OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT JONATHAN ON THE JOURNEY SO FAR Dear president Goodluck Ebere Azikiwe Jonathan, Am sure you will be wondering why I decided to call your names in full, never mind just a way of reminding you of your pre election nomenclature that was moulded to capture the votes of most Nigerians excluding me. May I congratulate you on this occasion of our 53rd Independence Day celebration for whether we like it or not, you are the commander in chief of the armed forces of the federal republic of Nigeria. Mr President, permit me to refresh your memory on the circumstances that brought you into power. Some opined that it was divine connection while others believed it has a link with the name ‘Goodluck’ whichever way it came; it was made possible by the demise of humble President Yar’dua of the blessed memory. The death of Yar’dua, a northern Muslim created an executive lacuna that was stretched by the politics of north and south. It also created a constitutional higi haga due to the selfishness of some parasitic elements that feeds on government’s blood. At the end of the day, it took the boldness of Dora Akunyili; minister of information then, resilience of Professor Wole Soyinka, Pastor Tunde Bakare and their ‘save Nigeria group, tenacity of Nigerians and the doctrine of necessity from the house of assembly to make you the acting president and later substantial president. To say that you had no clue was an understatement because most of your actions portrayed you as a man with no atom of knowledge of public administration, you did play a master card by bringing on board Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and made her the co-ordinating minister of economy in your cabinet or prime minister in disguise. One of those ugly decisions you took was the bazaar of sharing the monies in the excess crude account amongst the governors which a lot of people viewed as a political romance to get the consent of the governors to win the elections after serving out Yar’dua’s tenure. Of course a good economist will argue that it’s important to save for the rainy day but a better economist will tell you that hoarding money is an economic suicide, money should be in circulation. Mr President during your campaign tour around the 36 states of the federation, you made some promises to Nigerians in line with the social contract concept; “give me your votes and I will give you transformation’ of course I was not moved by those words because I understood the elasticity of Nigerian politicians . You told Nigerians that your administration will tackle corruption, reduce poverty, create employment, stabilize the economy, built good roads, and boast power supply and all geared towards transformation. Nigerians actually bought into that due to your constant use of statements like; ‘I am one of you’ and ‘I had no shoes’. To cut the long story short, you were elected by the majority of Nigerians across the six geo political zones of the country in a fair election or the best election since the return of democracy or civil rule. Your administration started not smoothly; being a learner with learner’s permit though, we witnessed policy summersault and inconsistencies. We saw in you a leader that was not assertive and decisive, a leader that was never in control, a pilot that never knew the direction of his aircraft and a sailor that has lost his compass and a leader who was willing to transform Nigeria but had no clue on how to go about it. Mr President before you could navigate to the right bearing; some satanic elements threw a dangerous spanner into the wheels of your administration, bombs started going off in strategic locations including security formations, Nigerians kept dying in numbers every week and those who threatened to make the country ungovernable for you were indeed happy because Mr president was short of ideas or better still, was listening to reggae of ethnic and religious sentiments thereby not taking proper action to curtail the ravaging menace of those satanic elements. That was when Nigerians began to look for answers in the sky. Was this actually the man we voted for? Does this man really meant well for us? Has he gotten enough pair of shoes that he wanted to stampede us to the grave? The answer you provided for these and many other questions was the removal of fuel subsidy ‘if any’ on the first of January, when people were busy celebrating the New Year! What a blunder! Nigerians thought it was time to use the streets and I fully participated because I never believed in your course of actions abi nitio, we came so close to the prophecy of Karl Marx that talked about removing the existing oppressive structure through conflict in other to achieve egalitarianism. At the end of the day, an agreement was reached and fuel is being sold for N97 per litre when late president Yar’dua actually reviewed the price downwards from Obasanjo’s N70 to N65. Being the Nigerians we are we accepted it in good faith and we moved on but not without probes and counter probes that exposed unprecedented and gigantic corruption in the downstream sector. If Obasanjo spent less than N350bn per annum in subsidizing fuel, why then does the man we call our own spent over a trillion Naira to subsidize almost the same volume of product in one calendar year. Nevertheless Mr President, after all the socio political Armageddon that ensued, behold those who have not been blindfolded by sentiments can see a little light ray coming out from an opaque tunnel, perception of the rational thinkers are now beginning to change leaving irrational thinkers or those who have closed their hearts against constant change at the mercy of their imagination and on the morgue of their misconceptions. I remember you said that you are going to be the best President when you leave office after you discovered that you were the most insulted president in the world, no thanks to democracy and thanks to social network. We understand how tough it is for one to be the president of Nigeria especially when you’re not assertive, when you respect the principles of bureaucracy and when you don’t use the EFCC to play ‘politricks’ that was where names like ‘weak man’ and ‘clue-less’ came in. However, on this occasion of our Independence Day celebration Mr President, I wish to remind you of whom we are and where we came from. Mr President we are a people so richly blessed but impoverished by our leaders since 1965. It’s on record that a particular section of the country was dominating the public civil service system in post independent Nigeria and a lot of progresses were made, it’s also on record that the tree of sentiment was planted by a particular section of the country that wanted power at all cost without knowing what to do with political power. This quest for power unfortunately necessitated the civil war or the genocide to be realistic and at the end of the day power returned to the north and Nigeria will never remain the same again in the real world. Our hearts are now occupied with religious, ethnic, tribal, cabalistic and regional sentiment. The dreams and un-sentimental aspirations of nationalists like A. Bello, Aminu Kano, Awolowo and Zik of Africa were relegated or sacrificed on the altar of sentiments. The military factor was also a very weakening aspect of our national life even though many argued that military dispensation was better than what we have now when actually the military had no structure of governance. I will not fail to recognise the efforts of President Obasanjo and late president Yar’dua towards sustenance of our young democracy; we would have appreciated better if there was military interruption. Mr president, my hate and negative perceptions about you changed the moment I discovered that serious efforts are being made to correct the accumulated systemic rot by your administration. The fact that other arms of government are now independent is purely a definition of administrative will in understanding the facts that institutions make government strong. We saw how Edo state for instance was allowed to be taken over by opposition through the law court, a scenario that was a taboo during Obasanjo’s administration. I remember how Maurice Iwu in conjuction with Obasanjo produced some laughable results in almost all the 36 states of the federation, but today, INEC is allowed to perform its responsibilities without recourse to the presidency. Mr President in pre and immediate post colonial Nigeria, agriculture was the cardinal catalyst of our economy but was killed by the discovery of oil. Today Mr President through the efforts of the minister and ministry of agriculture jobs are being created, we use to import close to 100% of the rice we consume but today, your administration has reduced that to 60%, our local rice production will push away rice importation by 2015. I wouldn’t want to talk about cassava and some cash crops that are now being exported via our cargo international airport or talk about the fertilizer cartel which is a thing of the past. Mr President despite the security challenges, we have a conducive environment for businesses to survive and that was made possible by the ministry of investment. The likes of Dangote group have been able to take advantage of that and now we can export cement to other African countries. We have investors from China and other countries dominating some sectors. Mr President the chairman of Virgin Atlantic, Richard Branson via an article he wrote sometimes ago told the world how difficult it was to do business in Nigeria especially when monsters like Fani-Kayode kept on asking for bribe which eventually drove them away and another criminally minded business man took over, killed and buried Nigerian airways. Today, through the efforts of “Ada Anambra” princess Stella, the aviation sector has been reformed, the aircrafts are no longer coming down like birds. An Igbo man that wants to travel to China does not need to first travel to Lagos or Abuja but Enugu. Before you took over Mr. President, our roads were not just traps but they led to morgue, behold in less than three years the roads are coming back again despite having to undermine some interests that are beneficiaries of the rotten system. People in Abuja for instance forgot how difficult it was for us to travel during festive periods along gwagwalada/lokoja road. Obasanjo was there for eight years and nothing was done on that strategic road, suddenly it took a man from the minority tribe to dualise the road, the work that was abandoned on lokoja roads are now going on at a reasonable pace. The Lagos/Ibadan expressway that served as conduit pipe during Obasanjo’s administration is now beginning to feed from the ambers of your transformation after previous administrations pumped in billions of Naira on that morgue road. Mr president, your assertiveness was confirmed when you revoked that contract from Bi-Courtney Limited, a company that runs on the interest of former president Obasanjo, and re-awarded it to Julius Berger PLC and other companies. Chairman of Bi-Courtney was sent to court by the EFCC and that didn’t go down well with OBJ so he labelled you ‘prodigal son’. Today, efforts are being made to put that road in other after the bloods of many Nigerian commuters have been sacrificed. Emmmm Mr. president remember the Onitsha/Enugu expressway oooo, though work is on-going but at a snail speed instead of Boltic speed. Mr President, power generation and supply has become the bane of our economic development as a state, a lot of billions of US dollars invested to no avail. Every government uses power as an avenue of enriching its pocket, but your administration with little investment on power, improved our power supply to not what we desire and deserve but better than the initial status quo. Mr president in your ‘clue-less’ state of mind you discovered that conflicting interest will not allow Nigerians enjoy what other countries are enjoying, today, a historic fit was achieved, power generation, transmit ion and distribution were sold out to private sector and government will cease to pump money into the power sector without yielding result. If there won’t be light at the end of the tunnel, Dangote wouldn’t have been part of it. Mr President, if the down-stream sector of the petroleum industry was not properly handled, perhaps the likes of Dangote will not also opt to build the biggest refinery in Africa. Mr President the ministry of education before now produces bad result at the end of senior secondary school exams but it was glaringly clear that something was being done considering the fact that in a long time we recorded 70% pass in NECO though it is important to do something about ASUU strike even though it has become more political than apolitical. The National Universities Commission should sit up to their responsibilities or be disbanded, for any tree that refuses to bear the required fruit shall be cut down. After the death of Aminu Kano the north started producing selfish leaders and that’s why they have very few people stupidly rich and very many people swimming in abject and severe poverty. Mr President still in your clue-less-ness you are building and re-modelling ‘Almajirin’ school system in the north. Something they never thought of. Mr President that popular declaration of state of emergency in three troublesome northern states was a bold step especially after you promised talk with the terrorists which they bluntly refused. Of course we know that these satanic elements are being sponsored by highly placed individuals like you rightly said during the presidential media chat, but you see, we do not have the power to deal with them, it is you who has the state power that can deal with them and please inform the military to up their game to avoid these senseless killings by these animals in human skin. Mr president, there are two ways to tackle corruption; one is to shoot and kill corruption and two is to tighten the screw so that free lunch will cease in free town. You have followed the second part and because Nigerians no longer see EFCC bullying and kicking, they believed that nothing is being done. I commend you for using fiscal control mechanism in the fight against corruption but you must hasten up. Finally Mr. President, it is your constitutional right to seek for re-election and your moral right not to seek. I therefore employ you not to listen to desperate and troublesome politicians like Atiku and co who want to rule Nigeria at all cost. In case if you have forgotten, over 30 years of the 53 years of our life as a state was presided over by the northern politicians and at the end of the day, we have over 9.5m of school aged children in the north out of school, we have terrorists drinking blood of innocent Nigerians on daily basis while their elites who stole this country to coma are buying real estates in Dubai and other developed countries, and now they want power at all cost for their selfish reasons. The question is; which northern interest do they represent? The ‘talakawa’s’ of Amino Kano or ‘rankadidi’s’ of Atiku Abubakar? If Nigeria will indeed remain one indivisible entity, the principle of equity and federal character should be adopted. No region should claim to be a domineering force over the other. We never had a president or a governor that contested for just one term and quit under normal circumstance, why has it become a sin for the man that had no shoes to seek for re-election? Why are people creating unnecessary systemic tension? Why have we Nigerians closed our hearts and minds against reality and open our sentimental minds to the likes to Atiku? Unfortunately the opposition we have are not alternative as they are bent on verbally destroying the system; they have resulted to insults instead of selling their ideologies to Nigerians if they have one. Conclusively Mr. President, history will not forgive you if you do not seek for re-election so that those who never believed that minority can be in power and do better than majority will jump into the lagoon or bury their faces in shame. I acknowledge that government is not a rocket science therefore it requires time for some of the policies and programs of government to manifest, I also acknowledge that governance is never a tea party as it comes with tediousness, but you must know that at the end of this political crinkun cranckum, Nigerians will not ask you the number of oppositions you subdued, they will not ask you the number of fight won but they will ask you for the quantum of food on our tables, the number of employment you created, the length of roads you constructed and the quantum of impact you made. This is important so as to curtail a situation whereby when someone wakes up in the morning in Kaura Namuda and feel dizzy, he will not have to ask for your head rather he will ask for the head of the local government chairman or the state government because it’s a federal system of government. I once again congratulate you on the journey so far and to implore you not to lose focus. Happy Independence Day anniversary and God Bless Nigeria.
Posted on: Tue, 01 Oct 2013 16:10:28 +0000