The Queue For Kerosene

 Its a bright and sunny morning, I had to be up early to join the Sunrise Daily crew of Channels TV, so we can hit the ground running with the show being broadcast live from Yenagoa in Bayelsa State. As we drive past the very first ever flyover in Bayelsa State, I was so busy admiring the beautiful landscape and corner of my eye saw what looked like sea of heads and close by, bright and colourful jerry cans.

I had to ask the driver to stop quickly, because, just the day before, the Governor of Bayelsa State, Hon. Seriake Dickson was very happy to brag to about a thousand people in the hall at the Bayelsa State Investment & Economic Forum, that Oloibiri is just under 10minutes drive away and that is the first place Nigeria hit oil. See the picture that caught my attention:

 I got off the vehicle, took my camera, Canon EOS600D, which my friend in the US likes to refer to as "The Beast" and walked into the midst of tired beings, some said they had been on the queue for Kerosene from about 5am, while other said they had to leave their Jerry cans in that location on queue and beg for someone to look after it for them.

Its not an extremely unusual sight in Yenagoa, I was informed by one of them, and another one chipped in quickly, "you no dey see this kain queue for Lagos? Na everywhere ooo. Welcome to Nigeria."  All I could do was shake my head just for one reason only.

It beggars belief that crude oil is abundant in the Niger Delta, the President of Nigeria, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan is from Bayelsa State and  The Minister of Petroleum, Diezani Allison-Madueke is from Yenagoa Local Govt, also in Bayelsa State, yet, the people queue for a by-product of substance that come in abundant quantity from their community.  It is almost as ridiculous as asking a nomad in the sahara to queue endlessly just to buy sand.

 

Nigeria never cease to amaze me as a nation with virtually every thing that is needed to make life a grand pleasure for all citizens and create a nation that is the envy of the rest of the African Continent, if not the world, yet the basic thinks fail and often are seemingly non-existent.

Nigeria has experienced scarcity of Kerosene for many years as some blame the marketers, others say its those importing the product, while NNPC absolves itself of any complicity in this embarrassing situation.  In the midst of it all, there have been stories of monumental corruption in the petroleum sector and till tomorrow, its unlikely anyone will be investigated or convicted not to dare think of being jailed.

This is one more proof that Nigerians need to demand better government, but when they are opting to not rock the boat or allow politics of region and or religion rule the day, the result will be infrastructure deficiency, reign of "stomach infrastructure" as reason(s) for political decisions, especially in the area of voting and other unspeakable and outrightly disturbing actions/decisions that do not bode well for the nation.

Come 2015, the nation will go to the polls again to elect new leaders, if manifestos are not published and scrutinized, with explanations being demanded for blanket statements like 7point agenda that means nothing, then #Queue4Kerosene will continue to be hashtag for a long while, but it will still mean nothing because twitter hashtags in Nigeria do not in themselves stir the conscience of the nation or that of national leaders.