Fuel crisis as leadership deficit

In what started like a joke, by early this week, had turned to major economic and security crisis of apparent sub-regional dimensions. As the Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria, MOMAN and the Federal Government bickered over unpaid bills, the country slid to unprecedented levels.

MOWAN by the way comprises all major downstream players in the petroleum sector. They are the ones that own the major tank farms to store petrol, kerosene, aviation fuel and diesel. They are also the ones that have majority of the retail outlets; therefore, it is expected that anytime they sneeze, the country must catch cold. Now, when you throw in the mix the powerful National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, NUPENG you then realize that indeed what happed was plain and simple sabotage or something very close to that. NUPENG and its senior colleagues in the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association, PENGASAN hold the petroleum sector by the jugular. The combination of the three groups especially the big business owners otherwise called MOMAN, then you should expect what happened last week to happen. MOMAN's members flatly refused to open its depots. They said it is either they are paid or no country. The oil workers' unions decided to take inspiration from there since its members who are either staff or agents to MOMAN decided to compound the situation. They claimed that they too were yet to be paid since their employers were yet to be paid by government. So while government through the finance minister insisted that most of the claims by the major oil marketers were fraudulent; yet no one has been arrested? But more critical was the near absence of leadership. Like every other time that this president has been called or expected to rise to leadership, he has always floundered. This petrol crisis was no exception. As the country was winding down with companies shutting up; telecom operators rationing services; media organizations; hospitals; schools closing shop and small businesses suffering; we expected the president or his regime to rise to the occasion to at least talk to the people. It doesn't matter if you are an outgoing president. What matters is that you are president till May 29th. Therefore, the decision by the president and his handlers to stay off that crisis with hands akimbo, thinking that the problem will fizzle out unfortunately; is a testament of how our country has been ran in the past six years or so. There has not been anytime we have had this kind of lethargy in the administration of any government in Nigeria. The president and his minister of Petroleum Resources simply vanished. It was very bad. Coupled with the almost non- existent of public supply which means that we have to rely on stand-by generators; there was no fuel to power homes either. And there was no strategic plan or strategy to soothe the people (even if such intervention was a lie). It was as if the President and his government were punishing the country for voting him out. It was the Finance Minister, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, that even tried to put up an appearance. Diezani Alison-Madueke instead vamoosed to England. In saner times, since the oil cable has decided to hold the nation down, a competent president will mobilize the military to distribute products. The military exists because of time like this. Its officials and men are trained to handle emergency or makeshift situations until things become normal. We would have been happy to get statements from the president saying that because of the security implications of the ongoing fuel crisis, the military would be delivering quantities of diesel, petrol to named hospitals and schools, airlines telecom companies. Because armed robbers may just shoot when they know that police have no van to respond to emergencies; and hospitals because right now, there are reports that babies died on delivery because they needed blood to keep them alive. In all, it was the worst way for a president's parting shot. It appears he will be remembered more for these last days of calamity. That he is the president that allowed a few individuals to ground the nation while he did nothing. This is a bad memory and should therefore teach the incoming administration to do things differently from the template that has led us to nowhere.