Price Control: Mr. President, Please Don’t Hold On To A Philosophy For Philosophy Sake – Tade Oshaloto
It is looking like someone has forgotten that Nigeria has to be rescued from Nigerians. I read an update earlier this morning. The points go like:
a. When PMS was N1200, transport operators increased fares immediately.
b. Now that the price of PMS is significantly down, not a kobo has been reduced from transport fares.
The points raised in that update have inexorable pushed some of us to that ìkòríta where despite scoring the present administration high on many front, we must for the sake of our nation disagree, if slightly, with P-BAT’s philosophy on price and pricing. The president may have espoused his magical economic principle as a magic bullet that hits the target in spite of the constraints of time, culture, season or war.
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The Prez have merely played into hands of those who accuse him of acute elitism. And even if I know he means well, how can I fault them?
Mr. President held, and obviously still holds, the view that the (Nigerian) market has the power and humanity to self-regulate. The assumption of his theory is not only blindsided but a tad vexatious given what the everyday Nigerian endures especially during the long-term, and rightly so, gestation of policies being emplaced by this administration. And I must even thank my oga Babajide Kolade-otitoju for raising this all important issue during the famed Prez media chat.
Abuja for example has thousands of uninhibited units of houses, yet the glut has not driven down the cost of rent or home ownership. Basic housing is still far from the reach of earners of so-called minimum wage.
Our population is said to be around 250 million. But anyone who has the faintest idea of the volume of food produced in Nigeria, despite the challenge of insecurity, will likely agree that we can feed more than 400 million mouths if there were research and regulations including proper border policing.
We are dealing with inhuman exportations of our foods. We are also dealing with hoarding. We are dealing also with lawless, conscienceless-ness, brutal and unsustainable pricing system.
Our president must know that what drives our market here is not rationality. It is greed. It is oppression. It is wickedness. It is the ignorance of, and defiance to the consequences of our self-sabotage.
Nice, religious and generous as we pretend to be, we do not yet exhibit sufficient humanity, conscience, decorum and love that Mr. President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu thinks could help beat down the price of product and services. Government must step in. Government must save us from ourselves.
Without government stepping in, rather than having surplus as Mr. President envisages, our food will continue to be shipped out to earn a foreign currency while the remainder will be overpriced. It is especially so tempting at this time when it is more than tempting to earn dollars.
My Demand
If Mr. President is not holding his economic philosophy for philosophy sake, I therefore call for a more intentional regulatory framework to address arbitrary, irrational and unpatriotic price regime that is driving more and more population in to avoidable poverty.
But first, I wish the president a happy new year and huge success in his administration. À ṣèyìí ṣè’mìíràn láṣẹ elédùmarè.
Tade J. OSHALOTO anipr
Igbaruku Okeri
