Envoy Arrundell is a Nigerian patriot

By Ochereom Nnanna
MONDAY, November 21, 2009 is a day our Information and Communications Minister, Prof Dora Akunyili is unlikely to forget in a hurry.

That was the day our nation’s chief re-brander was told to her face that the government she represents is giving away Nigeria to foreigners in the name of deregulation and that it is demonstrating crass incapacity for imaginative governance.

The man who told her this daring home truth in her own office was not Professor Wole Soyinka or the President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Abdulwahid Umar or even Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the Publicity Secretary of the Action Congress (AC) whose pen suddenly went dry when AC member of the House of Representatives for Ikorodu Constituency, Hon Abike Dabiri-Erewa, sponsored her misguided Nigerian Press and Practice of Journalism Bill, which seeks to put journalism under executive regulation.

It was no other than a foreign ambassador representing the Republic of Venezuela in Nigeria, His Excellency, Enrique Fernando Arrundell, who came on a courtesy call. The Minister had started wooing Venezuela to encourage its businessmen to follow the success story of telecommunications and set up refineries in Nigeria as the country was a goldmine.

It was the usual IMF-modelled marketing drift, which the Nigerian rulers have adopted hook, line and sinker, mainly because it has become the screen behind which they hide their mental laziness and inability to govern, manage resources and achieve results.

As soon as Akunyili sat down, Arrundell, who was expected to lip through the usual diplomatic assurances of boosting trade links with Nigeria, opted to explode surprises. He told the Minister that since 1999 (when the price of crude oil in the international market started its upward spiral) his country has never raised the prices of fuel. According to NEXT Newspaper’s account, Arrundell said: “We only pay $1.02 to fill the tank.

What I pay for with N12,000 here (Nigeria), in Venezuela I’ll pay N400”. Contrast this with Nigeria, which since the same period, raised fuel prices a record eight times from N22 to N75 by May 29, 2007 before it was brought down to N70 and N65. With deregulation we stand to pay anything from N90 and above.

Nigerians are punished for the rise in the prices of their primary export in the international market. They are made to suffer gloom when there is oil boom and tighten belt when there is a glut. Nigerians are condemned to suffer.

Arrundell said low fuel costs were made possible because his country under its hot-headed radical leader, Hugo Chavez, decided to take charge of its oil industry because it belonged Venezuelans. Compare this with Nigeria where the foreign oil majors control the upstream and local cabals control the downstream, and Nigerians are forced to bleed blood while government pleads helplessness.

Said Arrundell to Akunyili: “You have your own country. The oil is your country’s. Sorry I am telling you this. I am giving you the experience of Venezuela. We have 12 refineries in the United States, 18,000 gas stations in the West Coast. All we are doing is in the hands of Venezuelans”.

Continuing, the Ambassador said before Chavez took over, four foreign companies were in control, taking 80 per cent and leaving Venezuela with 20 per cent. But now, Venezuela takes 90 per cent and gives the foreign companies 10 per cent, and 60 per cent of the income goes to social services (such as education, health and social infrastructural upgrades).

Venezuela has been able to produce 22,000 doctors who go to minister to the people rather than waiting in their clinics to be consulted. There are reportedly no illiterates there and university education is totally free. Then he posed questions: “How come Nigeria that has more technical manpower than Venezuela, with 150 million people, and very intellectual people all round, has not been able to get it right?

The question is, if you are not handling your resources, how are you going to handle the country?” The Ambassador closed his talk in grand style: “We want resources of Nigerian people for Nigerians. It is enough. It is enough, Minister!”

Arrundell is a true product of the social revolution Chavez launched in Venezuela. Chavez himself would say exactly the same thing. When US President Barack Obama visited South America, Chavez suddenly got up and gave him a book entitled: Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of Latin America written by a Uruguayan, Eduardo Galeano. The book instantly shot to number two on the international bestseller list.

I am sure the Nigeria regime is seething with anger and embarrassment and probably looking for ways of sending Ambassador Arrundell away from Nigeria. Obasanjo certainly would do so. But let me caution that what Arrundell did was no enemy action. It was friendly fire. Only your true friend will tell you the truth which, usually, is bitter.

Arrundell is more than a friend. He has joined the likes of Ambassador Walter Carrington, who was fond of telling us such home truths when he was here for America.

Arrundell visited Akunyili not as a typical ambassador looking for cheap deals for himself and his country. Being a Black man, I could almost hear the Nigerian in him rebelling in the face of the huge joke called governance in Nigeria.

He also sounded a bit like Barack Obama in Ghana, who told African leaders that foreigners could no longer be blamed for their woes.

We have always known that with our endowments and potentials we have no business being where we are. We have also attributed our condition to poor leadership. And now, a foreigner has said the same thing to our face. Are we ready to wake up?