Dear Mr. President: Happy New Year. How time flies. I remember this time last year; we played a different music, a different song. Our dance as a country was to a different rhyme. We kept vigil for Nigeria because we didn’t know where the then President Musa Yar’adua was.
Dear Mr. President: Happy New Year. How time flies. I remember this time last year; we played a different music, a different song. Our dance as a country was to a different rhyme. We kept vigil for Nigeria because we didn’t know where the then President Musa Yar’adua was.
Mr. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab repainted our lovely green white green with colour red. The paint stuck and stunk in our emblem but with the water of patriotism, we erased every spatter and splatter. This time last year Mr. President, our very dear feminine justice that gave the common man hope was raped to stupor in the glaring eyes of all Nigerians by the very custodians of it. He even declared President Yar’adua fit to rule from “anywhere”. We rallied round to support you. We fought your adversaries. We matched and with holy inspiration, we prayed. We bombarded the air and cyber space with the call for your upgrade. It was an amazing phenomenon, for once; Nigerians had a symbolic leader beloved by the people, highly popular, sovereign and highly enameled with grace and humility. This was personified in you.
Nigeria’s dirge ululating moment ironically became the time of its sonority, exhilaration and jubilation when the divine arbitrator decided to step in and settle the discourse - of who was the actual President of Nigeria- in favour of the common man. You emerged with hope and promises of a better tomorrow, a better power supply, better security, better economy, a free and fair election and host of other salivating promises. For once, the hopes of all Nigerians were rekindled and in that moment and time, you became one of the most popular leaders of Africa and possibly, second only to few like Nelson Mandela of South Africa and Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana.
Mr. President, it is almost a year now. Can we as a people say you have done well? Can we shout here is the man with whom there is no blemish? Can you look into our eyes first and vow you’ve not dance naked in the Parthenon of dangerous compromise? I heard you are a gentle man with a kind heart but what good is kindness and gentility when your people are dying? Since you are a Christian, I will love to share a story with you from the bible. It is from the book of 1Samuel 17: 34-37. David was tending his father’s sheep in a dangerous terrain and at different times, a lion and a bear attacked his sheep. These wilds didn’t attack him but one from his lots. It may interest you to know that David had large flocks at his possession. He could have easily compromised one for many but you know what David did? He went after the Lion and the bear and killed them for trespassing his domain. Little would one wonder why David was called a man after God’s heart for he valued life and understood accountability.
I heard kidnap increased greatly this past year. What is mostly surprising is how these cycles of kidnap, ransom and released were done with impunity. I would have loved to congratulate you because most of those who were kidnapped last year were released but Mr. President, are we going to keep celebrating indulgence. Who is investigating these corporate crimes? Have we looked inwards to fish out collaborators? If as a nation, we don’t do a proper job in investigating this money milking machine and nip it at the bud, this will grow into a monstrous entity and degenerate Nigeria to a banana republic where anybody including you can be kidnap someday.
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Mr. President, you promise you will fight corruption and give us a free and fair election. I still believe you on the latter seeing that you have appointed an INEC chairman whom many believe to be of high integrity and character in terms of precedence.
However Mr. President, in terms of the former, how can we trust you? You and I know that the corruption that is pillaging Nigeria today is a high level corruption. Is there any “big name” that was at least charged to court in your dispensation? I hope Mr. President you wouldn’t start telling me of the charged and convicted bank moguls? With all respect Mr. President, those were not your spoils. Let’s give that credit to mallam Joseph Sanusi and this all started before you came into office sir. Chief James Ibori is not your spoil either. I give you credence that you chased him out of Nigeria but how about his unweaned son Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan whom you have personally decided to breast-feed? Did you inoculate his corruption-laden mouth through the judicial process before you placed your nipple of compromise in him? I leant you are on an endorsement spree in your party the PDP-Almost all the PDP governors, the senators, house of Reps and the “big boys” of your party have endorsed you-If this is the case, how do you want to fight corruption Mr. President. Please spare me a moment and let’s engage in some logic reasoning. If the PDP has been ruling the nation for about 12years now and we have witness such monumental corruption in this period who is the culprit? Your party has the most corrupt governors in the country who then appoints corrupt heads of agencies and parastatals. Also, you party has over two third representatives to the national assembly and these “representatives” are so corrupt that they yank home over 25% of the entire nation’s overhead budget. Now, since all these have come together to support you for 2011 presidency, how do you want to “fight corruption”. Well, you will find it difficult to convince us that your end will justify your means but we will watch and see. With Jotrick, anything can happen right?
Now Mr. President, there is an issue that is most disturbing. I heard and read that some eminent and prominent Nigerians have been threatening your legitimacy as president. What are you doing about that? Some have even threatened to make the nation ungovernable for you and others talk of making violent change inevitable. Hope you are not taking this as a PDP “family affair”? It seems you are taking this personal and handling it in your usual gentleman way. Mr. President that is treasonable felony in your part you see. May I remind you that you are no longer your own. You are now the property of Nigeria. Let me give you an analogy, if for instance as an average citizen, you and your wife engaged in domestic dispute, now that you are the president, she is not allowed to engage in such frivolity with you. If she does, she poses a security threat to the nation and thus must be arrested. I leant you are engaging in clandestine compromise meetings with those who have vowed to make the nation ungovernable. If this is true Mr. President, that would be a bridge of trust and thus, you should resign your position as the President of Nigeria. By your inactions on such conspicuous and obvious security threats, you are placing the lives of an average Nigerian at risk and thus, you should resign from your position sir.
I will love to state a little history before I end this letter sir. In the early sixties in this country (Nigeria), Chief Obafemi Awolowo engaged in a supremacy battle with the then Prime Minister Tafa Balewa. This was condole by the later as a mere political intrigue but when Awolowo and his Action Group (AG) crew crossed the line and started engaging in certain clandestine meeting that posed security concern to the country, they were arrested and tried. When found guilty, he and others were sentenced to life imprisonment. Yes, there are many school of thoughts that claim Awolowo and his AG were innocent and I being his distant protégé am from such school of thoughts but the lesson from this example is that you do not sacrifice national security on the alter of party compromise. In Nigeria today, the line has been crossed, the Rubicon has been broken and the soul of Nigeria is threatened.
Mr. President, I know you are a busy man and seem to have lots to do but perhaps if your relative were killed on the Abuja New Year’s Eve bomb blast, you would act fast. If your wife’s hands were amongst those amputated on the Jos Christmas eve bomb blast, you would ambulate with eagerness and if your son had died in the October 1st Abuja bomb blast, you would have declared wanted those overtly and covertly responsible for this heinous crime. Bomb in gorilla warfare is anathema to Nigerian culture and must be nipped in its bud.
Before you sleep Mr President, please remember that: Those dead boys in the Independence Day blast are children of fathers; those maimed women in Christmas blast in Jos are wives husbands. Mr. President, those dead men from 31st December 2010 bomb blast at Abuja are husbands of wives who are now widows and fathers of children who are now orphans. Mr President, act now or resign.
Sincerely,
Ehimai Ohiozebau
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