Is there is a correlation between poverty rate and petrol price? Click image to enlarge.

When historical data of petrol prices in Nigeria is plotted against the national poverty rate, you get an interesting trend result!

People protest following the removal of fuel subsidy by the Government in Lagos ,Nigeria. Photo: AP

Chauffeur-driven, feeding fat on government allowances, locked up in the government-paid, generator-powered, air-conditioned enclaves, and surrounded by a retinue of personal and security aides, it is very easy to lose the pulse of the people on the streets, subsisting on less than $2 per day. This is exactly what is happening in Nigeria.

One fact has emerged clearly as riots enter Day-3, and Nigeria grinds to a screeching halt following petrol subsidy removal and subsequent increase in price: the government is not in tune with the masses. The tenacity, organization of the protesters and extent of the riots have shown that those calling the shots in government have indeed lost touch with the reality of the people they govern.

The subsidy removal argument as presented by the President Jonathan and his aides is poignant and sensible on paper. However, the petrol subsidy, as ineffectual as it may be from government point of view, is the only “social welfare” enjoyed by the common man on the street; it directly impact the lives of the people on daily basis. Besides, the “failure of the petrol subsidy”, as presented, is mainly due to government inefficiencies and corruption, perpetrated by a handful of elites. So why pass the burden on to the people without preparing and helping them manage the aftershock?

No matter how well the strategies for cushioning the effects of removal is, the street will not buy it! The federal government has little or no credibility with the people.

A better approach would have been to phase out the subsidy in stages, and at each stage, demonstrate to the people the gains and benefits of the removal in real life, not just on paper.

The situation in Nigeria is now a case of who blinks first, I would rather have Jonathan be the first to blink.  Jonathan, can you do this, please?

More on the petrol subsidy removal here:

• Naijablog: The Fuel Subsidy Removal Protests for Dummies
• My Heart’s in Accra: More thoughts on Occupy Nigeria
• YNaija: This is Why we are Angry

Former Education/Petroleum Minister, Professor Jubril Aminu

Professor Jubril Aminu, Nigeria’s former Education/Petroleum Minister, on loving and being patriotic about Nigeria:

Love for this country is just not there. People love their religion more than their country. I am from the North; people from the North are mad about the North but our leaders did not advise us to be as mad about our country. It is the same thing with the West and the East; their leaders did not advise them to be mad about Nigeria too. The people from the West love the West, but they were not thought to love their country, Nigeria. They were told to antagonise the federal government, because of the opposition stance. In my view, everything necessary should be done to get the people to love their country, Nigeria. Not in the fashion of what we see on the television every day, ‘We are Nigeria, we are one’….etc. Even children laugh at it. Invent real ways of making the people love Nigeria.

I remember this quote on patriotism from Mark Twain: “Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.”

Nigeria is more than the federal government, I need to correct the professor on that. The question I hope the professor is asked is this: Is the federal government really deserving of support given the self-perpetrated rot and delinquencies in the system? Almost all federal government controlled entity (infrastructure/services) is either under-performing or collapsed!

It’s simply tough to be in love with a government that seem perpetually out of touch with its people.

Seasonal rains have sent water flowing over riverbanks again in Nigeria, picture from Lagos suburbs. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)

I wonder why their demeanor does not correlate well with the hopelessness of their situation. Not only is their house flooded, the whole neighbor is under water, from the rains. Is this a form of adaptation to hard life?

This is what I see:

Contaminated water supply  – majority in this area rely on wells and surface water for drinking and consumption.

Compromised toilet facilities – this family most likely depends on pit latrine – that is flooded too. So how do they take care of personal wastes?

Household and cooking facilities are also impacted. Cooking utilities are mostly contaminated. So how do they cook and eat, while home and neighbor is flooded?

So you might wonder what the heck is this family doing home?

The list goes on and on…

Sadly, Nigeria is not a place with established public safety system that offers the ‘luxury’ of public evacuation system and neighborhood shelters. As they say back there: O-Y-O, meaning, you are “On your Own”.

Google’s strategy in Nigeria is primarily directed at getting people online, and creating and growing local content. This makes a lot of sense. At about 150 million, Nigeria is the most populous nation in Africa, with the second largest economy after South Africa, and with at least 24 million Internet users (as of 2009), about 17% of the population. And of more than 1 million registered businesses in Nigeria,  only 17,000 have presence online.

“Our strategy in Nigeria right now is really working around with stakeholders to build an online ecosystem, we are focused on three areas, the first is access and what we are really looking for is how do we get more Nigerians online, how do we remove the barriers to internet access, and so we are in conversations with service providers with regulators, with government agencies to know how we can get more users on line – Juliet Ehimuan, Nigeria Country Manager for Google.

It has not been rosy for the GNBO project; there are some dissenting voices already.  Loy Okezie, a  Nigerian blogger calls it “Net-Colonialism”, saying it is “capable of making it [Google] dominate Nigeria’s Internet ecosystem in years to com”. He also states the project “could kill web designing and web hosting entrepreneurship in Nigeria”.

Google’s free end-to-end website solution has some serious obstructions on its way though: Nigeria is plagued with slow Internet connection and erratic supply of electricity, conditions that would remain major hindrance to Nigerian businesses getting on the Internet in sizable numbers. I wonder if  Juliet Ehimuan agrees or not.