Cutting your nose to spite your face

As you all know, I run African Naturalistas, and one of our major materials are the plastics we use to package the products. Lately, the prices have been soaring so high like a kite in the sky, that it was becoming outrageous.

There's a particular set of plastics I have been looking for in small quantity (hundreds), which had completely disappeared from the market. So I went to the company that manufactures it, which is the company I actually buy my plastics from. The only issue was that I'd have to buy the plastic in thousands even though I didn't need that much.

On getting to that company, I noticed the whole place was empty. Everything was dead. There were no vehicles packing plastics or offloaders working. There were no people at the reception, waiting to see the sales personnel, etc. I began to suspect that something was wrong.

When I got to the sales office, only one person was around. I told her the plastics I wanted to buy, and she said it was finished, that I should come back in two weeks time because there's something wrong with their power, and they couldn't power their machines. I asked about some more plastics, she said they weren't available. I drilled down further, and realised there were no plastics of any king available.

It was at this point I started to suspect something was wrong. If it was a small company having issues, I would have understood. But it was one of the biggest plastic factories in Lagos, moulding for giant cosmetic companies. There was no way they would accept power generating issues to shut them down for over a month, with no hope in sight. Moreover, Indians don't joke with labour and money.

So in my course of interaction, I found out that it was the blowing of the gas pipelines in the Niger Delta region, by the Niger Delta Avengers that shut them down. Apparently, many companies, including this one I deal with use those gas to power their factory. So something that happened far in the Niger Delta is affecting us here in Lagos.

Now, here is the irony. If you know anything about the local plastic market in Lagos, the trading aspect is run by the people of the East, Niger Delta, and that region in general. That is their source of livelihood. They buy these plastics from Asian manufacturers in Mushin and Sango, and sell to small businesses who can't deal directly with the manufacturers because they can't afford to buy in thousands.

So you decided to show the Federal Government pepper by bombing gas pipelines, thus affecting a lot of businesses, thus crippling the source of livelihood of your fellow townsmen in other parts of the country, so they begin to go hungry. And you think it is the Federal Government that is suffering?

Who are we really kidding? When we do things, in form of revolution or protest, we better think about who it is really going to affect in the end. We might as well be stabbing ourselves in the chest.

This is just a typical example of cutting your nose to spite your face

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