NNPC, PHCN AND ISE AJE LO SOMO NU BI OKO (Yoruba proverb). This week has been very frustrating, courtesy of PHCN and NNPC. You manage to sleep and wake in mosquitoed darkness; then grudgingly prepare for work. On getting to your bus garage or park, you are confronted with the sad reality that you have to pay double the pre-fuel scarcity fee to board a bus to your usual place of work. Again, grudgingly-and with your face in capital annoyance- you manage to pay even with the sad fact that half of your stipend has gone into transportation, and may be feeding inclusive. You let it go. And the same grudge and annoyance repeats itself after work. Like the creditor, you are happy that a day has finally passed - in the midst of all the grudge, annoyance and intense heat of the day- and the time draws nearer for your debtor-employer to pay you for work done. Not so fast! On getting home at night- after great endurance of the vehicular traffic, the incessant hoots from cars droved by crazy drivers, alongside the sharp and dangerous overtaking and swerving by ogogoro-laden eyes driving yellow buses- you sadly are welcome again to the warm embrace of darkness and mosquitoes. You exclaim, haba PHCN! You rain curses on the heads that flash and seize the light. In the morning, going to and returning from work, it is NNPC! These two devils are our major problems. They are the main reason why: ise aje somo nu bi oko! (A child is forced into exile by the need to earn a living). This is so, because there is very little savings or nothing from the ise aje, i.e, work, that can be taken back home. Thus, the child endures and elongates his stay in exile in the hope that he shall reap an harvest worthy of home. Until we get the NNPC right, knowing that the company is the manager of our number one resource, that is oil- our lifesaver - which contributes almost 90% to our national income; treat our oil like gold- something that must not be toiled with, let alone stolen in hundreds of thousands of litres daily- because of the huge economic impact it has on all the citizens, and then make sure that PHCN supplies power 24hrs daily, our ise aje cannot produce anything meaningful. We remain a child forced into exile by the need to make a living. Kingsley Muoneke.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Mar 2014 05:12:46 +0000
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