The government of Nigeria has always budgeted enough resources for the comfort of its officials, while disregarding that of the people. Nigerian has 109 senators and 360 members of the House of Representatives, and they are some of the highest paid government officials in the world: Nigerian senators earn $1.2 million US Dollars a year each, three times the annual salary of the president of the United States of America.
That this represents a drain on public finances is clear to everyone but government officials.
Meanwhile the national monthly minimum wage is N18,000 ($112), but many Nigerians do not earn even this, and 57% of the country's 150 million people live on less than $2 a day.
The demands of Occupy Nigeria were about more than just the full reinstatement of the fuel subsidy that was removed on the 1st of January (which caused petrol prices to shoot up from 65 Naira ($0.40; £0.26) to at least 141 Naira per litre.
Other objectives:
▪ Reducing the cost of maintaining public officials. (At the 2012 national expenditure reading in December, N992.57m alone ($6.2m) was allocated for the President and Vice President's annual food and general catering services. The sum includes the cost of purchasing foodstuffs, catering supplies and kitchen equipment for the president and his deputy's offices and residences). Obama, on the other hand, can only expect free meals at official dinners, especially when hosting foreign dignitaries.)
▪ Improved infrastructure (roads and transport system, health services, educational institutions, oil refineries, etc.)
▪ Eradication of corruption and nepotism.
▪ Informing regular citizens about the activities of their government, and getting more of them actively involved.
Until all the above demands are met, until Africa's biggest oil producer is no longer having to import refined fuel because its own refineries are inoperative due to years of corruption-fuelled neglect, and until all Nigerians enjoy a standard of living befitting the citizens of a country with this much wealth, the discontent that fuelled Occupy Nigeria will not go away. Nothing is over yet.
Video by Leke Awoyinka for This Is Africa
