-Caveat Lector- ----Original Message Follows---- From: "Rev. Khandi Konte-Paasewe" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: undisclosed-recipients:; Subject: Reforms Reach Nigeria's Gas Pumps Date: Mon, 13 Sep 1999 23:49:23 -0500 (CDT) The Black List - http://www.theMarcusGarveyBBS.com September 9, 1999 Reforms Reach Nigeria's Gas Pumps By NORIMITSU ONISHI LAGOS, Nigeria -- The humble gas station, once the defining image of Nigeria's seemingly willful collapse, has undergone a striking transformation since the military rulers handed over power to civilians three months ago. Gone are the mile-long lines that choked roads, made fistfights part of the Nigerian streetscape and turned gas stations into high-security zones swarming with soldiers, police officers, thugs and the long-suffering ordinary Nigerians, citizens of the world's sixth-largest producer of oil. Now most gas stations operate the way an Agip station on Iju Road here does: motorists pull up to a pump and drive away a minute later. "There is fundamental change in things," said Abiodun Akinloye, 34, an attendant at the station for six years. "Before, the tension was too high. People were begging to buy fuel and sometimes had to wait for days. Now you buy fuel at the actual price and at your own convenience. Everything has become fine. Everybody is feeling fine." Three months after Africa's most populous nation inaugurated its first civilian Government in 16 years, gas stations offer perhaps the clearest promise of what could become one of the most remarkable political transformations on the continent. Only 15 months ago, Nigeria was in the grip of a rapacious military regime that had turned the country into an international pariah and manipulated oil supplies so that Nigerians often had to pay several times what Americans do for a gallon of gasoline. Today, after a year of traumatic events that pushed this fragile nation to the brink of civil war, Nigeria is intact, but its President, Olusegun Obasanjo, has quickly pushed reforms that are altering its face. Nigerians, an industrious people paralyzed until last year by the brutally repressive military under Gen. Sani Abacha, are now even talking of freedom. "It is like Joseph getting out of the pit to get to the palace in Egypt," said Baba Adi, a lawyer and prominent member of the governing People's Democratic Party. Even the Government's fiercest critics, who argue that it has yet to make lasting changes, acknowledge that there is greater individual freedom. "Even if it's temporary," said Beko Ransome-Kuti, a well-known human rights campaigner who spent three years in jail under General Abacha, "it's a nice holiday." While it may be too soon to talk of democracy, the end of the military state has visibly affected daily lives here. President Obasanjo forbade politicians to drive in convoys with sirens blaring, once a common practice. Several streets in Lagos were renamed for slain prodemocracy activists. The notorious security forces that patrolled cities with unchallenged authority -- known here as Operation Sweep -- have grown tamer. In Lagos, the forces now go by the less sinister title of Rapid Response Squad. On Iju Road, once frequently impassable because of motorists waiting at its many gas stations, the soldiers and policemen once posted at checkpoints every two miles have disappeared. Now, no one shakes down Isaac Bodunrin, 45, and his fellow cab drivers for the equivalent of 20 cents every two miles. "If we can continue like this, there will be progress in this country," said Bodunrin, who often used to end the day with nothing but now makes about $10. "If we can drive free, I can do my job." President Obasanjo has already made changes in many of Nigeria's vital sectors. He established a panel to investigate human rights violations since the mid-1980's and another to look into Government contracts awarded since 1976. He has sent an anticorruption bill to the National Assembly, though many say the proposal goes too far in potentially invading people's privacy. On the burning issue of the Niger Delta, the source of Nigeria's oil wealth but still profoundly poor, President Obasanjo proposed legislation toward its development. In addition, in a highly symbolic act, he permitted the family of Ken Saro-Wiwa, the writer who was hanged in 1995 for criticizing the Government's oil policies, to claim his body. In the oil industry, the source of almost all of Nigeria's hard currency, he has cut out shadowy middlemen from sales of crude oil and rescinded prospecting contracts awarded to cronies of the military regime. The President, a retired general who was Nigeria's military ruler from 1976 to 1979, shook up the military by forcing about 100 top officers to retire. Most were northerners who dominated the military and ruled the country for all but 10 years since independence from Britain in 1960, and their successors were chosen from diverse regions. His Government also announced plans to cut troop strength significantly. What is more, in his choice of ministers the President has tried to strike a balance among the dominant ethnic groups and the several hundred minorities. The move has drawn praise from pressure groups and Western diplomats. But it has been criticized by northerners, who say they are now being marginalized, and by the Ibo from the east, who say they have not gotten any top ministerial positions. Despite all the changes, critics say the Obasanjo administration has not taken urgently needed steps to address the roots of Nigeria's problems. According to the Constitution, which was handed down by military decree, the appointments of judges, the control of police officers and the direction of primary schools all still rest with the federal Government. Many critics argue that unless the relationship between the federal Government and the 36 states is renegotiated -- and that includes the formula by which oil revenues are shared -- Nigeria will remain a divided nation, with most of its ethnic groups feeling oppressed by another group. In the last three months, hundreds have died in skirmishes across the country, including two clashes between the Yoruba and the Hausa, who with the Ibo, are the country's largest ethnic groups. "We must sit down and decide what to say together," said Ayo Opadokun, general secretary of the National Democratic Coalition, the main civilian opposition group to the Abacha military Government. Until reforms are written into law, democratization remains too dependent on the personality of President Obasanjo, critics say. That is a dangerous situation in a country where one man, whether General Abacha or President Obasanjo, can completely change the direction of the country. "If Obasanjo dies today, what happens to Nigeria?" Ransome-Kuti asked. Mohammed Ashorobi, a member of the national executive committee of the President's party, argued that Obasanjo had begun to lay "the foundation for the future." The priority, he said, has been to try to meet the country's essential needs, a task made easier by the recent rebound in crude oil prices to more than $20 a barrel. In addition to the availability of gasoline, electricity service has improved noticeably in many areas, and the Government recently announced that the price of a telephone line would fall significantly. "Regarding the basic comforts of life, the current regime has been able to bring some confidence into society where there was only despair before," Ashorobi said. On Iju Road, in a cacophony of human voices and engine sounds, the two lanes teem with pedestrians, cars, motorcycles and peddlers selling everything from vegetables to raw meat. With the gasoline lines now gone, traffic moves in both directions, slowly but surely. At the Agip station, three yellow fuel trucks were parked waiting to discharge their load, two of them for the last seven days because the station simply did not need more fuel. The situation would have been unthinkable just months ago. Nigerians have not seen such plentiful gasoline since 1993 when General Abacha let the country's refineries deteriorate, thereby forcing refined products to be imported through his middlemen. "The change came with the new Government, so we are all happy," said Adeniyi Johnson, 40, a civil servant who drove his white Volkswagen Beetle to a pump. "I hope it will continue this way." The gas bounty even pleased those who had profited from the artificial scarcity. In the past, soldiers would sometimes take over the station and control the lines, moving drivers ahead in exchange for a bribe. At the end of the day, the soldiers would tip the thugs who informally controlled the lines, at the very bottom of the food chain. One former regular, Eyo Kulaba, 25, said he had been able to save enough money from the bribes he collected to buy a used motorcycle. And so in Nigeria's peculiar job classification he had moved up from being an "area boy" -- a jobless youth who hustles for tips and bribes on the streets -- to an "okada man," a youth who ferries passengers around on his motorcycle. "Although I benefited materially, I was not very happy that people were suffering daily," Kulaba said. "People were bashing each other's vehicles to get fuel and there was always a lot of fighting. It was really terrible." Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company visit the Khandi Pages http://www.netset.com/~khandi Mumia must be free! Support the MWM! Free the Land! NAIM lives! free email at Blackseek.com (Colonialism) creates a culture in which the ruled are constantly tempted to fight their rulers within the psychological limits set by the latter. 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