By Morenike Taire
WOMEN and children are typically the worst hit in all structural adjustment situations, so why are women at the helm of fuel subsidy removal  affairs?

THE World Bank, during the last quarter of last year, had said if the issue of fuel subsidy removal was not handled properly, it might cause a series of crises that would hamper the country’s economy.

Speaking during an interactive session with newsmen in Abuja, the newly appointed World Bank Country Director, Ms Marie Francoise Marie-Nelly, had stressed the need for the Federal Government to articulate its policies very well and carry everybody along.

According to her, Nigerians should be able to know where the proceeds of oil subsidy removal would be deployed, with a view to knowing that the subsidy would be used to protect the poor.

Disclosing that the World Bank is encouraged with the level of oil subsidy debate going on, Marie-Nelly had described the debate as a healthy one, saying that the debate would help the government to take a good decision.

Unfortunately, that was not the impression given to the masses of the Nigerian people, who are convinced that the removal of fuel subsidies is clearly a World Bank induced policy, perhaps because of the presence of erstwhile World Bank chieftain Ngozi Okonjo Iwealla on the subsidy removal push committee, as it were.

Like all Structural Adjustment Programs, fuel subsidy removal in Nigeria

Indeed it was a Marie moment last month during the last of the fuel subsidy debates, when Petroleum Minister Dieziani Allison Madueke was sulking about the people of Nigeria not often giving enough credit to their ministers for jobs well done.

It was the kind of statement that set off the French revolution of 1787, when Marie Antoinette had made the famous statement admonishing the people to eat cakes in the face of ever rising cost of common bread.

In contrast with the clearly jaded views of her colleague Mrs Okonjo Iwealla, Mrs. Madueke has given the impression, largely, of her being not so well schooled in the propaganda she is trying to push and has appeared rather helpless in the cause she is deployed to push.

The two women both have become the least popular women in Nigeria overnight, calling into serious question the argument traditionally put forward by women rights and affirmative action advocates that  women in government would bring sensitivity to leadership and result in more humane policy.

On the other hand, the French revolution would never have happened without the active participation of women writers and activists such as  Pauline Leon and Theroigne  de Mericourt who used the opportunity to fight for women’s societal freedoms.

It is disheartening that though women are going to be at the receiving end, on the domestic level, of the removal of fuel subsidies in Nigeria, women groups have been loudly silent in the condemnation of and protest against this very unpopular policy.

Thatcher Movie debuts
THE Thatcher family has refused to honour the invitation to the premiere of a film, the Iron Lady, which was released last week to the British film audience, citing their displeasure at the way their beloved Maggie was being depicted in the Hollywood flick.

Played by multiple award winning Meryl Streep, the family claims Thatcher is being depicted as being deranged and not exactly as the hero she really was.

Born Margaret Roberts, she was daughter of a grocery store owner. Her small businessman father, whom she worshipped, preached the virtues of self-reliance and seizing opportunity, a conservative doctrine she absorbed as her own. Despite frequent encounters with sexism and class prejudice (amusingly depicted in the film), she rises through the ranks of her party and is elected Prime Minister in 1979, vowing to help England “shake off the shackles of socialism.”

The viewing public is however very impressed, and have suggested Streep’s depiction of Thatcher is as brilliant as her other Oscar winning performances. She is being tipped for yet another one.  Critics say in portraying a middle-aged and an elderly Thatcher, she is astonishingly accurate in mimicking the look, voice, gait and mannerisms of her real life character.

Baroness Thatcher, now 86, is affected by memory loss following a series of strokes and is rarely seen in public.