ABUJA (Sundiata Post)
Dateline Lagos: Thursday March 29, 2018.
* With an average of N30,000 per flight and average of 100 passengers, one 6:55am flight/trip to Abuja from Lagos by, say Air Peace, is N3m. If you multiply that by four airlines round-trip, that is N24m. Meanwhile, they will pay their staff for that day and also pay for landing cost. (No 7am flight took off yesterday morning and none landed)
* They were not alone. The tax FAAN collects on every passenger would be lost, at least for those lost flights. You can do the tallying.
* Lagos generates an average of N2b a day in revenue. Forced holiday meant offices were closed and transactions would not be carried out.
* Since the major chunk of our economy is hopelessly informal, it is said that between Oshodi, Oke Aarin and Idumota, an average of N15b exchanges hands through buying and selling everyday. While these markets were not shut down yesterday, the fact that people could not go to to them meant a loss of sizeable chunk of these transactions.
* Emeka was in Ladipo, West Africa’s biggest auto spare parts market. Wasiu was in Ketu. He wanted to buy parts from Emeka but because he had heard that there won’t be movement (it mattered less that that was not totally correct) he simply stayed back. He lost the workmanship he would have collected from his customer, the car owner, while Emeka too could not make sales. You can now multiply this by over TEN THOUSAND Emekas and Wasius who practically lost yesterday.
* Segun drives a commercial bus. He knew Thursday March 29, 2018 would be the last working day for the week before Easter. His target was that there would be increase in people’s movement and very low one on Friday because of public holiday. His target: make as many trips as possible on Thursday to raise enough money for his family Easter celebration. Unfortunately, Segun and his bus spent the whole of Thursday ‘looking’ at themselves in the house. No work. No Easter celebration!
* Jamiu is a bricklayer who lives in Kola, towards Sango old Toll Gate. He was called on Wednesday for a work in Oshodi. He got to the bus stop by 6:30am but no bus. He started trekking. By the time he got to Oshodi around 9:30am, he was totally fagged out. He could not work.
* Free movement of people is very crucial to a working economy. So many business deals to be tied yesterday could not be tied.
All the above were because a president was visiting a former Federal capital and the nation’s economic nerve centre was completely grounded
A three-minute road trip could have taken this man to the Ikeja Bus Terminus. After commissioning it, a chopper to Eko Hotel, where he wanted to toast Tinubu ahead of 2019 election. He could then take chopper again to Lekki and round off the day.
How I wish Ambode could appreciate the quantity of the goodwill he lost yesterday.
But some brain-dead idiots will come and tell us Lagosians were happy to stay at home.
“It was only those who have lost out as a result of Buhari’s anti-corruption war that were affected by the lock-down,” they would say.
God did well in sending me to this world. Only that I cannot question Him why He chose this country for me.
Source: Facebook