Tunde Chris Odediran
If Nigeria were an individual in pains and a medical professional had to be called in to administer treatment, the vital signs to be measured will be the four elements that form the title of this article.
How happy is Aliko Dangote?
Is there an oil scarcity?
What’s the level of hunger and are the people talking about a protest?
Dangote is like Nigeria’s blood pressure and oil its body temperature.
These factors are very problematic.
Dangote runs through the veins of the country through investments in cement, sugar and other essential commodities.
Today, he holds the nation by the balls by building a behemoth of an oil refinery.
When Dangote is unhappy, Nigeria’s health index drops.
An unhappy Dangote got Nigeria’s blood pressure dangerously high because his refinery business was in the danger of a collapse.
Dangote boasted some years ago he would be ready to buy his beloved Arsenal Football Club in the English Premier League at the end of the refinery project.
That dream was failing as Dangote could not get enough crude oil on the local market to fuel the plant and his ambition to be a club owner.
The richest Nigerian is used to manipulating people in power to his advantage, buying, shuffling or installing operators in circles of power.
According to Dangote: “If bad and inexperienced politicians control power in Nigeria, my wealth may turn into poverty, and I am not ready to become a poor man.”
The former Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai described in his 2013 book, The Accidental Public Servant, the merger of money and politics that delivered Nigeria into Dangote’s hands when the businessman sponsored President Obasanjo’s re-election.
“From 1999 to 2003, nobody had heard of Dangote having anything to do with the federal government in any significant way. ”
That was the opportunity that transformed Dangote as the holder of economic power in Nigeria.
When Dangote sneezes, Nigeria freezes. No investor has ever got a nation its firm grips this much.
Sources among journalists told me that Dangote had invited top media professionals in Nigeria to a location in Lagos, where he gave them the script to rescue his refinery.
As editors swung into action within days, public opinion began to sway in Dangote Refinery’s favour.
Serious allegations were made by Dangote against regulators about how they engaged in competition with his business or falsely labelled his products as inferior.
The allegation that Nigeria suddenly imported $2billion worth of refined products from the tiny island of Malta in 2023 where the NNPC had a refinery was held as the truth by the press without much verification.
My own independent research showed that Malta does not have the capacity to produce that much refined oil products, and Nigeria did not appear as doing any significant oil business with Malta.
Malta does not have any domestic fossil fuel resources, relying on imported crude oil and electricity to meet its own energy needs.
Just when hopes were high that the ensuing allegations and counter-allegations would help Nigerians to unravel the truth behind its vastly corrupt oil industry controlled by a cabal, in which all of Nigeria’s refineries had suffered epilepsy, the music stopped and the game change in Dangote’s favour.
Instead of following its own compass, the Tinubu administration capitulated, to the delight of many brainwashed Nigerians, as new subsidies in the form of naira-denominated crude oil supplies to Dangote Refinery were approved.
Dangote had blackmailed the Tinubu administration successfully and he got his privileges restored once again, as the owner of Nigeria’s most subsidised business – the ultimate almanjiri!
He’s the expert at extracting favours from the government, using his sponsored connection to top politicians and government officials to sway policy decisions.
Reuters, a foreign news organisation, reported that Dangote’s companies received exclusive foreign currency allocations from the Central Bank while the Nigerian economy suffered dollar shortages up till 2022.
It wrote: “As Nigeria grapples with a foreign exchange crisis, one person stands out in the scramble to obtain hard currency: Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man.”
Dangote is now happy; and Nigeria is happy. Subsidies removed have been restored to Dangote’s pocket. Nigeria’s temperature is back to normal.
But while the Nigerian people need oil, they cannot feed on oil.
Not even the guarantee of Dangote Refinery’s production is real remedy. Unemployment and inflation are at a historic high and hunger ravages the land.
Promises of better material condition to the ordinary citizen by politicians have only led to the progressive worsening of living standards. The pulse of the nation is measurable through the level of hunger.
Having waited and tried everything they could, some Nigerians decided to send a different type of message to the powers that be.
They decided to head to the streets. The protest, tagged ‘#EndBadGovernanceInNigeria’, is billed to unleash “10 days of rage.”
The government and a large section of Nigerian elite think protesting is the wrong thing to do.
They smell conspiracy and politicking, on the position that protesting is tantamount to an insurrection. The nation has since been divided into two camps – those in support or against the protest.
The administration hopes to achieve peace, even if the people are hungry.
George Akume, Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), appealed to Nigerians “of whatever persuasion, belief, demography, gender and status to shun calls for protest against hunger by prioritising peace and progress.”
The Tinubu administration is not oblivious of the situation in Kenya.
The Kenyan government’s attempt to raise taxes was stiffly resisted by the youths who have been in more than six weeks of demonstrations. Politicians are on the edge with at least 50 deaths reported through protests.
Kenyan President William Ruto withdrew the tax bill and announced a shake-up of his cabinet following sustained pressure from younger Kenyans.
Similar stories are unfolding in Ghana and Uganda, with protests brewing over alleged corruption by politicians in the face of hardships, and those governments are trying to resist protests as a basic tool for democracy and freedom in Africa.
Some say we are too tribalistic, too ethnic and too emotional to protest peacefully. And that argument is gaining ground.
Nigeria is ending up with watered-down protests, where citizens are being restricted to geographical spaces in which they are allowed to protest.
From Lagos to Ilorin and Abuja, Nigerians can protest only in designated public parks.
Those who make peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable, according to former US President, John F. Kennedy. Nigerians are hungry and angry. There cannot be peace until their needs are met.
Most Nigerians don’t care so much about corruption, because many are corrupt in their own lives.
They just hate disruption to their well-being.
And hunger is a common problem which is making its way up from the poorest to the upper middle class.
The Tinubu administration may be doing a lot to reverse the root causes of poverty, but it is not empathetic enough, neither is it showing the kind of commitment and transparency that can convince the common man.
We should not need protests, riots or containment. Those are not solutions. What the people need is food and decent living.
If the government would provide basic needs, even those in government would sleep better. The people won’t bother them about the Dangote, the oil racket or protests, if there is no hunger in the land.
