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The best face-mask in town!
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Our discourse on the political dynamics of the war against Coro is on
hold today as we review some recent miscellaneous small-small Coro-related
matters. Two weeks ago, the WHO Director of Emergencies advised us to see Coro
as a new-normal; in effect, to get friendlier with that vicious
visitor it because it was not going in a hurry, as it came with its own chair!
We were aghast because we all thought that Coro would soon disappear as
suddenly as it came. Just the other day, Dr Unisa, Head of Infectious Disease
Clinic at the University of Maryland said the same thing: ‘We may have to
live with Coro for months and years. Let’s not deny it or panic and let’s not
make our lives useless. Let’s learn to live with this fact’. So,
however unpleasant it is, we should get used to living with Coro, just as we
have become used to living with bad roads, poor governance, Discos that
generate more of darkness and charge us for the darkness, political
irresponsibility and rascality and overall governance failure. And by the way,
governance failure has killed and continues to kill more Nigerians than Coro
will ever kill. If you doubt it, let us ask the National Bureau of Statistics!
It is heartwarming that the PTF-Coro has learnt that this war is not an order
from above, by-fire-by-force affair. They now plan to engage 800,000
people for aggressive campaign of sensitization and mobilization across the
land. However, I still wonder why they should not outsource this task to the
National Orientation Agency, deploy
Youth-Corpers. who have all been ‘deboarded’, courtesy of the same Coro
or even decentralize the matter. Anyway, they now know that it is not a matter
of issuing orders from above. It is now common knowledge that President Trump
has finally severed the relationship between US and WHO because the
Commander-in-Chief of the global war against Coro has
‘failed to make the requested and greatly needed reforms’ and to punish WHO and its partner in crime,
China for their “cover-up” of the
coronavirus outbreak. Surely, Trump would have been a great dictator if he were
from these climes. He issued a query the other day and before the WHO finished
reading the query, he handed out this non-negotiable punishment. He did not
even bother about what other WHO partners think about the matter or the impact this
harsh decision on the other parts of the world. He is actually a dictatorial
democrat. And still on Trump and the US, at times, one emergency upstages
another emergency. Despite being the world champion in Coro cases and deaths,
Trump has had to keep the war against Coro in abeyance so as to face the unanticipated national
outrage against the gruesome murder of Floyd. The ‘I can’t breathe’
demonstrations’, which even forced the I-don’t-care Trump to take cover in a bunker in the White House and
led to the presence of US soldiers on
the streets, has put coro-related affairs on the cooler! Even Americans have forgotten facemasks, sanitisers
and physical distancing! It also led to the emergence of a new specie of blacks
( pure white men) who were looting under the cover of the protests.
And still from yonder, a
group of monkeys in India has boldly attacked a laboratory assistant on Coro duties and seized some Coro
samples from the helpless fellow. The monkeys even had the audacity to enjoy
their loot by publicly devouring the samples.
This happened in the
precincts of Meerut
Medical College in Delhi. May be, we shall soon start testing the monkeys for
evidences of ‘coronisation’! However, this shows that it is not
only in Nigeria that monkeys do ‘great things’ though in Nigeria, they would have been more interested
in swallowing cash. It is also obvious that the assistant was on a ‘legedes-benz’(
trekking) or else the monkeys could not have attacked and snatched the samples from him/her!
Back home, the NCDC has
bemoaned the appearance of black-market in the test -kit market. Don’t ask me
why it is called a black-market (just like we have black-mail, black-book,
black-sheep black-day, black-berry et al). However, I am not surprised because
in this country, we have black-market court injunctions and judgments,
black-market admissions, duty waivers, ministerial nominations, electoral
victories and employment letters! For those who patronize black-market test-kit
market, I have only one advice: caveat emptor.
And the biggest of the
small-small developments: the Government has moved on to the next level of the
gradual easing of our self-imposed medical detention. ‘Coffee’
has been reduced from 10pm -4am.( So, don’t drink coffee out side these
hours…!) Why? Because people in Lagos leave their homes around 4 so as to get
to work about 8 and this means circa 8 ours commuting time daily!( almost two
whole days in a week). Banks, other financial-service operators and
hotels are allowed to open fully while places of worship are granted restricted
opening. I don’t know why disorganized markets are opened fully while churches
can open on a restricted basis. Anyway, that means I will say goodbye to my online
parish and parishioners ( Holy Cross cathedral, Lagos). I hope I will
still find the way to my Parish, Our
Lady Seat of Wisdom, Okota. Now, are we opening up because the war is over or
because people are observing the restrictions more in breach or because Coro is
now the new normal? Well, ‘at-all,
at-all n aim bad pass’! I am
glad that we have moved to the next-level in the easing process.
Other Matters: $5.513bn
Foreign Loan? Count Me OUT!
The micro and macro
environment has been overrun by Coro and allied forces and I have been fully at
home for so long to the extent that I have started mixing up
the days and the weeks. On Tuesday last week (26/5/20) I sent out a message to
a platform adding ’for your weekend relaxation’! It was when one mischievous fellow asked me
the type of calendar I was using that it hit me: weekend on a Tuesday! Anyway,
everything has been about Coro: confirmed cases, fatalities, active cases,
Isolation Centers, CACOVID, treated and discharged et al. I got baffled when suddenly, last week, a
cacophony of voices started oozing out from the ‘Buhari boys’, how he was/is the best thing to have happened to
Nigeria, how he has placed Nigeria on an irreversible path to sustainable development, how he has
fulfilled all his promises and that in any case, he never promised to fulfill
all his promises within 5 years! (He has fulfilled all but he never promised to
fulfill all within 5 years!). It was
then that I remembered that it was 29th May, our former Democracy
Day. It was also around the same time
that Colonel Umar wrote the president, pleading with him to belong to all of
us.
As for the performance of
PMB/APC, the internet has made everything easy and all the information is out
there on the public square. It is indubitable that Nigerians today are poorer, more unemployed,
more homeless and ‘enjoy’ higher cost of living and poorer standard of living
than in 2019 or 2015. People are not judged by what they have promised to do or
for their efforts; they are judged by what they have done; by outcomes!
Incidentally, the Gospel reading for that day( John, 21:16-17) reminded us that
the core role of the shepherd is to
feed the sheep while the reward for the shepherd who fail to
attend to the sheep is woe! (Jeremiah, 23:1)
But
one thing this government knows how to do, do it well and do it quickly is
to borrow and that is why the President celebrated his 5th
Presidential anniversary by requesting for an approval from the National
Assembly (which, as expected, has been automatically
granted) to borrow extra $5.5bn. And the following day, our President had the
temerity to ask the world for debt cancellation for developing countries! It is like a yam-thief who was caught and
while being cautioned for thievery, he wass planning on how to go for another
stealing expedition. It is like the nominal Catholic who trivialises the sacrament
of reconciliation by sinning repeatedly because he believes that the
merciful God would always forgive him
anytime he confessed! Femi Adesina has also told us bold-facedly that there is
nothing wrong in borrowing because we
have not exhausted our capacity to borrow! So people should do everything they
can do? Alright, let Adesina drive his car at 250kmph on the Ikorodu-Ijebu-Ode
road or move around the streets of Abuja naked! Yes; he CAN do both!
Furthermore, he also reminded us that the global standard is debt to GDP ratio
of 50%
(and we are still at a mere 23%). I agree with him but also, lets follow
global standard on everything including governance, accountability, rule of
law, quality of education.
When I consider our
absolute and relative loan figures, rate
of expansion( see the figure), the loan service ratio, our repayment capability
and the opacity of these loans, the only reasonable thing for me to say is COUNT ME OUT. Let the NASS, and in particular
Senator Ubah and Hon Umeoji( who represent me at Abuja though I don’t know
whether they are aware) take note that I object to this particular loan. I know
my objection will not avail much. However, the hen whose chick the kite has
captured says it is crying, not because the hawk will have a change of heart
but so that the world would hear her. And in the years to come when they ask:
IK, what did you do when they were
engaged on this borrowing spree? I will refer them to this article. I am also
planning a one-man demonstration when schools resume. I know that Prof S.A Tela
would support me. Please, COUNT ME OUT!
Ik Muo, PhD. Dept. of Business Administration,
OOU, Ago-Iwoye. 08033026625
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