Something happened at the fuel station this morning that reminded me of Ernest Hemingway’s classic book, “For Whom the Bell Tolls.” I watched a 70 year old man shed tears because his N10,000 wasn’t enough to shift the needle of his fuel gauge.
A kabu kabu driver that carries mostly market women from Mile 12 to Lawanson. He complained that he has raised his charges three times in two weeks before the weekend price increment, and now he has lost his usual customers.
I wanted to laugh at our shared destiny because “Man no fit cry,” but here was an elderly man shedding tears. His N10,000 could only get less than 8 litres of fuel.
Last year, when the prices of food positively responded to inflationary pressures, the federal government promised to crash food prices.
I thought they’re going to offer certain subsidies to farmers and or tackle the insecurity that’s affecting harvesting and movements within some of the country’s farm belts. But they threw the farmers under the bus.
Instead, they lifted the ban on importation of food and gave licenses to some people to flood the market with imported foods. They also gave waivers at the ports to enable unimpeded clearance of the goods.
I laughed at the speed they implemented that ad-hoc papering of the cracks within the nations food production and supply chain. This is because I knew what the next agenda was going to be.
Within a month, the entire cyberspace and public narrative space was filled with food price comparisons. Some turned it into a “We versus Them” online warfare.
Many of you here even fell for it and followed the lead of their data boys and girls in celebration of the achievements of reduced food prices.
With fuel products prices hitting the roof, and may continue so in a while, why did the government ban issuance of import licence for petroleum products?
Why can’t they do to petroleum what they did for food because the rising cost of fuel is surely going to erode whatever achievements they think they made in crashing food prices.
Don’t forget that same people that celebrated revival of the refineries under Buhari are also same people that celebrated it under PBAT.
Both the old man crying and the market women unable to transport their products at affordable rates would find ways to survive and that is by increasing the cost of their services and products. It is connected.
Moreover, the present cost of fuel products are an ever present threat to the Central Bank’s “medium-term”inflation-targeting framework which sets a target inflation range of 6% to 9%.
Ernest Hemingway captured our imagination with his book through the story of an American dynamiter Robert Jordan who exuberantly joined the Spanish guerrillas during the Civil War.
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He was tasked with blowing a bridge, instead he finds love in María and faces mortality. Jordan was faced with the challenges of balancing life, duty, comradeship, and the profound interconnectedness of human experience in the face of death.
The old man was shedding tears this morning because the situation has boxed him into a tight spot. For every single person who discarded shame and had the courage to shed tears publicly, there are over a hundred thousand shedding tears in private because what they ordered is the antithesis of what they got.
Public tears are healing. They have drops that leave visible contours on the cheek. And in wiping away the tears without the encumbrances of shame, it brings a certain relief to the soul.
Private tears are the result of highly muffled intermittent sobs at night. They are mostly interrupted by the breaking of the day, carried over to the next night to be continued from where it was left off.
They don’t produce tear drops because the tears are invisible, and their contours carve deeper in the hearts of men and women, straining cardiovascular muscles, and to be carried around while exuding cheerful mien. As if everything is alright. “Suffering and smiling,” because “Man no fit cry.”
In the words of Thomas Paine, “These are times that try men’s souls.” All I have to say is that “For Whom The Bell Tolls,” should pay attention because. Everything is connected to everything.
Kelechi Deca
