Let’s sell Aso Rock too by Wale Fatade

The script remains the same. The actors too have not changed. The theatre is Nigeria where a rapacious and parasitic ruling class holds sway. They have been bleeding our country since time immemorial and they are not going to change soon. That sums up the current clamor for selling our national assets to pave the way out of recession.

The proponents have been talking with the fervor of a new convert, but for those of us who are familiar with their antics, they are following the same script. Perhaps unable to have their ways around the economy like the past, they want new means of getting more money for their debauchery by fleecing Nigerians of some economic assets. They never seek to grow their own companies but rather prefer appropriating our commonwealth. First, a millionaire flew the kite, and pronto, his allies and acolytes jumped on the bandwagon: let’s sell our assets and get more money. The legislators picked the baton from there as the senate president voiced his support, cue in the Central Bank governor, and our sybaritic governors did not forget their lines as well.

Adding to one’s pain on this matter was watching the senate debate the recession and the quality of what was on display could not even matched what we put up as undergraduates in our students representatives councils. Though the senate president’s speech showed some empathy and generated enough sound bite, his support for assets sale portrayed him as anti-people. Let’s just pretend not to notice the House of Representatives where we saw their juvenile behaviour with mufflers in support of a speaker accused of graft. The National Economic Council headed by the vice president with governors as members also lent its voice. The same set of people who prevailed on the previous government to share proceeds of excess crude oil sale want to sell assets and pronto, they would share the money to fund their ostentatious lifestyle.

For those who choose to forget, let’s remind them of what happened shortly after we returned to democratic rule in 1999 under the Bureau of Public Enterprise, who bought which companies and what happened to the proceeds thereafter? What’s the state of those companies today? Even if we go a little bit back, how were the federal government interests in some banks sold in the mid 1990s? There have been some voices of reason that we could sell some of these in the open market where majority of Nigerians would be opportune to buy into those companies. Pray, which honest worker in the country now has enough to meet his needs that share purchase will be his major concern. By the way, which stock market are we actually talking about? The flip-flop in some of the economic policies of this government has left the stock market reeling under pressure with little offshore investors left.

It’s the same pattern we are witnessing. Selling off assets to pacify rich people with little or no transparency and nothing, absolutely nothing, suggests that the Buhari government is different. It seems to be running out of options to fight recession and thereby looking for easy way out. An economy in distress with a visiting president on the global stage and side meetings with investors and business people to boot left her finance minister at home. Pathetically, the finance minister who should be reconsidering her worth to her principal was defending it on television as a cost saving measure even though the president’s daughters were part of the delegation. Clearly, our governors need more money to buy more bulletproof cars for themselves and their wives even when they owe civil servants’ salaries and pensioners are groaning as well. The major currency needed in an economy is trust and Nigerians do not seem to have much of it in this current government.

The labour movement too is not offering any alternative beyond threats of blocking the sale. In the days of Structural Adjustment Programme, there were intellectual gatherings offering concrete alternatives.
 We are back to the days of rallies and protests, nothing more. One is also curious about the students, not even a feeble attempt from them on the debate, if we can call it that. What do they learn these days?  It’s up to all of us to stop the riling class from stripping us of our assets again as they are wont to do.  And if they are insistent on selling, let’s start with Aso Rock and the jets in the presidential fleet. By the way, let those who understand the nuances of Yoruba language explain the concept of a ko t’ile ta to our president and maybe he can be persuaded that asset stripping is not the panacea to our woes.

My error: Last week, I wrote that Kunle Ajibade and Dele Momodu were with the Concord group when they called out a senior journalist for plagiarism, but I was wrong. Both were graduate students when they detected the error, my apologies to these esteemed seniors. Thanks to another senior colleague who drew my attention to it.