You must by now know me as, or be told that I am, a regular writer of open letters to you, Mr. President. This is the third letter I have penned to you. Not that I always write open letters to you. Many times I have written what people in the media would see as a public relations (pr) job, which it was not, anyway.

The first times I penned an open letter to you was to agree with those who wrote to you and the leadership of the National Assembly (NASS) pleading with you not to accede to the request of the US and France asking you for permission to relocate their respective African Military Bases to Nigeria.

The second time was when I pleaded with you to make the local language or some of the local languages as the lingua franca of the country, instead of the language of our former colonial masters, English, which we use as the official language in Nigeria presently.

Well, you are the President and Commander in Chief of my country, Nigeria, and since I have no better way but this of getting your attention, I think it is not wrong, irritating or bothersome of me to ‘contact’ you through an open letter.

Mr. President, the world is in the 21 century when motor vehicles and electricity are NOT luxuries anymore. They are necessities of life for everyday existence. But in our dear Nigeria, despite the abundance of mineral resources, in oil, gas, solids, arable land, among many others, the two items are still luxuries in the country. And Nigeria is supposed to be the ‘giant’ of the African continent. Yet, lags far behind others on the continent on these indicators of development.

In Nigeria, electricity and petrol are way out of the reach of majority of the people in the country. The cost of both, individually, are so prohibitive that not many people can afford to purchase them. For vehicles, only those in the Villa, the top officials who use government-fuelled vehicles, business magnates and the politicians who are in the various government houses, the National Assembly (NASS) or State Assemblies as well as the leaders of the important political parties in the country, can afford to use motor vehicles. The rest are at the mercy of taxis, kekes NAPEP, and commercial motorcycles. They can only afford to patronise these.

The same goes for electricity, as not many companies or people in the country can afford to operate generators, popularly known as just ‘Gen’. Needless to say, many companies, especially in the northern part of the country, have folded up, or, where they survive,  they only operate with a skeletal staff. The companies could not afford the electricity charges nor the cost of the fuel to run the generators. Even if they could, their products would be so much expensive that they would be out of the purchasing power of many Nigerians, anyway.

 As for the people, many of us live at the mercy of the distribution company, which only supply electricity when it suits them to do so. Majority of the people in the country sleep in darkness during the night, with all the heat, mosquitoes and the other inconveniences to contend with.

I understand that your government has given the distribution companies some huge amounts of money to facilitate their operations to their customers. Well, where yours sincerely comes from, things could get better.

My dear President, you once promised to do anything during your first term in office to ensure the availability of 24 hours supply of electricity in the country. At that time our main concern was the rampant insecurity that appeared to overwhelm the efforts of the security forces. But now that the security forces, notably the Nigerian Army, are living up to the people’s expectations in dealing decisively with the bandits, it is now expected that you would focus your undivided attention to the provision of 24 hours supply, or something close to that, of electricity.

Many Nigerians also awaited with anticipation the commencement of production by the Dangote mega one stream Refinery, in Lagos, as it was believed that it would bring succour to the supering of the fuel-queuing majority in the country, some who might be in the queue for the better part of the day, just to get a few litres of petroleum at the filling stations.

However, that was not to be, as the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) has hiked the price of a litre of petroleum to a prohibitive N1000.00, arguing that the sector has been deregulated and the price of the stuff is 

now “determined by market forces”. Not only that, but that the company, NNPCL, would buy most of the product from the (Dangote) refinery and sell it to the people at the price “determined by market forces”. The pump price per litre would be sold to the consumers in excess of N1000.00 in the northern part of the country, added the government owned company.

Alhaji Aliko Dangote himself announced that the NNPCL would buy the product from him, but not at the price it ‘falsely’ announced to the world. He alleged that NNPCL would buy from his refinery at a lower cost than was announced by it.

The human rights lawyer and activist, Mr. Femi Falana, SAN, accused the government owned company of preventing Aliko Dangote from selling directly to the people on his own fixed price.

The fiery lawyer also accused the NNPCL of adding to the suffering of Nigerians by increasing the pump price of petrol in the country. He argued that there was no justification for the product to be sold at such a high price when it was produced locally by the Dangote Refinery.

According to him, “Since the petrol sold by Dangote is not imported into the country but produced at the Lekki Economic Free Trade Zone, the NNPCL cannot justify the sale of petrol at N950.00 per litre without freight cost, lightering cost, jetty depot fees, storage fees, foreign exchange costs, NPA charges, NIMASA charges, Customs duties, etc”.

Even the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) agreed with lawyer Falana, saying that “it is not right for petroleum lifted locally, from the Dangote Refinery to cost higher than the imported ones”.

With all sense of respect and responsibility from yours sincerely, I believe that it is not beyond Mr. President to order the state owned company to backtrack on the exorbitant pump price of N950.00 per litre in the country. After all, the removal of the subsidy on petroleum is the root cause of the present hardship for most of the people in Nigeria.

May God answer the prayers of the majority of Nigerians for Mr. President to listen to them and make his economic policies more amenable for his country men and women, in such a manner that they would really start to enjoy the dividend of democracy under his administration.

Malam Malumfashi wrote from Katsina.