By Rotimi Fasan

NIGERIANS believe the worst about their leaders. No, that’s not how I meant to say that. Or rather let me state it in another way. Nigerians believe nothing by their rulers. They hear them quite all right. They listen to the many words that are spewed at them by paid publicists; words too many to make any sense. But they believe nothing they hear.

This is an acquired habit that comes from many years of betrayal. Which is to say that Nigerians’ lack of belief in their leaders, this glaring lack of trust between the leaders and the led speaks to a fundamental failure of leadership in the country. There may be something universal in people disbelieving the words of their leaders sometimes.

There may be occasions when people fail to respect the words of those who speak in their name. But it’s a peculiar Nigerian affliction that people perpetually disbelieve the words of their leaders. When matters take this turn, it should be serious reason for reflection.

We are only days into the New Year and Nigerians have quietly started the ritual practice of hoarding fuel. They are afraid that the commodity may suddenly be in short supply. Ours is a country on strike. We are perpetually on strike. One sector of the country’s workforce ends a strike and is succeeded by another as if in a relay.

University teachers have just ended a six months strike and medical doctors are about to take up the baton. They had provided a dress rehearsal of their strike performance by way of a five days strike just days ago. But by last week they were set for the full show before Abuja engaged them in a marathon discussion. As I write this both sides are still in discussion to avert another paralyzing strike in the health sector. But we won’t be Nigerians if we don’t begin the year on a note of this kind.

We are at the time of the year when we should be on strike. It would be out of place for us to move on without embarking on one. That wouldn’t be in the ordinary course of things. We wouldn’t be Nigerians without a strike at this time. We need a strike to jolt us to reality, to remind us that we are still in Nigeria at the beginning of a new year. Government is assuring us all that there is no reason why we should go on strike but we cannot see a reason why we shouldn’t. Oil workers have warned us about the mother of all strikes as last year gradually went out of breath.

They promised to welcome us into the year with a strike. Their grouse? Government’s  planned sale of refineries among other issues. But it’s the medical doctors who actually prepped us for a strike with a five days dry run that left the comrade governor, Adams Oshiomole, hot behind the collars of his brown khaki.

There were other minor skirmishes by other warriors of the public sector rearing for a showdown with the government. But it’s the doctors and oil workers that are getting the ringing ears of the government for now. Their threat, if carried out, is bound to have the most immediate and devastating effect. And so Abuja is on its knees begging the warriors not to go on strike while assuring the rest of us there won’t be one.

But we are not listening. Indeed we are not ready to hear them especially on the score that there won’t be any upheaval in the oil sector. Although it was the oil unions that had promised to go on strike but it’s the government that Nigerians are afraid would trigger a strike with another removal of ‘oil subsidy’.

Accordingly, they have begun the panicked purchase of the product even as many fuel stations are believed to have started hoarding it. And Abuja seems not to be amused. But Nigerians are not amused either. What is more, they don’t believe a word coming out of the Capital that all is well and there is nothing to worry about fuel scarcity.

And I wonder why people should believe the government now. Haven’t they been bitten once, twice, thrice and more before? Haven’t they been taken for a ride for once too many? About this time two years ago, Nigeria was in the throes of a paralyzing strike, we are at the start of what looked like the beginning of our own Arab Spring and Occupy Nigeria struggle.

The popular strike was triggered by Abuja’s surreptitious removal of the so-called subsidy on fuel. This in spite of pretentious campaigns and debates on the planned removal that ended with promises that there wouldn’t be any increase in fuel prices. Government quietly did what it wanted even as it assured people that nothing had changed in the oil price regime. But Nigerians thronged fuel stations that had jerked up fuel prices from N97 to between N100 and N140 and even more.

Confronted with the evidence after many days of denial, the government made threats of its own to deal with those it claimed were in the pay of the opposition. There was no going back on the price increase, it said. A government that had said there was no increase of any sort suddenly turned around to assure us it was either going to be its way or the high way. Jonathan had suddenly bared his fang and was going to prove he had come of age with a clearly foolish policy aimed against Nigerians. It was a brutal loss of innocence.

From then on his government lost it with Nigerians and has since staggered from one infamous decision to another. Now it wants to be heard again, it wants the people to believe that it does not plan to sell fuel at higher prices, that things are truly as quiet on the oil front as they seem but nobody is listening. But why should they? Once, Nigerians gave Jonathan their trust unconditionally. Now he must earn it.