was in force. At least, to avoid the temptation of falling back on an advance capital for his biggest single hit as a journeyman for months in times of exigency at home during Covid-19.
There’s no doubt that the Nigerian ruling class has during these trying periods, betrayed their hatred-for-love and affection for the toiling masses via many confusing attempt to find who is vulnerable and needing palliatives to live through the hardships and social relationships put in place they have everything to be blamed for. Unlike many similar endemics which bore the root insignia of the common man, coronavirus and grinding economic circumstances, no matter how you view the, are instances created, nurtured and spread by the elites.
Nigeria’s first index case was an Italian working for a high profile construction company. Following in these cases are the children of the top government officials, members of the elite’s class running back home from infested countries and feigning ever traveling out of Nigeria. Even in our tertiary health centre like the University of Benin Teaching Hospital, UBTH and the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital, the collaborators that help the spread of the disease are well heeled medical staff who should know better than they acted. Governors, ministers and top government officers have been the sufferers of this disease as to have conduced a conclusion by the common man that covid-19 is a big man disease!
When government decreed social distancing, it’s trite knowledge that the lower rung of the society will bear the brunt of attendant hardship. With unemployment at its highest and the Sakas of this world depending on contacts with the rich and mighty to make a living and or with the only recreational facilities available to him being the numerous drinking spots and alcohol bezeling bars fully shut down, no responsible government needed a reminder that this segment of the society remains the primary player in the elimination of the disease. Rather, you’d ask, what did we get? An attempt to recast, in a society of sprawling poverty, who is vulnerable, most vulnerable, the needy and such other nomenclatural inanities, all in shameless attempts by government agencies and officials to ingratiate themselves and families through an unfortunate millennium pandemic.
As news flowed in from other nations as to how governments were shutting down social interactions and following it with palliatives to enable their citizens to cope with the temporary seizures, the Nigerian authorities from the federal to the states took steps, which at best could be described as “palestinization” of the masses in the FCT (Abuja), Lagos and Ogun states. It lasted two whole weeks as the elites, feigning sympathy with the suffering masses played the proverbial lizard who, perched on an ant-hill and declaring himself an anointed sentry, swallowed one ant after another with every nod as for as many as came to the surface to greet the messiah! Then as with every disjointed society, the masses pounced on themselves; the resurrection of anger manifesting as cells of thugs, robbers, vandals, “one million boys” an intimidating horde of marauding vagabonds, who looted for food and survival things in broad daylight and all kinds of criminalities as befits a nation at war with itself. Do you think that the End SARS Riots across the nation and the thug of wars between Lagos and its critical cosmopolitan population can be divorced from this?
With these, we pretended that all was well. Some concerned public spirited persons within neighborhoods volunteered some palliatives in form of bread, garri, cups of beans and even sachet water. As government or their agencies preached only the stay-at-home order in the midst of such suffering, the masses became restive, accusing government of neglect and insensitivity. There were reported cases of attacks on philanthropists’ distribution of items to the citizens because they were perceived as insulting and unbecoming of any responsible government’s response to a dare situation. In many instances, there were clashes between law enforcement agents and the people, between the people themselves struggling to make the best of a bad situation and with ill-informed gangsters and mobsters, who like a hatchery of young mantis, opt to feed on the weaker ones among the vulnerable.
It is a Manichean world wrought by greed, graft and insensitivity by ruling elite. Elites who having pulverized national economies and feeding the loots to foreign lands, far-removed from the reach of the commoners, proceeded to import as harvest the worst that their host countries were undergoing as they reach the millennial diminishing returns of scientific atrocities. Even if the persuasions that covid-19 was a Wuhan virus that springs from Chinese consumption of any living thing, but a Chinese, that you ought to import something from developed nations, after looting yours, is diminished by the developing nations tendency to import diseases instead of technology! The contra-fact today is that while the so-called Chinese virus is been exported and shared by the nations irrespective of development index, China is spreading its hold on less developed economies like a Roman Conquistador. As the USA, Europe, Latin America, Oceania, and African nations tighten movement within and without national boundaries, the hitherto prostrate Chinese cities are waking up to the embrace of new frontiers of economic investments, globally. While I do not intend to take side with either side of the narratives as to 5G equals Coronavirus or that it’s a biological weapon developed by China or the USA, I’m wont to see the phenomena involved in both the 5G and covid-19 as one good back-stroke China is deploying to an utmost national advantage.
This is where in Nigeria; the scenario takes a 180 degree turn! In all facts, the Buhari administration acted fast and timely by decreeing cessation of social contacts and closing the country’s borders just after a couple of index case, but its promises to grant palliatives to the so-called vulnerable has turned out as one big hoax, a forlorn expectation and an orchestrated attempt that reveal not only the darker labyrinth of the elite disdain and hatred of the common masses, but a re-echo of that declarative assertion to the common man which by actions and deed, queries his beingness “you are nothing but a mere number that gives Nigeria an identity”!
Now that we have entered the third wave of the pandemic and the wisemen of the Buhari government have come up with another N5000 palliative to cushion the effect of subsidy removal from 40million Nigerians out of 200million, yours sincerely is asking, is Saka the carpenter with and advance payment for a carpentry job included? By what yardstick is the class of vulnerable determined? Is that son of a shoemaker who live in Agege who attends Ikeja Grammar School in Oshodi with a daily transport and launch allowance of N500 expense catered for in the mix, if he’s fortunate to be remembered by whoever determines who is poor in his community? How much is N5000 to a student who gets N500 naira daily for an average of 20 day per month for school transportation and lunch? If N5000 x 40million per month equals to… and the reason for granting it to 40 million poor, is to stop a leak of… worth of fuel subsidy per month, is this not at best voodoo economy or a one-off gratification which government is not not willing to sustain?
I’m back to the cocoon till next week!
With this debut feature, the Cocooned MOYCA will be here on this page every Monday of the week
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