By Omen Bassey
The Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, on Wednesday declared that Nigerians are hungry and angry.
According to Ekwerenadu, he said "But, I think the greater tragedy is that the Nigerian community is also burning. There is hunger in the land. There is also anger in the land because a hungry man is an angry man"
In a swift reaction to statement made by senator Ekweremadu, a Nigerian Lawyer and Media Consultant, Barr. Omen Bassey, has written on his facebook berating him over such unpatriotic declaration, as well assuring him that Nigerians are not angry.
Omen in the post shared on his facebook "how can senator Ekweremadu advise the APC let government to "put out the fire because a hungry man is an angry man' I personally consider this statement offensive to our sensibilities." he said.
Read the full post below as shared....
The likes of the Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu will
never fail to amuse right thinking Nigerians. Of course, i do not blame
them because they know how to take advantage of the gullibility and I
dare add, blindness of some Nigerians.
How can Senator
Ekweremadu advise the APC led government to "...put out the fire
because a hungry man is an angry man" .I personally consider this
statement offensive to our sensibilities.
For the avoidance of
doubt, Senator Ike Ekweremadu was elected Senator of the Federal
Republic of Nigeria in 2003 and he became Deputy Senate President in
2007.Till today, he's still a Senator and Deputy Senate President.
Someone should kindly remind the Deputy Senate President that hunger
didn't start today in Nigeria. While the Nigerian economy was said to be
growing in the last few years, poverty and unemployment were on the
ascendancy.
I remember how some Economists shouted themselves hoarse
trying to question an economic growth with decreasing standard of living
and escalating unemployment rate.Today, with part of the loots
recovered so far, Nigerians know better.
I have heard Senator
Ekweremadu's partners in mischief at this lower rung of the social
ladder talk about the increasing prices of foodstuffs, especially rice
and garri. To be sure, I sympathize with the common man who has never
experienced a better future in Nigeria.
To the best of my
knowledge, Nigeria has been on a progressive decline economically and
morally. I know this because I have been around for a while. I have
never seen prices of commodities decrease in Nigeria as a sign of
improvement in the economy.
In fact, I have never seen prices stabilize
for a reasonable period. Or should we compare the prices of garri, rice
etc when Ekweremadu first joined the ruling class in 2003 and 2015 when
his party lost the election?
Ekweremadu is among the least
qualified to pontificate on hunger.I can tolerate it from those I
consider gullible, ignorant or deceived. Definitely not from a man who
was part of the government which squandered the proceeds of arguably the
longest and best oil boom in the history of Nigeria.
Nigeria is
indeed a peculiar nation.So peculiar that someone like Senator
Ekweremadu can talk about hunger in the land and draw applause from his
hunger -stricken and pauperized victims. Again, what was the standard of
living of my poor relations in the village by 2015? I can tell you that
not much has changed.
I'm sure public officers, particularly
those at the federal level are not brazenly embezzling public funds as
was obtainable when Ekweremadu was both in office and in power.He's no
longer in power because his Party doesn't control the levers of power at
the federal level, hence the mischievous and misleading lamentation.
Who doesn't know that most of our Senators in that era were federal
government contractors? Which country grows with Legislators executing
contracts for the Executive? How can they perform their oversight
functions effectively? That is part of what the Deputy Senate President
is missing.
Nigeria is still faced with enormous challenges, especially in the economic front.It didn't start in May 2015.
By the time GEJ left office, crude oil was still selling above $50 per
barrel and Nigeria was constantly meeting her OPEC quota of about 2.2
million barrels per day.
Yet, a government which raked in so much from an
unprecedented boom which saw oil sold for more than $100 per barrel for
about four years resorted to borrowing to pay salaries in the few
months leading to its handover.
Does that not suggest incontrovertibly that the economy was already sick in Ekweremadu's hands?
A few months after PMB assumed office, oil price had assumed an
unexpected low of between $25 and $27 per barrel while the nefarious
activities of the so called Niger Delta Avengers drastically reduced
output to about 800, 000 barrels per day.
My question is, if a
government which sold 2.2 million bpd at over $100 couldn't pay salaries
when price dropped to between $50 and $70 per day even though output
remained at 2.2 million bpd, what would have become of it if it faced
the dire straits of $27 per barrel of a meagre 800, 000 barrels?Your
guess is as good as mine.
On the victory of the Republican Party
in the United States of America, another person should help me tell the
Distinquished Senator that Donald Trump won his Party's ticket despite
the opposition of his Party leaders because there's something called
internal democracy which they respect over there.
He went ahead to win
the General Election despite the lukewarmness and indifference of some
of his Party's bigwigs because his victory at the Primary Election of
his Party was not truncated by powerful forces as Ekweremadu and Co did
several times until they killed the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP).
Senator Ekweremadu should start with apologizing to Nigerians for
helping to ruin the economy because I'm sure he's richer than his Local
Government Council, if not State Government. An individual cannot become
that stupendously wealthy through public office and hunger spares those
who are not in office.
Nigerians are not yet angry.When they
are, Ekweremadu will be on the A List of those who have explanations to
offer on why and how we travelled this route.
No comments: