New Telegraph

26-year-old cartoon exposes Nigeria’s underbelly

NNPC Ltd wishes to reassure Nigerians that it has put adequate measures in place to accelerate the nationwide distribution of PMS earlier disrupted by the quarantine of methanol-blended petrol. ‘As of today, NNPC has over One (1) billion Litres of certified PMS stock that is safe for use in vehicles and machinery.’

The above was posted by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Ltd (NNPC) on its Twitter page on Tuesday, February 15, 2022 – that was 18 days ago and yet the fuel scarcity situation appears to have gotten worse across the nation. The Corporation also promised that 2.3 billion litres of PMS would arrive in the country between then and the end of last month.

Not too soon after this statement was issued by the corporation, its Managing Director, Mele Kyari went before federal lawmakers where he admitted that the fuel shortage “is completely unavoidable (and) we didn’t see it coming.” However, as has become the norm in the so-called ‘Giant of Africa’ what should be a routine resolution to the scarcity has assumed rocket science status, which means that despite having over “one billion litres of certified PMS stock that is safe for use in vehicles and machinery” and the 2.3 billion litres promised to have reached the country last week – the situation is still a nightmare for millions of Nigerians. And in keeping to the Nigerian tradition, those, who will soon once again be going around the country trying to woo voters promising them heaven and earth in the run up to next year’s general elec-tions, are nowhere to be found.

Beyond the summons of the MD of NNPC, our duly elected representatives have not deemed it fit to also summon the supervising ministers in charge to explain the failing or demand answers to what triggered off the latest fuel crisis and insist those behind it should be held accountable! But because they have easy access to the ‘black gold’ and unlike the suffering masses who do not need to spend hours and hours in queues, often snaking kilometres away from the stations, our representatives appear to be indifferent to the plight of their electorate. However, the sorry state of the fuel regime in the country is sadly by extension a reflection of how the nation is run by our leaders.

For instance weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine last Thursday; Western nations, including the US, Britain, France and so on, had repeatedly warned their citizens to leave the Eastern European nation because their giant neighbour was certainly going to attack it. Nonetheless again as keeping with our tradition our politicians refused to take a cue from them and failed to put any contingency measures in place for the thousands of Nigerians living in potential harm’s way in the war zone.

In fact when the Foreign Minister, Geoffrey Onyeama appeared on a private Lagos-based television station earlier in the week he said that they had been in constant touch with our ambassador in Kyiv who had repeatedly assured that there was nothing to be worried about when it was clear to the west that that was not true. The result is what we have now where we are now playing catch up with the lives of our citizens in Ukraine now on the line. Although it is good hearing that the government has approved $8.5 million to aid the mercy flights for the Nigerians who were able to make it out of Ukraine to neighbouring countries like Poland, Hungary and Romania it still does not mask the failure of the government to have been more proactive. For me it’s a wonder how our ambassador in Ukraine was able to convince the government that there was “no cause for alarm” when the western nations were all saying the opposite.

It also brings into question why our intelligence agencies, especially the Nigerian Intelligence Agency (NIA), were unable to glean the true situation of things in Ukraine which would have possibly enabled an earlier evacuation of our people. But sadly this fresh faux pas is only the latest in the sorry tales of our inability as a nation to get things right as highlighted recently by a cartoon drawn way back over two decades ago. Before I go into details about the cartoon and what it depicts let me quickly do a small expose on the man who drew it, especially for the younger folk who might not know him. His name is Josiah Akanbi “Josy” Ajiboye and is an artist and cartoonist who worked at the Daily Times. He was a cartoonist at the daily newspaper from 1971 to 2000, and his favourite artistic medium was using realism to comment on cultural, political and social issues in Nigeria, notes Wikipedia.

The caricature in question shows a man, representing the masses of Nigeria with ‘future’ written boldly on his chest, with his hands tied being buffeted on both his sides by rams with one representing fuel and the other the now defunct NEPA. Sadly and unbelievably 26 years later nothing much has changed for the majority of citizens who are currently going through harrowing experiences due to the effects of the lingering fuel scarcity or constant power outages which have so far defied all efforts by the government to fix them And despite the scarcity lingering for roughly a month now, NNPC officials are still sounding upbeat with its Managing Director, Kyari, again insisting that the petrol crisis would soon be over as over 1.7 billion litres of petrol were currently in stock and loading expected to commence at all depots soonest.

Kyari, who spoke to newsmen on Wednesday in Abuja shortly after a meeting with the leadership of the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) and Petrol Tanker Drivers (PTD), gave assurances the petrol queues would clear in the coming days.

He said: “Currently we have over 1.7 billion litres of PMS in our hands both in marine and on land. This also means that we now have capacity to load out excessively from all depots. We have put in place measures to ensure 24 hours loading in all depots. “This will ensure that scarcity created by panic buying will now be freed so that normalcy will return to filling stations. Typically in situations like this, people go to the filling stations and buy in excess of what they need and this is what additional supply will resolve. I am very sure that very soon we will see relief from this.”

Three days later we are still waiting for the queues to disappear from the petrol stations and normalcy to return back to our lives. One can only pray that in 26 years’ time Nigerians will not still be buffeted by the same old problems as depicted by Josy Ajiboye’s cartoon – which by then, would have been relevant for a staggering 52 years!

Read Previous

Qatar 2022: Ighalo, Osimhen, Dennis return to Eagles

Read Next

Sanwo-Olu felicitates Obasanjo at 85

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *