Nigeria, Hoping Against Hope.

Hopefully these pictures in my previous post would brighten up your day in an otherwise gloomy situation. 

Nigeria is a draining place to live in at the moment. Mentally draining, financially draining, physically draining, economically draining and morally draining as well. I know things will get better eventually but how we would cope until then is what I cannot say at the moment. God help us. 

There was supposed to be a strike action today, prompted by the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), over the removal of fuel subsidy and the hike in the cost of fuel but the courts have ordered that the strike should be struck off. While NLC insists the strike action would carry on, it appears Nigerians  feel otherwise having lost faith in the union largely based on how they handled the last national strike action in 2012. Add that to the fact that for almost a month, there was fuel scarcity and long queues all over Nigeria and people had to buy fuel from the black market for as high as N300 per litre. Methinks, as hard as times are now, people are just mighty relieved and pleased not to have to deal with the horror of fuel scarcity. 

It is a crying shame on fuel station who now sell at N145 per litre based on the yardstick the Federal Government gave to them. The FG set a cap of fuel sales at N145 and not a kobo more, but that did not mean they had to sell that high. Trust Nigerians to milk every situation at the detriment of others, regardless. I'm yet to hear of any filling station selling for less than that, even when they can. I however know that they cannot sustain this N145 per litre, because there is no room for monopoly. Competition would drive down the cost eventually and we would all be the better for it.

All I can do is to appeal to my fellow Nigerians to try to understand and bear with the present government, while they try to straighten out the kinks and knots past governments have brought on us. No one ever said change would be easy, nothing good ever comes easy initially but it sure does get better eventually. Let's see what this government can do to turn things around for the better before we chastise or give up on them.