Last week I was on a working visit to Ibadan. December ending was never the best period to travel long distance in this country. The harmattan season was usually at its peak with the dry, dusty winds and haze blocking sights on the ground and causing confusion in the air with many delayed and cancelled flights. But life had to go on.
My flight on Thursday to Ibadan on the Overland Airline left Abuja Airport with minimum of hitch. As soon as the plane heaved itself up smoothly into the white haze encompassing Abuja my first thoughts went to the distressed motorists in long fuel queues I saw all the way from my abode in Wuse 2 to the Airport. I had witnessed worse queues in Kaduna earlier on Wednesday. Admittedly we have had about two years respite from the cyclical occurrence of disruption in fuel supply. But when it came back recently, it returned with a bang. Starting in a period close to Christmas and the end of the year festivities most of us believed in the can-do bravado of this government and that it would dissipate. Alas when the queues festered and the knowledge dawned on me, I was forced to mutter to myself: ‘Oh there we go again, Groundhog Day’.
Groundhog Day? I owe the reader some explanations here. This is a name of a Bill Murray film of the 1990s which I watched while living in Maiduguri and still never miss the opportunity to watch it again. The film tells the story of TV weatherman sent on an assignment to cover an event in a town. He got caught in a time-loop, having to repeat the same day, over and over again. He would wake up in exactly the same way, undertake the same rituals, go out to meet the same people and when he reached his assignment place go through the same motions. This goes on day after day and despite valiant efforts he found it difficult to break the loop. He is just stuck, locked up in a bizarre situation till providence found a solution for him. I guess the writer of the script must have read too much Frank Kafka (1883-1924) that German-Jewish writer who over the years had gained fame as the master of surrealistic predicaments and absurdity.
I know I digress, but somehow I liken our situation, particularly as it affects fuel supply to Groundhog Day. This is even reinforced by what a colleague sent to my WhatsApp site as a photocopy of Daily Times front page of Tuesday 26th December 1978. The Daily Times of that fateful day screamed on the front page: XMAS TRIP IN TEARS, as motorists crawl for fuel. There was also a rider: pirate petrol dealers (‘yan bumburutu) make brisk business. I have vivid recollection of that period. I was then more than a year old as a civil servant and had bought a Peugeot L with a government loan of four thousand eight hundred naira (N4800), which covered both the cost of the new car plus a comprehensive annual insurance policy.
I recall that fuel shortage in 1978 and the most intriguing aspect of it is that the Minister of Petroleum then was no other person than the current one, who is the President. But that’s not putting the blame on the current President. It seems as if the rot in the Petroleum sector had accumulated over many years and gotten worse as palliative measures applied to the industry failed to rev it up. You kept on hearing the same excuses: sabotage by marketers, panic buying by motorist, hoarding by unscrupulous filling stations owners. You also find the same motions by officials of government, sealing off non-compliant filling stations, running battles in the streets with ‘yan bumburutu, confiscating their gallons of petrol and tossing them into the backs of police vans.
This time around the officials even upped the ante by drafting the person of the Vice-President into this charade. I found it intriguing seeing the Vice-President accompanied by the Minister of State Petroleum making rounds of filling stations in Lagos and also reportedly even spending the night at the Depot directing where fuel tanks would go. This kind of thing should be left to the foot soldiers in the ministry and the security outfits. It would have been more reassuring to see the Vice-President beamed on TV, huddled up with the Minister and GMD NNPC and other oil sector stakeholders in a meeting, guzzling uncountable cups of tea and coffee, planning and strategizing, on how sort out the fuel imbroglio.
But they ended up looking the same as previous governments giving similar excuses and going through the same motions. This kind of chicanery is unworthy of this government. No, that’s not the change we trooped out to vote for. The government needs to face up to the unpalatable truth that certain firm decisions must be taken on the refineries (to sell or just allow to rot) and whether to continue price control which no respectable Economist would recommend and to continue to drain government money in the name of the so-called subsidy. So long as these decisions are postponed, we will continue to experience fuel shortages. It was at this juncture my thoughts were interrupted by the pilot informing us that he would start making a descent into Ibadan Airport. When I looked out of the window I realized that Ibadan was similarly enveloped in the same white harmattan haze as Abuja. The plane was soon taxiing on the tarmac and we were welcomed in the airport buildings.
The next day Friday, my business accomplished, I headed to the airport to take the return flight on Arik Air. I had no premonitions of anything untoward till when I presented myself, just before noon, at the check-in counter only to be told that the flight had been cancelled. When I asked for the next flight the staff at the counter told me that the next Arik flight would be on Sunday. I quietly made some mental arithmetic and asked, ‘then what’? The Arik staff now appeared helpful and divulged that there was a flight from Lagos to Abuja at 5pm and they could put my name on it, if I want. This information came without telling me how to get to Lagos.
Fortunately I found a young man who was eager to get to Abuja and we banded together, took a cab to the motor park and joined a rickety taxi to Lagos. The journey from Ibadan to Lagos airport took a few hours even though it was only about 140 kms. We were fortunate to make it to the airport in time for us to take the 5pm flight to Abuja. It was only when the plane was up in the skies that I reflected on what would have been a debacle and the missed opportunity for the airline to redeem itself. I wondered what would have costed the airline to hire a bus and take the 20 or so passengers from Ibadan to Lagos. They would have gained more revenue and more importantly, lots of goodwill from stranded passengers.
I say this because I recall a similar incident that I was involved in the United Kingdom and how it was satisfactorily resolved. In 2012 winter I was in a train going to Coventry where I lived, on and off, when the train suddenly stopped in one station. We were informed that there was a long brake on the line and we needed to make a motor journey to meet another train ahead. The train company made the arrangement for a bus to ferry all the passengers, travelling through some villages and towns, before we reached the rail station where we resumed our journey. Throughout the bus journey we were feted with plenty of tea and snacks. I reflected on this and what our own airline did and again muttered to myself: ‘A pity’, a great pity’.
