By Rose Moses
Whenever I have to answer why I shun e-commerce, I simply remind the asker of the high level of scam/fraud in this country. I do not want to be a victim. One is usually reminded of how secure PINs and passwords can be, as long as you don’t share yours with anyone.
At this stage, I hardly bother to point out that despite all that security assurance, hackers are still having a field day; meaning the system could be porous enough for the nefarious “yahoo yahoo boys” [girls too].
In most cases though, I would simply dismiss the topic by assuring those wishing to know that I don’t mind taking the long route and pain in doing the same business. Let me just carry my mat [pun intended], go to the bank, and transact my business as safely as possible.
Now, don’t get me wrong. It is not as though I am ignorant of the benefits and ease of doing business online. I am too sensitive to take certain risks in a society as corrupt as ours, where most people, including those you should trust, appear programmed to exploit every level of interactions. Which makes sense of the catchphrase, “What you order vs what you get.’
People often go online to advertise beautiful products they claim to sell. What you may not know is that the advertised items were lifted from the websites of some big designers. So, you are attracted and if you are not sensible enough, you are sold a ‘Versace’ or ‘Gucci’ product that would cost nothing less than ₦100, 000 when the price is converted to our national currency, for about ₦10, 000 to ₦20, 000.
Did they steal those items they are selling for far too less? Nope! They just sold you fake items but you are happy to have a ‘Gucci’ or ‘Versace’ on. And that, indeed, is what matters the most – customer satisfaction. Right? But don’t come whining to anyone when the item begins to show its true colour because that’s what you paid for.
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Sometimes, the heartless digital sellers, who know exactly what you are buying, would even charge you more.
Why am I telling these stories? Well, it is obvious that when Nigerians were buying into the much-hyped change mantra in 2015, most of those chorusing ‘change’ did not see the counterfeit coming.
They had not the slightest clue that CHANGE would be packaged and delivered to them as one hell of a PAIN or CHAIN, which is exactly what the APC-led government of General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) has subjected the populace to since assuming office in 2015.
Indeed, some people were very much aware of how much of a pain that package would bring upon the nation but still went ahead to promote its delivery. It was such that both those buying and selling the idea then wanted a CHANGE from the freedom they enjoyed where they could gather, protest, and bash the government of the day as they wished without fear of arrest or harassment.
From what obtains today, it would appear they wanted a change from paying N87 for a litre of petrol to now buying at ₦162 to ₦165 per litre.
It looked very much like they wanted a change from buying a paint bucket size of garri at ₦300 to ₦400 to paying for the same item at ₦900 that it is today. They wanted a change from paying about ₦900 or less for the same measure of beans to about ₦1,500 that it is today. A paint bucket of beans actually got close to ₦2,000 at a point within this period of CHANGE.
Today, a bag of rice sells at more than N20,000 as against N8, 500 of the pre-CHANGE eras. Even when a ban is placed on the importation of polished [foreign] rice to protect local production, corruption in the implementation of this process is telling hard on consumers, who now have to pay more for the purportedly banned variety, since the local rice is scarce and also costs the earth.
Some government agencies at our borders through which rice is smuggled into Nigeria are thus making a kill for their pockets in place of collecting import duties.
Prices of practically every basic item in the market have doubled, if not tripled or quadrupled. A closer look at all of them shows a reduction in quantity and even quality. And the quality of living in Nigeria has been on a dangerous decline.
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The government appears so insensitive to the plight of the people, who are choked and suffocated by hurting policies, except for those in government and their cronies.
As if to add salt to injury, the price of petrol, which the APC government met at N87 per litre, keeps rising at a time the country is witnessing the highest number of job losses with hardly any palliatives to cushion its biting effects. All these and more are happening in a government that promised CHANGE and sold as the coming Messiah.
If you had listened to President Buhari’s speech at the Chatham House [London], “Prospects for Democratic Consolidation in Africa: Nigeria’s Transition,” during his campaign in 2015, you would indeed, believe that he was the Messiah. That, of course, is if you wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, considering his antecedent.
The packaging was so dope, but completely different from what we have to deal with when the chips came down. In that speech, hugely celebrated by his supporters, he did not promise Nigerians the level of pains and extreme poverty they have been progressively experiencing under his watch.
He promised, instead, to lead from the front, especially in the war against terrorism, and to generally restore Nigeria’s lost glory.
He quoted to us the three questions a development economist once said that should be asked about a country’s development: One, what is happening to poverty? Two, what is happening to unemployment? And three, what is happening to inequality?
In providing what he said were answers to the questions in Nigeria, Buhari argued that the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at the time he was speaking, had created two economies in one country, a sorry tale of two nations: “one economy for a few who have so much in their tiny island of prosperity; and the other economy for the many who have so little in their vast ocean of misery”.
He claimed to have solutions and promised to change all that when elected, saying that a good place to start from was to swiftly tackle two ills he said had ballooned under the Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, namely waste and corruption. He promised that if elected, he would lead the way with the force of personal example.
Buhari was elected and sworn in since May 29, 2015, and now serving a second term. But talk, they say, is cheap and even the blind can see that the Buhari administration, which promised to lead Nigeria to prosperity and not adversity, has inflicted more economic hardships on the people than any other government in Nigeria’s history. If there is any comparison at all in this direction, it would be with his military government of 1983.
Ironically, in a coup speech announcing the toppling of him on August 27, 1985, via another coup led by General Ibrahim Babangida, the 20-month old Buhari government then was accused of misuse of power to the detriment of national aspirations and interest, among other allegations of misrule.
That is exactly what many also see as the hallmark of his second coming as a civilian president, even though he was sold as a born-again democrat.
So when a day after an increase in electricity tariff, the Buhari administration on September 2, 2020, hit Nigerians with yet another major blow with the announcement that has shot up the pump price of petrol and still counting, some people just related with the fact that it is the same Buhari in power.
Reports had it that the Petroleum Products Marketing Company, a subsidiary of the NNPC, had initially increased the ex-depot price of the PMS to N151.56 per litre, with marketers saying the product would be sold for as high as N160 per litre or even more.
And phew, by the next day, September 3, 2020, consumers were already paying N160 to N165 per litre for the product, barely 24 hours after electricity tariff was suddenly increased from ₦30.23 for kWh (kilowatt unit of energy per hour) to as much as ₦62.33 per kWh by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission in what it calls ‘Service Reflective Tariff’, which boils down to the more hours you enjoy energy supply the more bill you will pay.
By this arrangement, those who enjoy 12 hours of electricity and above will pay between 80 per cent and over 100 per cent light bill while those who use fewer hours will not be affected.
The above explanation by NERC makes no sense at all and sounds like another way of scamming consumers, especially those using prepaid meter because it is a given that the more electricity you enjoy, the more you pay while incurring zero bill spending when there is no electricity.
That the ruling All APC would therefore, describe the painful hikes in the pump price and electricity tariff as evidence of an administration that is working in the interest of all Nigerians, goes to confirm its callousness.
It is even more annoying that a party that has ruled for five years, spreading more poverty and hardship, while justifying the painful measures, is still blaming PDP’s 16-year rule at the centre, for its incompetence. How ridiculous!
In a statement issued on Wednesday night, the day the pump price hike came on stream, the APC, in response to PDP’s condemnation of the action, advised the opposition party to account for the looted subsidy funds during its administration.
“For successive PDP governments that foisted on the country a corruption-tainted fuel subsidy regime, we call on the PDP to surprise itself and indeed Nigerians by cajoling its cronies who ran the subsidy rackets — many of them in hiding abroad — to return our stolen commonwealth in their possession,” the APC deputy national spokesperson, Yekini Nabena, said.
For Christ’s sake, how has this APC reaction addressed the concerns raised by the wicked hike in prices?
Nigerians are sick and tired of the cheap antics of APC in masking up its super cluelessness in governance. By consistently blaming the PDP for its failure to deliver democratic dividends, the government has demonstrated that it was never ready for leadership.
Nigerians who are passing through the most trying period in history are crying over the harsh decisions that merely enable the corrupt officials in government to loot more and rather than seek to ameliorate their pains, these same politicians blame the 16 years of PDP.
So, why did you ask to be elected if you can’t improve on things? Why hasn’t your government changed the pitiable faces of our refineries so we can refine locally and stop importing a product we are richly endowed with?
And by the way, who are those in PDP and who are those in APC? Same difference.
The nastiest part of this abuse on the sensibility of the people by these politicians is that some times, those rubbing our faces with this rubbish may have served two terms, or one, or sometime in office, either as governor or any other political appointment, as a PDP member before joining APC.
What a circle we run…of counterfeits and fake leaders that are grossly insensitive to the plights of the masses!
Otherwise, how does any responsible government expect a roundly beaten and long-suffering people under the circumstance to survive the very harsh policies they keep churning out every day?
The truth is that the people have been so badly beaten and impoverished that they hardly have the energy to protest. So sad, indeed.
