Open letter to President Muhammadu Buhari, By "les Amis du Nigeria"

Your Excellency, it is with great pleasure that we are writing you. In our capacity as President of the Association des Amis du Nigeria (AAN). Our association was born for almost ten years, in the aim to amplify the voice of Nigeria specifically in the Francophone world but also in Africa at large. The initiative for the creation of AAN which started in Benin, my native  country, was based on three observations.

Firstly, Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa, formed by a plurality of ethnicities living together somehow, in the pursuit of happiness and brotherhood.
Second, Nigeria, Africa's largest oil producer of, is also the first African economy.
Third, located in West Africa, Nigeria is an English speaking country surrounded exclusively by francophone countries. The peoples of some of these countries like Benin where I come from, speak many national languages spoken from southern to northern of our common gulf of Benin, and maintain narrow centuries-old ties of culture and brotherhood that the colonial division maybe affected but never dissolves.
That is why the AAN members  have set themselves the goal of being the francophone voice of Nigeria, so that understanding and information exchange between her and her French-speaking neighbors be more effective.
In this vein, we were very involved in the last general elections in Nigeria that led to the victory of APC and yourself as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. We welcome warmly your election, because like many Nigerians who support you, we think you are a worthy son of Africa, a man of will and wisdom, resolutely turned towards the African liberation: liberation from poverty of the masses, liberation from social and moral woes, liberation from the social injustice of corruption in all its forms; but also liberation in the sense that was cherished by  some of your illustrious predecessors like Ousman Dan Fodio, Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, Nelson Mandela, and Thomas Sankara.
And it is in connection with the heritage of these illustrious men that I am writing you to inform you of the endangerment of the independence of Benin, a country so close to Nigeria and so firmly anchored to it.
Mr. President, it is no a secret that between the two major historical colonizers of Africa, Great Britain and France, the latter still shows very much a predator on the continent, despite its fine words on Human Rights and Freedom of Peoples. This predation is aimed essentially at imposing African leaders devoted to its interests - as if the essence of African polity were to safeguard French interests - through rigged elections and the imposition of a regime installed by money in buying votes and consciences.
The example of Burkina Faso, which has succeeded in driving its dictator and conducted a successful transition to the election of a new president, shows how France holds out its former colonies. In various forms, this treacherous harassment scored its mark in the political history of francophone countries from Ivory Coast to Gabon, not to mention Togo and Benin. A simple observation shows that in these Francophone countries, and under the protection of France, dictators remained in power for three decades at least! Something unthinkable in the English-speaking part of Africa where Britain shows much less interventionism.
In Benin, at the moment, we are moving towards the end of the government of Mr Boni Yayi, who has exercised power in two consecutive terms of five years each. The first term was the result of a spontaneous election, without significant fraud. But the second term was the result of a rigged election, which has respected none of the constitutional rules and ethical standards in this area, endangering without qualms the country's cohesion and national unity. Nigeria’s President at the time, M. Goodluck Jonathan had then participated in this shameful kick to his horn-religionist Yayi Boni. But needless to say, upstream and downstream, this election was the poison fruit of the French political predation in Francophone Africa. France saw to her interests. President Yayi Boni is deemed to feed an incomprehensible hatred against African men, and particularly Beninese, to which he instinctively prefers French. Thus, for example, having divested a Beninese operator to whom first won the contract in the proposed construction of the Niamey / Cotonou, railway,  Mr. Boni Yayi granted back the contract to a French businessman named Vincent Bolloré, although the technical proposals of the French company do not promote direct train traffic between Nigeria and Benin, because of compliance with French standards.
It is in order to continue in this servile and anti-African spirit that Mr. Yayi, as part of his departure scheme scheduled for April 2016, will be replaced by a French national in order to perpetuate his regime. The man in question was born in France of a Beninese father and a French mother. He was breed, educated and remained all his life up to his current 60 years in France where he has spent his entire career. He was a one time director of the Rothschild Bank and other European financial institutions. In the 80s, he was even a member of the French cabinet under Mr. Laurent Fabius, the current Minister of Foreign Affairs of France. To give you an idea of the political strangeness of the dolphin that Mr. Boni Yayi is choosing to Benin if nothing is done to prevent him, you who where applicable never miss the opportunity to speak in Hausa, may you know that the man in question, named Lionel Zinsou, can not speak any national language of Benin! This is not surprising, until his recent arrival in the cabinet of Mr Yayi Boni as Prime Minister for his political acclimatization to his next office as President of the Republic, the man never stayed in Benin beyond a few days, as a tourist or in technical capacity. He has never been mayor, nor municipal nor departmental counselor, never held an elected office in the country, never been Minister. And this is the man that your colleague, Mr Yayi is trying to impose as president of Benin, a neighbor and brother country to Nigeria!
Your Excellency, Mister President, yet obviously, one can say that since this gentleman is of Beninese nationality, he has the right to stand in presidential elections; the only fact of being candidate in the presidential election is not synonymous to being elected as president. And more so, if he was however elected, one could consider his election  as the democratic expression of the people's will.
But in fact it is not so at all. In 2011, Mr. Yayi has remained in power thanks to France and Nigeria, whose President at the time, your predecessor, Mr. Goodluck Jonathan, came to Cotonou at the eve of the election to warn Beninese against any kind of protest, advising them docility in the name of peace in Nigeria. In 2011 Mr. Yayi was not the expression of the democratic will of the people of Benin. And in 2016, with his French candidate, he puts himself in the same logic of fraud and political assault. One proof of this statement is that the dolphin has been already imposed as the regime’s party candidate by Mr. Yayi in cheer violation of the rules of the party, one of which requires the candidate to be a member and militant of the party, which is not the case of the dolphin.
A Yoruba proverb says that if the baby elephant decide to swallow huge mouthfuls it is because it has confidence in its throat. If Mr. Yayi violates the rules of his own party to impose his candidate it is because he is sure that he will similarly shake electoral rules the system of which is entirely in the hands of his friends and political subordinates. Electoral corruption, votes and consciences-buying that have already begun in the country, will create the atmosphere of social plausibility of results that are rigged in advance.
Excellency Mr. President, so this is the man that the ending regime under the direction of Mr. Yayi Boni is ready to put at the head of Benin. It is noteworthy to mention that this man, fully committed to French interests, is a champion of neo-colonial currency, the FCFA, that France uses for the past 55 years to monetarily gag its former colonies. Ready to lead a French right-thinking crusade against any other currency in West Africa and eventually across Africa, the French born and bred Benin President, will advocate the substitution of naira and the cedi by the FCFA. The goal is to bypass the programmed emergence of a West African single currency by ECOWAS to which naira would be the pivot.
Excellency Mr. President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, so that's the worrying political situation in Benin, that “les Amis du Nigeria” has decided to submit to your highly respectable attention. As has mentioned former President of Benin, Mr. Nicephore Soglo who cares, this anti-African project may provoke a revolt in Benin, hence making the bed of terrorism. You who have in a rapid and unprecedented move, and with a high level of international cooperation, led Nigeria to the gates of a technical victory over Boko Haram, will certainly not allow your efforts to be compromised by the unworthy excesses of your colleague. You will certainly not wish the seeds of magnification of Boko Haram’s trops grow on your border.
The best war is the one we have avoided. Nigeria has no incentive to let go what is currently going on in Benin, which might damage its dignity and its national unity. Because Benin is a brother country, closely linked to Nigeria, and anything that harms the dignity and unity of Benin will also harm the dignity and unity of Nigeria.
For all these reasons, Excellency Mr. President, we “les Amis du Nigeria”, beg you to do everything in your power to ensure the independence and dignity of Benin.
In the hope of an effective result, we hereby tender to you Mr. President, our friendship with our highest respect.
Anjorin Bello, trad. Binason avèkes

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