This prophetic piece was first published on November 18, 2014.
In the Holy Writ, a story is told of a dreamer and oneirocritic named Joseph who was sold into slavery in Egypt by his envious brothers. His story is a very familiar one being told and retold until the present day. Through a dream, Joseph foresaw that his parents and brothers would bow before him. That was the revelation that landed him in servitude. His brothers even wanted to kill him and, by implication, his dream.
Joseph was an upright, disciplined and morally sound young man. Those values landed him in prison but it was a journey towards the actualization of his dream. Joseph had refused to bed the wife of Potiphar, the commander of the army of Egypt, who tried to seduce him. The woman could not accommodate the rejection. So, she framed Joseph up and that earned him a ticket to the dungeon.
One morning, the king of Egypt or Pharaoh, woke up with some disturbing dreams. The king saw himself by the riverside. Lo and behold, he beheld seven well-fatted cows feeding in a meadow. Suddenly, seven lean-fleshed cows looking like those infested with rinderpest emerged and consumed the fat cows and remained lean. The king had another dream in the same night in which he sighted seven ears of corn that looked robust. Then, seven other lean ears of corn manifested, devoured the obese ears of corn and remained unchanged.
Yes, Pharaoh was deeply troubled. At the crack of dawn, he summoned all the magicians and wise men in his kingdom to his palace and rendered the bizarre imaginings to them. But none of them was able to interpret the dreams. However, Pharaoh’s butler who had had an encounter with Joseph in the prison told the king about him.
He was instantly rushed to the palace and after hearing the dreams, he gave the interpretations: The seven fat cows and seven robust ears of corn represented a period of seven years of abundance, while their devouring by the skinny cows and lean ears of corn symbolized seven years of famine that would follow. So, Joseph advised Pharaoh to store foodstuffs during the plenteous years that his people would fall back on during the eventual scarcity. The king saw wisdom in Joseph’s interpretation and appointed him as his deputy to take charge of the economy of the land.
Pharaoh’s bizarre dreams soon came to pass. And while other nations wallowed in scarcity, Egypt weltered in profusion for the period that the food crisis lasted. Joseph’s brothers also heard about the food glut in Egypt. They came to have a feel and eventually worshipped Joseph in fulfillment of his (ambitious) dream.
The other day, I woke up with a dream as bizarre as Pharaoh’s reverie. And what did I see? I saw a blue whale the weight of 30 elephants put together and as long as the length of three Marcopolo buses joined together emerging along the coastline of the Niger Delta. And just as I caught my breath at the sight of the gigantic sea animal, another fish, comparatively small, the size of 911 truck, leapt into the open and ate up the blue whale without as much as a change in size.
We do not need a Joseph to interpret this wacky dream. That blue whale symbolises the crude oil that has been in production in the Niger Delta axis for close to six decades now. This whale, which provides the oil that is now the mainstay of our economy, also represents the period of abundance. Nigeria has been wallowing in superabundance since the whale surfaced at Oloibiri in the present Bayelsa state in the early 50s. But rather than store the enormous wealth in the manner that Joseph amassed foodstuffs in the season of plenty, our successive rulers and their ilk, so clueless and insensitive to the plight of the masses, have been squandering the riches through the instrumentality of corruption and barefaced theft.
The current season of copiousness, culminating in the massive inflow of petrol dollars, ought to transform the country into an Eldorado where the teeming populace can live well above poverty line. Today, brazen stealing in high places has become the norm. Stealing is not typical of those in high places; those in low places steal too. The systemic pillaging of our collective wealth by civil servants and politicians at all levels of government on the one hand, and unabashed crude oil theft in the Niger Delta on the other hand, despite hiring of some local warlords at huge costs to guard the region, have all combined to reduce the country to a den of bandits.
Now, what is the significance of the bonga fish the size of the 911 that ate up the massive blue whale? That scenario will play out when the demand for our oil begins to dwindle. It is public knowledge that by 2015, the United States that is a major importer of our black gold will have little or no need for our products. Then, there is the discovery of oil in more African countries that enjoy political and economic stability. In the next couple of years, most of the major oil companies doing business in the terrain of Niger Delta notorious for insecurity, oil theft, pipeline vandalism, kidnapping and allied felonies, will migrate to those countries in the manner that industries like Dunlop and Michelin fled in the face of harsh economic environment.
When that happens, then there will be a glut because our market would have shrunk. We will then come down from 2.9m or so barrels per day (bpd) to less than one million. And by the time the high-profile thieves in the corridors of power settle themselves, the rest of us may not even see any crumbs to fill our tummies.
What the successive governments should have been doing when the blue whale surfaced over half a century ago, was to use the superabundant resources to grow and strengthen the agricultural/solid mineral sectors and provide vital infrastructure like electricity that is a sine qua non for industrialization. Unfortunately for the poor masses, our collective riches have been lost to corruption and profligacy. The trillion-naira question is who will save us from ourselves?
