By Emeka Alex Duru
(08054103327)
We shall commence this conversation by examining the maxim that the Customer is the King. In economic terms, it is an expression that concedes to the buyer the latitude of choice on items to purchase. He has the money, he is free to spend it the way he chooses and on items that attract his attention or meet his taste. He is, therefore, always right.
In opting for imported 400 units of Toyota Camry Cars as against settling for locally manufactured ones, members of the National Assembly may be thinking along this line. Reports had it earlier in the month that the House of Representatives had resolved to acquire Toyota Camry 2020 model for members as official cars, otherwise called utility vehicles. The resolution was reportedly reached at an executive (closed-door) session held on February 5, 2020.
The 2020 model of the cars, is yet to hit the Nigerian market. Experts however indicate that the price of the car, depending on the variants, is between $25,000 (N9,000,000 at N360 to a dollar) and $35,000 (N12,600,000), excluding the cost of shipping, import duty which is 70 per cent of the net cost and other clearing charges and taxes at the port.
No Nigerian car manufacturing company or assembling plant was considered by our lawmakers as fit enough to handle the supply. A suggestion to patronise Innoson Motors, an indigenous auto manufacturing company for the supply, was scoffed at and treated with disdain. They have the money to spend, they have the right to make their choice. It is also within their right to decide who to do business with. This could be their thinking.
But there is this angle of the debate that they did not put into consideration or they chose to ignore. In making the choice, they are not doing so from their private pockets. If that was the case, perhaps, nobody would have begrudged them. They will, in this case, be dipping hands into the taxes paid by Nigerians to give themselves the cosmetic comfort. This is the paradox of the Nigerian politician.
On occasions as this, they are usually in one accord. At such moments, tables and chairs are not thrown at each other; hands are not banged on the tables, nobody’s clothes get torn. In such conspiratorial conclaves, the dividing lines of political party affiliation, ethnicity and religion or between the so-called conservatives and progressives, are obliterated. What prevails is the table manner, otherwise called the etiquette – you don’t talk while eating. This is where the duplicity of the Nigerian leadership class, manifests.
Since the commencement of the Muhammadu Buhari administration, almost five years ago, the ordinary Nigerian has witnessed and experienced poverty and deprivation in their worst forms. To be fair, the government had warned early enough that the journey was not going to be smooth, on account of what it claimed to have met on ground. But it promised to reposition the country, with all hands on the deck. With this clarion call, Nigerians have been taken to the most grueling moments of their life. Starting from a massive jerk in petroleum pump price from N87 a litre to N145.50, regular hikes in electricity tariff, increase in Value Added Tax (VAT) on consumables from 5 percent to 7.5 percent, and other miscellaneous charges, the average Nigerian has tightened his axiomatic belt to the point of no longer having the frame for further sacrifice.
Perhaps, the most direct assault on the people, last year, was the closure of the country’s land borders. The measure has put small scale and medium size manufactures and artisans who depended on the neighbouring countries for export of their products and import of their raw materials, out of business. Cost of living has also gone up. A bag of rice that hitherto sold at N16,000.00, currently goes for N27,000.00 or more because the ones produced locally are hardly enough. The trend replicates in other items.
Government explained the measure on the need to encourage local farmers and check infiltration of imported goods, among other reasons. To give weight to the assertion, overzealous personnel of the Customs Service, have on occasions, broken into Warehouses in the night, in search of imported rice, turkey, chickens, tomatoes and other consumables. Items confiscated in such raids, are made show of by being set ablaze, with the importers arrested. In such ruthless displays, neither the leadership nor the members of the National Assembly, have suggested giving the measures any human face. For them rather, everything is in order. This is the extent the government and its officials have gone in advertising their patriotic sentiments and dramatising the touted moves at re-inventing the country.
But in going for their utility cars, it has become a different ballgame for the National Assembly members. What we currently seem to have at hand, is our local version of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, where the mantra surprisingly shifted at a time, from “all animals are equal” (before the revolution), to “all animals are equal but some are more equal than others” (after the revolution). In opting for foreign cars, what the legislators are simply saying is that the government has two sets of laws for Nigerians – one for those in authority and one for the rest of us. They are by that, telling us that they are not leaders in the true sense of the word. They are rather, rulers or pretenders to leadership. A leader lives by example, he feels the people and they feel him. This is not the stuff our lawmakers are made of.
Those who make case for Innoson Motors do so in line with the government’s agenda at encouraging local manufacturers. Besides, the Firm has shown that it has all that it takes to be given a chance. On Wednesday, February 12, it was awarded the Mandatory Conformity Assessment Programme (MANCAP) Certificate by the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON). The remark by the Director General of SON, Osita Aboloma, at the ceremony, remains remarkable. “With the award of MANCAP certificate to Innoson vehicles, SON is saying that the brand is fit to be used in Nigeria and beyond”, he said.
This is a strong confirmation of the quality of the Innoson Vehicles by an agency of the government. It therefore amounts to sheer duplicity and bad faith by officials of the same government, in this case, members of the legislature – the very bastion of democracy – to sidestep a company with such commendable recommendation for foreign brands. This can only be explained as a willing submission to neocolonialism or outright inferiority complex. In whichever case, Nigeria, as a country, is the loser.
It is not late for the lawmakers to have a rethink on the issue. The suggestion is to give Innoson motors a chance to prove itself. Good enough, the chairman of the organisation, Innocent Chukwuma, does not ask for the bar to be lowered for him. “I like competition. For me, competition brings out the best. I like competition in anything I do”, he once told Reporters. The Nnewi, Anambra Plant of the firm, has more than 3,000 Nigerians working in shifts. Giving the company the offer of the 400 units of cars will sustain the jobs of these Nigerians and further, boost the economy of the country.