The big news last week was the general strike in Israel. If the idea of the strike was/is meant to exert pressure on Netanyahu, everyone in Israel ought to know him enough by now. If you don’t want a stubborn leader in office, stop voting for stubborn people.
Netanyahu will not yield to anything that looks like bowing to Hamas. He will jump first from the Brooklyn Bridge before he gives Hamas what they are trying to achieve—pressure to leave Gaza and allow Hamas to regroup.
Families of hostages might as well kiss their loved ones a permanent goodbye.
The pain in that tiny part of the world will continue for some time to come.
Hopes for peace — an illusion?
Is there any hope for peace in that part of the world? There might be if voters would just ignore extremist politicians and begin to vote moderates.
There can be hope if countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran and Qatar decide to huddle with Israel instead of continuing to fund groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.
There will be hope when there are enough partners on all sides who see better value in peace than in war.
A 14-year-old goes on rampage.
In small town Winder, Georgia, a 14-year-old took an Assault Rifle to school. Two other 14-year-olds and two teachers are dead because his father thought it was a great idea to give a 14-year-old unstable child an AR-16 as a Christmas gift.
The father of the shooter is being charged along with his son for murder. That’s little comfort for families who will cry for the rest of their lives over the senseless deaths of their loved ones.
Far right resurgence in Europe.
In recent elections in Europe, Far Right parties appear to be favorites. In Germany, the Alternative Fur Deutschland, AFD Party has shown its strength in recent State elections, and they are favorites to win national elections. All of these are being fueled by immigration, but the real meat behind it is the fear of Islamic radicals in the immigration mix. That will not be going away for a long time to come.
It is certainly not going anywhere in the United States. If Trump wins in November, it will be an impetus for the Far Right everywhere. If he loses, even in America, Trumpism will be with us for a long time after he’s gone. That is the new reality.
A presidential spokesman moves on.
The Spokesman for the President of Nigeria, Mr. Ngelale has quit his job. He calls it a leave of absence to enable him attend to family matters. Information on the reasons for his departure is sketchy, leading to wild speculation.
Where is the President?
We need to know because he alone, it appears, has the power to solve problems associated with our suffering.
Mr. President, only a couple of weeks ago, you instructed the NNPC to start to sell crude oil to Dangote Refinery in Naira.
Great initiative.
Dangote confirms that he has received a great amount of crude already.
Dangote says he’s ready to supply fuel to the entire country.
What we don’t know is what NNPC is saying.
I grew up in a beautiful Nigeria. Our hospitals worked for me when my head split in a domestic accident in 1967.
Our hospitals worked for me through the 70s when I thought malaria was going to take me out.
Our universities worked for me as a teenager.
Like Amerigo Bonasera, the character in the novel, The Godfather, who expressed his unwavering love for America, sir, my generation still believes in Nigeria.
Even when Professor Chinua Achebe wrote There Was a Country, and I read the book, I refused to accept his conclusions.
Mr President, many of us still believe.
Many of us still hope.
Many of us still dream.
You hold the power to solve many of our problems, Mr. President.
Use it.
If you want free market, then, tell us without equivocation that you want free market.
If so, you must put a stop to all conversations between NNPC and Dangote Refinery. Just as there’s no one telling Dangote how much to sell cement for, let him be free to sell his petrol at a price he determines.
Then, sir, you can impose a petrol tax at the loading point—the gantry. If you do it at the pump, the money will never get to the treasury.
If it is true that we actually consume 64 million litres of petrol
daily, then, with a petrol tax of N100 per litre, you will put N6.4bn in the nation’s treasury daily.
If this arithmetic is correct, then, you may well be on your way to becoming the greatest president ever.
Petrol will no longer be a drain pipe on the nation. Instead, it will become a profit center.
You will become overnight the infrastructure President of Nigeria because the treasury will be overflowing with money like the nation has never known before.
With Dangote getting his crude in Naira and selling in Naira, and without the NNPC as middleman, petrol will still be as cheap or eventually cheaper than N600 per litre when more competitors come on stream.
This is not the time to play.
This is the time to think and to do.
Mr. President, please do not allow the NNPC to be the single offtaker of Dangote petrol.
If you do, your government will never settle down to govern.
It will not take long before NNPC introduces new bottlenecks to create new invincible subsidies for the nation’s treasury.
Dear Mr. President, step in, step up and solve our problems so that our problems do not solve us.
Ovienmhada, author, poet, playwright, & public affairs commentator, can be reached via [email protected].
