Fuel scarcity: Stop buying time and passing blame, Soyinka tells FG

Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has called on the Federal
Government to end the current fuel scarcity in the country rather
than buying time and passing blame.

Soyinka stated this on Saturday in a statement titled, “Blame
passing: The New Year Gift to a Nation.’’

He also cited the clipping of the 1977 edition of the Daily
Times when President Muhammadu Buhari, then a minister of petroleum
and natural resources, was quoted as saying, “Fuel crisis may be
over next year.”

Soyinka said, “I recently ran the gauntlet of petroleum queues
through three conveniently situated cities – Lagos, Abeokuta and
Ibadan – deliberately, this Friday. Even with ‘unorthodox’ aids of
passage, this was no task for the faint-hearted. Just getting past
fueling stations was traumatising, an obstacle race through
seething, frustrated masses of humanity, only to find ourselves on
vast stretches of emptied roads pleading for occupation. As for
obtaining the petroleum in the first place – the less said the
better.

“I suspect that this government has permitted itself to be
fooled by the peace of those empty streets, but also by the
orderly, patient, long-suffering queues that are admittedly
prevalent in the city centres. It is time the reporting monitors of
government moved to city peripheries and sometimes even some other
inner urban sectors, such as Ikeja and Maryland from time to time
to see, and listen!

“Pronouncements – such as the 1977 above – again re-echoing by
rote in 2017– are a delusion at best, a formula that derides public
intelligence. Buying time. Passing blame. Yes, of course, the
current affliction must be remedied, and fast, but is there a
dimension to it that must be brought to the fore, simultaneously
and forcefully? This had better be the framework for solving even a
shortage that virtually paralysed the nation.”

According to Soyinka, the 40-year-old 1977 news clipping came
into his hands quite fortuitously and it captures the unenviable
enigma that is the Nigerian nation.

He added, “It is however a masterful end-of-year image to take
into the coming year, not only for the individual now at the helm
of government, General Buhari, but for a people surely credited
with the most astounding degree of patience and forbearance on the
African continent – except of course among themselves, when they
turn into predatory fiends.

“When many of us are blissfully departed, an updated rendition
of this same clipping – with a change of cast here and there – will
undoubtedly be reproduced in the media, with the same alibis, the
same in-built panacea of blame passing.”

The playwright recalled that before the current fuel crisis,
other challenges, requiring an immediate fix, had begun to
monopolise national attention, relegating to the sidelines the
outcry for a fundamental and holistic approach to the wearisome
cycle of citizen trauma.

Noting that there were several other symptoms but not intending
to make it be a catalogue of woes, the critic said it was
sufficient to draw attention to the Yoruba saying, “Won ni, Amukun,
eru e wo. Ounni, at’isaleni. Translation: Some voices alerted the
K-Legged porter to the dangerous tilt of the load on his head. His
response was – Thank you, but the problem actually resides in the
legs.”

According to Soyinka, the providential image above sums up a
defining moment for both individual and collective self-assessment
and places in question the ability of a nation to profit from past
experience.

Soyinka added, “As the tussle for the next round of power gets
hotter in the coming year, the electorate will again be manipulated
into losing sight of the base issue… Sooner than later, but not as
soon as pledged, the fuel crisis will pass. And then, of course, we
shall await the next round of shortages, then a recommencement of
blame passing.

“What will be the commodity this time – food perhaps? Maybe even
potable water? In a nation of plenty, nothing is beyond eventual
shortage – except, of course, the commonplace endowment of
pre-emptive planning and methodical execution.”

Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has called on the Federal
Government to end the current fuel scarcity in the country rather
than buying time and passing blame.

Soyinka stated this on Saturday in a statement titled, “Blame
passing: The New Year Gift to a Nation.’’

He also cited the clipping of the 1977 edition of the Daily
Times when President Muhammadu Buhari, then a minister of petroleum
and natural resources, was quoted as saying, “Fuel crisis may be
over next year.”

Soyinka said, “I recently ran the gauntlet of petroleum queues
through three conveniently situated cities – Lagos, Abeokuta and
Ibadan – deliberately, this Friday. Even with ‘unorthodox’ aids of
passage, this was no task for the faint-hearted. Just getting past
fueling stations was traumatising, an obstacle race through
seething, frustrated masses of humanity, only to find ourselves on
vast stretches of emptied roads pleading for occupation. As for
obtaining the petroleum in the first place – the less said the
better.

“I suspect that this government has permitted itself to be
fooled by the peace of those empty streets, but also by the
orderly, patient, long-suffering queues that are admittedly
prevalent in the city centres. It is time the reporting monitors of
government moved to city peripheries and sometimes even some other
inner urban sectors, such as Ikeja and Maryland from time to time
to see, and listen!

“Pronouncements – such as the 1977 above – again re-echoing by
rote in 2017– are a delusion at best, a formula that derides public
intelligence. Buying time. Passing blame. Yes, of course, the
current affliction must be remedied, and fast, but is there a
dimension to it that must be brought to the fore, simultaneously
and forcefully? This had better be the framework for solving even a
shortage that virtually paralysed the nation.”

According to Soyinka, the 40-year-old 1977 news clipping came
into his hands quite fortuitously and it captures the unenviable
enigma that is the Nigerian nation.

He added, “It is however a masterful end-of-year image to take
into the coming year, not only for the individual now at the helm
of government, General Buhari, but for a people surely credited
with the most astounding degree of patience and forbearance on the
African continent – except of course among themselves, when they
turn into predatory fiends.

“When many of us are blissfully departed, an updated rendition
of this same clipping – with a change of cast here and there – will
undoubtedly be reproduced in the media, with the same alibis, the
same in-built panacea of blame passing.”

The playwright recalled that before the current fuel crisis,
other challenges, requiring an immediate fix, had begun to
monopolise national attention, relegating to the sidelines the
outcry for a fundamental and holistic approach to the wearisome
cycle of citizen trauma.

Noting that there were several other symptoms but not intending
to make it be a catalogue of woes, the critic said it was
sufficient to draw attention to the Yoruba saying, “Won ni, Amukun,
eru e wo. Ounni, at’isaleni. Translation: Some voices alerted the
K-Legged porter to the dangerous tilt of the load on his head. His
response was – Thank you, but the problem actually resides in the
legs.”

According to Soyinka, the providential image above sums up a
defining moment for both individual and collective self-assessment
and places in question the ability of a nation to profit from past
experience.

Soyinka added, “As the tussle for the next round of power gets
hotter in the coming year, the electorate will again be manipulated
into losing sight of the base issue… Sooner than later, but not as
soon as pledged, the fuel crisis will pass. And then, of course, we
shall await the next round of shortages, then a recommencement of
blame passing.

“What will be the commodity this time – food perhaps? Maybe even
potable water? In a nation of plenty, nothing is beyond eventual
shortage – except, of course, the commonplace endowment of
pre-emptive planning and methodical execution.”