My people sef dem fear too much
---Fela Anikulapo-Kuti
Just over a week ago now, elections were held in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The elections were between the 'people's favourite', Mousavi and Ahmedinejad, the incumbent president, and a favourite of the ruling elite. In a shock result, Ahmedinejad was declared the winner. However, the Iranian people, knowing fully well that their ruling class had pulled a fast one, took to the streets and have made the country ungovernable for the ruling class. In massive protests the likes of which have not been seen in Iran for over a generation, it is very likely that the ruling Supreme Council which has been the real power in the country since that revolution which three decades ago deposed the American backed monarchy.
In the Ukraine five years ago, the government of Viktor Yanukovych attempted something similar, when the people cast their ballots and decided that Viktor Yuschenko was the man to govern their country. As the Iranians are doing now, the people of the Ukraine voted with their feet, in the streets and made quite sure that their mandate was not stolen. The government caved to people power, and it was the choice of the people that ultimately won the day. I can point to examples of people power forcing government change in Indonesia, Romania, Algeria and South Africa.
I can also point to examples of people power forcing a change in government policy, and/or economic realities in France, Italy, the United States, Egypt, South Korea, Peru and the Ivory Coast. Even in that indolent country that still prides itself as being great when the boat bearing that title departed a long time ago, people power forced the government of Gordon Brown to take a closer look at the parliamentary expenses system and push for a change. Had he not done that, he would be out of job and home by now...
As I type this, I am seated in the Departure Lounge of the Port Harcourt International Airport. I was supposed to have boarded a Virgin Nigeria VK92 Flight back to Lagos at 1330, and being that the flight time is 50 minutes, I should have been on a bike coasting through Ikeja at this very moment. But this is Nigeria, so the plane which would take me back to Lagos has, according to the announcer, just departed Lagos, and is estimated to land in Port Harcourt at 1535, then we board for Lagos at 1600. People around me in this lounge are resigned to their fate being that we have all paid for our tickets (I bought mine from a tout, so I can't even ask for a refund), and we all want to get to Lagos.
The next official flight is Arik Air's flight which departs at 1730, and their counter contains one not too pretty member of staff who needs to have her skull cracked open, so the term 'Customer Care' can be drilled directly into her brains. So much for the customer always being right in this country...
Before I left Nigeria for the UK some years ago, I used to buy the popular beef roll Gala for N30. Coupled with the apple drink La Casera at N50, N80 was quite good for breakfast for me. On my return to Nigeria a few months back, I found that Gala has gone up to N50, while La Casera would now set me back N100 each time I buy it, which is not any more because the quality of the drink has diminished to the extent that each time I take a swig of what used to be my favourite drink, I almost feel like I am receiving a slap from the insides of my mouth. Yesterday, while on a drive through Aba Road, I ate a bar of Gala that tasted more like it was made from rat meat, yet this thing still flies off the shelves (or is it cartons?) like no man's business. No one has found it fit to complain about the diminished quality of these products, or their increased prices. Since no one has complained about those, I think it is too much for me to ask for a boycott of those products. As Nigerians, we are used to taking crappy service, and adjusting ourselves to it like it is normal.
I will be the very first person to accept that the cost of doing business in Nigeria is such that end products are, and rightly so, a bit more expensive than they should be. However, in my not so humble, and more often than not correct opinion, there is a vast difference between making up your production costs, and simply taking the piss out of your consumers which is what a lot of product manufacturers and service providers are doing in this country.
A good example is internet service. IPNX charge N15 000 a month for service that will be flat out rejected in other parts of the world. There was a day I was trying to upload a file and my data transfer rate was 1byte per second. I almost tore my head out. At N250 to £1, N15 000 translates to £60 a month. I used to pay £15 a month for unlimited download capacity, now I have to pay £60 for a limit of 1GB a month? I mean I understand that there are constraints to internet service provision around these parts, but if that is not exploitation, then what is?
Digital Satellite Television. DSTv has been in Nigeria for going on fifteen years now. Almost all upper and middle class Nigerians have a DSTv box in their homes as the quality of programming from our state owned television is less than fit for human consumption, and our private television stations are so dependent on advert revenue to keep them going that they have in many cases become nothing more than outlets for our screeching pastors and the likes. End result is that most people choose to remain with DSTv. It is also unarguable that one of the biggest reasons for people (guys at the very least) getting their DSTv box is football, specifically the English Premier League. A few years ago, the Nigeria Broadcasting Corporation stripped (or is it limited?) the number of English games that DSTv could broadcast into Nigeria in order to allow a local upstart Hi-Tv room to grow. In any logical setting, one would have believed that this was a time that DSTv would not only knock down their prices, but also improve the quality of their programming. Actually, the reverse occurred. DSTv's monthly subscription is now higher than I recall it being before I left the country, the quality of programmes that they show is not nearly half as good as what Sky shows in the UK (if you do a conversion, DSTv's subscription costs more), and their software has become even more buggy. Of course like NEPA (no one should tell me it is PHCN), once it rains, forget about watching that game between Arsenal and Liverpool. Yet they are charging more! And even worse, Nigerians are still paying them for this crappy service!
A few years ago, the Palms Shopping Mall opened in Lagos, and Shoprite became a bastion of the upper/middle class especially those who reside close enough to pop in there on their way from work. Other Lagosians had to make do with Tejuosho (now thankfully burnt out), and the likes, or wait for those nice little boys who run after their cars in traffic.
The Palms is an example of what a shopping mall should really look like (in a funny way it reminds me of Brent Cross), and Shoprite to their credit sell their stuff at reasonable prices, but just down the mall in Game, prices are still cut throat. I would rather go to Otigba to buy my accessories than waste my hard earned cash at Game. Yet, each time I go to the mall, the Game is filled to capacity, and the tills are bleeping happily.
Where I reside in Surulere, we have something coming up called a mall (on Alhaji Masha Road), and I can almost guarantee that like the silly 'mall' in Magodo GRA, or the even sillier one called Mega Plaza, prices would be more than they should be, but the place would be packed full. Nigerians as a people simply do not know how to vote with our feet. Nigeria is the only country to my knowledge that all costs go up during the Christmas season. In Europe, that is when sales begin.
But Nigerians would all pack to the shops to buy over inflated stuff. We need not mention what happens when there is a rumour of petrol scarcity...
Like I said earlier, it is not only in economic life that this attitude of exploitation is rampant in Nigeria, but in every aspect of our daily lives, from transportation to food, to politics to power. NEPA doesn't give me light, but at the end of the month a bill would arrive and they would expect me to pay? I don't think so.
The people of Iran are currently showing us the way things are meant to be done, but I sincerely doubt that my people would listen, watch and learn. When next we have another opportunity to show the Nigerian elite that we are a people with balls, we will be divided up along ethnic or religious lines, or some of us would see a chance to make their own personal gains, then the opportunity would be lost. Tragic? Maybe. Certain that would happen? Yes. Until we as Nigerians finally learn to put our own personal comforts aside for the common good, we will continue to be led by our noses.
My aircraft just arrived from Lagos, so like the good Nigerian that I am, I will without complaining about this piss-poor service from Virgin Nigeria, go and line up with the rest of this motley crowd and board the plane. Forza Nigeria.
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