It is a very miserable time to be a Nigerian. Apart from queuing for hours at petrol filling stations and paying exorbitantly for the product, citizens are also afflicted by severe cash shortages. As adult Nigerians waste time in frustrating queues to collect their permanent voter cards, passports, and enrol for their National Identification Number, secondary school pupils are toiling in logic-defying queues to register for the 2023 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination. This existential crisis is accentuated by bad governance all over.

The majority is bearing the brunt of government incompetence, aloofness,corruption, and half-truths. This has turned Nigeria into a country of queues and shortages. Since January 2022, Nigeria has witnessed intermittent petrol scarcity, which has worsened from late 2022 till now. Motorists now spend hours in unnerving queues to buy petrol at the regulated price of N185 per litre. The alternative is stark: buy a litre between N250 and N600 from independent outlets or from black marketers, who adulterate the product for maximum gain.

In a country where the minimum wage of N30,000 a month has been nullified by a 17-year inflation high of 21.34 per cent, there is no escape from the hardship upon the citizens. Thus, transportation has become very expensive. Harshly, there are precious few alternatives to road transportation in Nigeria.

Farm produce prices have gone up. National Bureau of Statistics data said food inflation exploded in November to 24.13 per cent and dropped slightly to 23.75 per cent in December, affecting water, bread, rice, garri, beans, oils, poultry, meat, and other staples.

It is a vivid warning to the petrol subsidy removal apologists that the consequences of their warped logic might tilt the union over the precipice.Already, protests have taken place against the hardship in Lagos, Edo, Ekiti, Delta and Oyo states in the past few days. With 20 days to the general elections, it is a sign of bad trouble.

In truth, there is really no excuse for Nigeria to be groaning under petrol scarcity. It is a major crude producer, the 11th in the world, per Insider Monkey, an online finance resource. Over time, government incompetence and corruption have reduced the country to a net exporter of petroleum products, as its four public refineries are moribund. The heavy reliance on the upcoming Dangote Refinery might not change the picture much.

The result is devastating. Between January and October 2022, Nigeria imported petroleum products worth $12.44 billion, according to Central Bank of Nigeria data. That is about a third of its total 2022 budget of N17.12 trillion. The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative told a House of Representatives committee in 2022 that petrol subsidy gulped N316.7billion in 2015; N99billion in 2016; N141.63billion in 2017; N722.3billion in 2018; N578.07billion in 2019; and N134billion in 2020. In the eight months to August 2022, Nigeria paid out N2.56 trillion on subsidy. In the 2023 budget, there is a provision of N3.6 trillion to cover January to June. The country should not be importing refined products and it is obvious that Nigeria is an economic fool.

Amidst the petrol scarcity mess, the CBN policy to redesign the naira has triggered mass cash shortages. After returning their old N200, N500 and N1,000 banknotes, Nigerians are experiencing severe cash scarcity of the new notes. Many of them cannot trade, they cannot buy food, pay for transport, medicals or basic necessities. From morning till night, they queue to get the banknotes to no avail. For an economy that is in stagflation, the new naira policy is poorly implemented. Although it has been extended from the original deadline of January 31 to February 10, it is inhumane.

CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele introduced the currency redesign policy in October 2022 with a brief to tame inflation, curb kidnapping-for-ransom, counterfeiting, recover the N2.7 trillion currency outside the banking system, make the economy cashless and improve the battered image of the naira.

While these are noble intentions, Emefiele has failed in the scientific execution of the policy. The unintended effect is to jerk up the cost of living and depress businesses. The internet backbone that can drive seamless online transactions is insufficient now. This results in failed online transactions, slow and incomplete ATM withdrawals and hanging debit notes.It stretches the patience thin during emergencies.

In Nigeria, the leadership seems to enjoy inflicting hardship on the citizens with their policies. In a touching case that has gone viral on social media, a man reportedly lost his pregnant wife to premature death. Husband and wife were turned back from the hospital because they could not pay the bills since the man could not withdraw cash at the bank. His wife bled to death at home after the child was delivered without professional assistance. On Friday, a man reportedly slumped and died in a banking hall queue in Agbor, Delta State.

The pains of Nigerians will not subside any time soon. After years of suffering, that is not comforting. On Buhari’s watch, the economy continues to wobble dangerously. A vicious unemployment figure of 33.3 per cent, rising to 42.5 per cent among youths, electricity blackouts and steep foreign exchange rates of the naira to the dollar at the parallel market signpost the turbulence ahead in 2023.

In other areas, it takes ages to construct roads, a basic function of government worldwide. Consequently, citizens are under perennial gridlock on the highways, both in construction zones and on dilapidated portions. Traffic robbers exploit this to rob.

To vote in the February 25 and March 11 elections, citizens are queueing to collect their PVCs. The queues rob people of their dignity and encourage bribery. In short, no area of life is pleasant now in Nigeria.

In addition, the security situation is escalating. Separatist agitators are painting the South-East with innocent blood, attacking police formations, electoral offices, and public facilities. There, gunmen are invading courtrooms in broad daylight and killing; they attack politicians and beheaded a council chairman in Imo State recently. In the North-West and North-Central, bandits have seized control of farmland. They collect tributes from farmers, kidnap, and murder citizens at will.

After nearly 13 years, Boko Haram and its affiliates are still a major alternative force to the Nigerian government. Fulani herdsmen are uncontrollable, killing and destroying farmland in the North-Central and other regions of the country.In the South, the highways are unsafe from kidnappers, robbers, and vicious criminals.

Undoubtedly, the fear of insecurity is real. Gunmen are slaughtering security agents attached to VIPs, especially in the South-East. The Nigerian Security Tracker, a project of the Council on Foreign Relations said no fewer than 8,058 Nigerians were slaughtered in 2022. This is in addition to the 4,616 people that were kidnapped,comprising 3,972 civilians, 202 military personnel, 186 police officers, 154 vigilantes, 14 security guards and 17 others. In the first 19 days of 2023, 508 Nigerians lost their lives to violence, accidents, and disease outbreaks, according to a national newspaper. Also at risk is Nigeria’s night economy, valued at $1.5 billion in 2020 by online outfit, weetrackers.com.

In all this, the silence of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), and the public agencies concerned is deafening. As the hardship intensifies, the NNPC is shamelessly engaging in a blame game with marketers. This is absurd. The NNPC, which also blames smuggling and the flooding of 2022 for the shortages, is the only entity importing petroleum products; it has failed woefully in that assignment. The floods dissipated months ago. Not only that, but it does also not remit money to the Federation Account as and when due over claims of subsidy deductions and there is still no petrol at the stations. It should account for this.

Like the NNPC, the CBN is similarly attributing the cash shortages to the commercial banks. That is not the whole truth. While some banks might not be playing by the rules, the acute cash shortages is the result of a CBN policy gone awry.

Damningly, Buhari on Friday asked Nigerians to give him seven days to sort out the cash shortage crisis. The damage has already been done. His belated response portrays him as aloof. Like the rest of the political class, the President’s reticence in the face of acute hardship communicates one thing: inept governance and disdain for citizens.

During this type of national turbulence, leaders become hands-on administrators in other climes, giving updates and addressing the people at regular intervals. After nearly eight years, Buhari has not done that. At a stage in his regime, he preferred to talk down contemptuously on Nigerians during his numerous overseas trips.

To redeem his battered image, he should become active as a President, make the regulators, especially the CBN and NNPC, accountable. He should move mountains to end the petrol and new naira shortages swiftly.

Ultimately, government should privatise the refineries and get the NNPC out of the oil downstream industry, making it a proper regulator.

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