MDadmin
I hardly ever watch NTA’s Network News, while my wife does not seem to miss it. Two Sundays ago, I chanced upon NTA’s NEWSLINE and a package about the sale of kerosene in Imo State. There seemed to be something close to a religious ceremony as the governor, Rochas Okorocha, began the sale of kerosene to members of the public. I was struck by the absurdity of the situation: Africa’s largest oil producing country cannot refine petroleum products, for its people to get kerosene. It became so serious a problem in urban centres that governors are exploiting the situation to cream off political advantage.
Before long, they will add the sale of kerosene to a long list of ‘achievements’ of His Excellency. When I saw a picture of Okorocha in the papers, later in the week, personally selling kerosene into jerry cans, I thought aloud, that his was a hands-on delivery of the “dividends of democracy”; in the same manner that Nigerian governors list the regular payment of salaries as one of their achievements! Lunacy has indeed taken firm hold of the Nigerian public space; and this is in the world of the Twenty-First Century!
