Feb. 8, 2014
NewsRescue
A few months ago, the federal government of Nigeria privatized major assets of the nations Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN. Sold or rather, gifted to the cabal at 404 billion naira, the government had just refurbished the assets for 3.2 TRILLION naira! This was a gift of a whopping 2.6 TRILLION naira to the government’s Transcorp boyfriends and other cabal co-conspirators.
Of course this was nothing less than a conspiracy to defraud the masses of their 2.6 trillion naira. One more in a depressing trend of privatizations which are orchestrated by the government in partnership with the usual suspect cabal that typically occurs first with purposeful sabotage of the public asset, then a phony exorbitant refurbishing of the asset, then a standards violating pseudo-private bid sale through the Bureau of Private Enterprise, BPE and National Council on Privatisation, NCP to these pre-selected cabal at one-tenth of the value.
But after the sale the real trouble and harrowing predicament for Nigeria’s 168 million helpless masses actually begins. The final and eternal stage in cabalization of public assets is the unregulated, government enforced monopolist extortion of the masses in fines—not fees—for the service or utility.
The report in the Vanguard of February 7th, 2014, confirmed our predictions and worst fears. Once again the cabal vampires have fulfilled their duty to rape and plunder Nigeria’s exposed masses.
The Vanguard article, captioned, “Nigerians protest electricity billing system, exorbitant bills” from a NAN report, relayed complaints by Nigerians of exorbitant PHCN electricity bills under the new cabal ownership. And this is just the beginning. If history is anything to go by, by the time the day is done, Nigerians will pay triple for their electricity usage.
The same happened with our mobile phones, the same happened with cement. When Nigeria privatizes, or rather cabalizes, there is no regulation, the government officials are shareholders in the cabal companies and together they poise themselves to extort and exploit Nigeria’s vulnerable masses.
The mean price paid for cement in Nigeria today with the government enforced monopoly to certain cement producers to whom Nigeria’s cement companies were privatized, leaves Nigerians paying close to 11 dollars per bag of cement, which compares to a mean global price of $4. Extortion and profiteering at triple the global rates.
Our mobile companies charge some of the tallest figures in the world; little surprise a popular manager of a mobile phone network company compared the profits to ritual money. We will, see it with the so-called car assembly plants; we will see it with literally everything. The government has the Midas touch, everything they touch turns to gold—for the cabal. Little wonder Nigeria is seriously attracting foreign investors. Who does not love money doubling from the pockets of mumuish masses?
Some question why those of us with interests of the millions of poor masses are anti privatization. We are not anti privatization; we are anti-cabalization, which is always the predictable result with our heartless, greedy, wicked and egregious political governments. This is why we say to our incompetent administrations; dare not sell any more of our assets, all we need is QC—Quality Control.
Privatization only works where the bidding process is open and transparent, where there is no prior exorbitant phony refurbishing, and where post sale competition is supported and privatized entities are regulated to not extort the masses with exorbitant charges.
All these controls are never available in Nigeria and as such, privatization is a criminal process.
Rather, the masses are continually ripped off as the cabal companies who purchase the assets are even given more billions in import waivers.
While the cabal who purchased the PHCN from the Jonathan administration had not yet found enough adventures to spend their gains of the masses trillions used to refurbish the assets, they again were given N234 billion in import waivers in the year 2013. Money upon money for the cabal and the government-shareholders in the cabal firms. More money for political sponsorship of the ruling parties in reward for these gifts of billions, and as thankyou, greater fines for the masses in exorbitant electricity, phone, cement and other bills for the products and utilities.
One only has to study the cash cycling between the Transcorp boys, Nigeria’s oligopolist cement manufacturer and the like, and the ruling party to appreciate the way the money of the masses is used to destroy the masses. Literally we pay for the frivolities and excesses of these cabal who literally despise us.
In Bosnia today, anti-government riots are going on due to things as ‘meager’ as, unemployment. But Nigerian masses are sheep. We will suffer and smile, engage in tribalism and ethnic bickering, while the unified wealth-drowned cabal plunder us ruthlessly in harmony with our government.
But there is good news: what obtains today in terms of hikes in electricity prices is nothing yet. Peanuts. Wait till the president is re-elected to ‘enjoy’ the full effect of the cabalization.
Dr. Peregrino Brimah
http://ENDS.ng [Every Nigerian Do Something]
Email: [email protected] Twitter: @EveryNigerian
