Do they consult whenever they conceive these crazy ideas that have caused us more pain?
Policy formulations and implementation are usually to improve the General well-being (GWB) of the people but their policies have rather destroyed the GWB of the people.
They see their policies failing in implementation but insist that we should be patient and that it will get better. The president has several times said we should be patient and that he feels our pain. Meanwhile, the pain continues in the eighth year of his administration.
They have come up with another policy that has forced cashless on us for reasons best known to them. Emefiele must have used the “Sharholiya” concept to convince him. How it affects us negatively is not his immediate concern as long as the idea fits into his mindset. They are focused on what they want to achieve with the policy irrespective of the implications for the people.
Cash is scarce as Emefiele and Buhari want it. The forced cashless is in operation. The network of most banks is down. The internet service is a nightmare. Some areas don’t even have a network. But all of us must go cashless after all they are not in the field to feel the pain of the reality of their policies. They make it look like they have made provisions for reliable internet networks and electricity in every home.
The Buhari government has successfully used the 3 months to educate the illiterate old women selling tomatoes and pepper in the market to transact by bank transfer. The POS doesn’t have cash. Those that have cash are collecting N200 per N1,000 withdrawal. POS has become the official black market to buy new naira notes. That is an empowerment that should feature on the list of Buhari’s achievements.
Forget the fact that fuel pump price has been quietly increased to N220 per liter. Nobody is even bothered about the increment since we can’t get the fuel at that price but N350 per litre. The cost of living is truly on Buhari’s #NextLevel. He knew what he was saying in 2019 when he said he was done with change and wanted to take Nigeria to the next level. The #Change brought hardship and he was supported for his #NextLevel campaign. Yes! We are truly in the Next level of hardship. You did it, sir.
Our situation was not close to the state we are in at the moment when we staged the fuel subsidy protest in 2012. Buhari and his APC gang joined us on the street for the protest. As a matter of fact, APC took advantage of the protest to knock on GEJ.
We were applauding him when Ngige became his defacto adviser on university education. He listened to no one except Ngige on the university crisis without minding the implication of his actions on our system. Ngige became the man to raise memos on who to pay salary and who not pay while the issues that led to the crisis remained unresolved. And we all pretend not to be aware of the state they have placed the education system in while they assumed that all is well with us but their kids are schooling abroad.
Now that Emefiele has got his ears and he listens to one else but Emefiele on this cashless crisis, Emefiele has got the approval from him to do whatever he like with our currency. We just have to MILT and enjoy the hardship the way ASUU MILT. After all, according to his diehard supporters, it is not Buhari’s fault but the “saboteurs”. The saboteurs that they allowed to grow. Somebody said we should be praying. Dear prayer warriors, please, keep praying.
Changing currency is expected to be a simple task. But no task seems simple for Buhari’s government. Every task they handle is like an inexperienced surgeon and produces complications. What do you expect from a government that is advising their academics to leave their classes and labs to go and farm and the people were clapping? Maybe we deserve another Buhari to continue from where he will stop in 2023.
Abdelghaffar Amoka
