By Ikeddy Isiguzo
Clearly, there is a difference between when Alhaji Aliko Dangote goes on protest and ordinary folks like us lining the streets to tell President Bola Ahmed Tinubu that we cannot cope with insecurity and the ascending cost of living.
We are all protesters. We are all hungry. Ordinary folks are hungry for bare necessities. Dangote is hungry to keep up his status. We are not Dangote, we agree. We are all hungry. Let us not argue that.
Dangote is the richest man in Africa. His hunger is for riches. We are mostly nationals of a country that has been confirmed the global capital of poverty. Nobody should be proud of that.
President Tinubu, possibly one of the richest Presidents in the world feels nothing about leading the largest mass of the poorest people in the world. He should not be angry, if he is actually the world’s richest President and I failed to acknowledge his achievement.
The President acts as if we barely exist. We are a great inconvenience to him, giving him headaches and sleepless nights. We have turned our First Lady into a peripatetic farmer whose fame now rest in failing, just like her husband, to listen to us.
Mrs. Oluremi Tinubu is consumed with television displays of a basket of vegetables that she says she planted in the surroundings of the presidential villa. It is a monumental success for her and a supposed lesson on us growing what we eat, just like her. Do you believe for a moment she eats only vegetables.
If the objective is for the First Lady to get air time, she has succeeded hugely. The deeper worry is that the First Lady is distant from the people, so distant that she does not know that majority of Nigerians, those most hit by hunger, live in spaces insufficient for them to rest their heads. Others are mainly on the move because their means cannot sustain any semblance of permanence at a place.
And the food needs of Nigerians has suddenly reduced to vegetables so that the First Lady would be hailed for pushing her unique nothingness to national prominence.
The hunger is real. It is not one that vegetables can manage. Dangote made that point with the aggressiveness he applied to rescuing his refinery that was apparently heading nowhere.
Within weeks of seizing the media space, Dangote had Nigerians behind him, in a deft move to buy Nigeria’s crude, on his own terms, for his monstrous refinery. The harsh words that flew between Dangote and the authorities were unprecedented.
The people, we, thought Dangote would remain implacable. He was beating the drums hard. He seemed to have no cares whether he would shred the leather. Accusations and allegations verged on poor business practices. The affected parties went at full throttle at each other. The blows misses the plexus, deliberately it now appears, by inches.
Presidential panjandrums engaged full gears in attacking Nigeria’s global business icon. Dangote replied in like manner. The more stinging the blows were, the lower the devastated party went, the lower the scruples the other applied. Nigerians became Dangote’s friends, adopting their “enemy’s enemy” as their friend.
The script that saw Dangote shedding tears, recounting his sacrifices for Nigeria, never for once mentioned Nigerians’ sacrifices that contributed to Dangote’s riches. His hunger was high voltage drama executed with Dangote as a victim of Nigeria’s notoriety for dealing with its own without counting the consequences.
Not for once did Dangote accept that Nigeria made him. He never discussed the impact of the waivers that Nigeria has fanned his way over the years. Is it possible that he forget? What would he have been without the waivers? How many other businesses got those waivers?
Dangote’s retort to his delight in running monopolies was to mock Nigerians by asking us to buy the refinery off him. The mockery was intentional. Where would a country that survives on borrowing raise $20 billion and more to buy Dangote’s discomfort? Why would we have had to buy the refinery?
Nigerians were busied with Dangote’s stories of owing no houses abroad, or in Abuja – distractions that only brought more tangentiality to an otherwise elevated conversation on how Nigeria has subsidised Dangote over the years.
Had the conversation on subsidising Dangote’s businesses been sustained, we may have had insights into what Dangote does for Nigeria. His foundations and donations, are investments that advance his businesses. They are not charity in the way we look at it.
Dangote’s hunger and anger were protested with a nudity that made many doubt his acclaimed business acumen. Who builds a $20 billion refinery without any confirmed sources for the supply of crude, the raw material to run it? What business plan did lenders peruse to hand Dangote $20 billion?
Many may be fooled. The few who are not are wondering what the drama was about, if not to navigate unconventional routes to confirm that Dangote gets what he wants. Dangote got what he wanted. He will get more if he asks. Regulatory agencies that are famous for tardiness were thoroughly worsted in the Dangote drama.
The sucker punch would be that the leaders of NNPC and a Nigerian oil firm were refining crude in Malta for the Nigerian market. Dangote said the quality of the Maltese import was poorer, in response to the regulatory agency’s queries on Dangote’s products. Plainly put, Dangote thought his enterprise was being sabotaged by the unfair competition from Malta.
Dangote got the President’s ears. Tinubu conceded to everything Dangote wanted, with the sweetener that he can pay for the crude in Naira.
Tinubu’s government that cancelled subsidy with his inauguration speech handed a subsidy to Dangote. The applause is deafening. People see this as a right decision. Every waiver that has been awarded to Dangote is subsidy. That is the real name. The footnote that other domestic refineries will pay for crude oil leaves the question, which domestic refineries? Will Tinubu investigate the Malta refinery that Dangote alleged was doing underhand business with NNPC Limited?
Ordinary folks are hungry and angry. They will not be allowed to protest. They are too poor to merit attention or dispatch in their affairs unlike Dangote who can protest without hindrance and get results post-haste.
The President asks Nigerians to be patient. Was Tinubu patient in purchasing two presidential jets? Patience was forbidden in getting a N21 billion palace for the Vice-President. Dangote’s matters, too, abhor patience. What are patient Nigerians expecting? When will they get it?
What conditions are attached to the latest waiver to Dangote? When he gets 450,000 barrels of crude daily, what do Nigerians get? Is he refining for export or domestic consumption? Should we even know the terms of the contract? Who will determine the price of Dangote’s products?
President Tinubu snatched fuel subsidy from the poor public. He has created subsidy for the richest man in Africa, Dangote. Do we have to be Dangote to be heard? We all cannot be Dangote.
President Tinubu should allow Nigerians to participate in Nigeria’s affairs. If the President realises that we are all Nigerians, he would be kinder in managing the genuine aggrievances that he just decisively dismisses.
• Isiguzo is a major commentator on minor issues
