June 6, 2010
Dear Name-sake, fellow Parliamentarian and Cabinet Minister: As I sit down here behind my beautifully crafted desk, in my magnificent office in Abuja, I’m filled with joy and vindication that you have just been returned to the front row of British politics both as an MP and a cabinet minister. I have longed to write this letter to you since the unfortunate incident that swept you out of office as the British home affairs secretary over that small issue of fast tracking a visa application for the nanny of your beloved lover Kimberly. When Tony Blair said you had left office with your integrity intact, many people felt repulsive, little did they know that you would not only be re-elected as MP, but would also bounce back as a cabinet minister sooner than later.
When editors of the Sun, the Guardian and other leading British newspapers were busy castigating you for ‘assisting’ Kimberly’s nanny, I laughed at their ignorance and lack of both insight and foresight. I know they didn’t know how we the Blunketts of this world operate.
When Little John of the Sun newspaper and another little man, Dahiru Maishanu kept on with their ferocious attacks on your personality and that of your colleagues and name-sakes in Nigeria, I felt so sorry for them, for they knew so little and under-estimate so much, our ability and resolve to continue to perpetuate ourselves and our grip on our people. I often reason with the parents of Little John for naming him little as if they knew how little his intellectual grasp would be when he grew up. I don’t even reckon with Dahiru Maishanu for as long I care, that name, Maishanu, could only have come from Nigeria or Niger, countries which we the Blunketts of this world have for long pocketed with ease. As the name connotes, Maishanu can only claim knowledge of cattle rearing being a Fulani boy on a sojourn to the Netherlands to probably learn about how the Dutch are so successful in the dairy and cheese industry.
Not to bother you so much about these little people, let me formally congratulate you on your recent election victory and your second coming into the cabinet of Tony Blair, this time as minister for works and pension. Let me also seize this opportunity to intimate you of some activities and events that took place in my country while you were forced to retire to the backbenches of Westminster.
Like I said earlier, it is a matter of fact that both maishanu and little john and others like them don’t have the depth of knowledge of our ‘operations’; they only so ‘incongruously’ touched on the periphery. As a fellow cabinet minister and or member of Parliament, I can intimate you of more activities (atrocities?) that we perpetuate on daily basis here in Nigeria. I know it would be difficult for you to comprehend these things because of the kind of environment you operate within. However, I trust you, if not for the system in your country, knowing your antics, you may be tempted to partake in same vein as we do.
The first point I want to make has been made by maishanu in his last article (David Blunkett as a Nigerian) about you and ‘us.’ Bedding another man’s wife as you did in the case of Kimberly over the years is considered as one of the sterling qualities that we as leaders should possess in this part of the world. In our case, that woman’s husband may even be cajoled or intimidated into congratulating the perpetrator of the ‘act’.
When you gave Kimberly rail tickets to join you for a kwanan gida and merely assisted her Nanny to get a visa while you were the ‘all in all’ of the Home Office, we here accused you of being too lenient with public funds. I can tell you that as your lover, Kimberly should not be seen any where near a train station for that is a means of transport for the poor here. Kimberlies of our land deserve an official car, a driver, a police (mopol) escort and an official estacode to service her taste and desires. As the minister’s mistress, Kimberly would be a party to the tenders system of the ministry, having a chunk of the contracts in her purse, dishing out contracts to contractors of her choice and pocketing the proceeds.
I know by now, you may be wondering how we managed to go on like this, controlling all aspects of our society and economy. I know you are beginning to think that this is impossible, immoral and completely irresponsible. But hold your breath colleague, and welcome to our real world.
Let me introduce to you to a few of our divide and rule tactics that have managed to see us in firm control over the decades. It is simple: we use religion, ethnicity, tribalism, nepotism, resource control, politics and many other issues to do this.
Don’t be scared when I mention religion for here in Nigeria we have perfected the method of using it to turn people against people to our benefit. We have over the years systematically created inter religious crisis between the followers of the two main religions and sectarian, intra religious strife (as you have in Northern Ireland) with enormous human and material casualty and consequences to our advantage.
Again you will say this is morally wrong, but unfortunately in our brand of politics, there no such word as morality in the dictionary. For us, it is all about our continued existence and relevance on the leadership ladder; nothing matters after that.
Did I hear you mused the word Shariah? This is one aspect where you will salute our genius. When you come to Nigeria, I will take you on a tour to all the states of the federation including the so-called Shariah states. I will not only take you to one of those Shariah states, I will also provide you with booze unlimited and as many Kimberlies as you and members of your entourage would like to have and nothing will happen. We have introduced a lot of ingenious strategies to ensure that only the down trodden in the society are Shariah-compliant while we, the leaders, satisfy our kleptomaniac, immoral and sexual desires without hindrance.
We use government houses and offices to share contracts and public funds to our selves and our cronies. We use government facilities to sleep with our mistresses; some of us even use government facilities and funds to sponsor gay relationships whether in Sharia or non-Shariah states. My dear Blunkett, no policeman or hizbah operative will dare come to the government house to enforce Shariah no matter what atrocity is being committed in that house. They only do as directed by us and disturb the poor masses like Safiyah.
We have created a lot of rifts, acrimony and deep suspicion between the followers of the two main religions and the many tribes in the country. We have also created dangerous flashpoints in the country where we remotely control the occurrences of religious and tribal clashes at will. It is only we, the leaders, that have the ability and tools to ignite trouble in Kaduna, Kano, Kafanchan, Lagos, Ife, Modakeke or Jos and we are always ready to do this at the slightest of provocation.
When your grandfathers created the three regions in Nigeria, the main objective was known to be the ease of administering this vast country they named Nigeria. The three regions while serving the interest of the British colonialists provided the platforms for regional, religious and tribal wrangling and tensions that on one occasions resulted in war. I will like to report to you that whether your grand fathers had this in mind or not, we have used these regions and the differences amongst the people to create, crisis, instability and war resulting in deaths of hundreds of Nigerians in religious, ethnic and tribal clashes all over the place. We have gone further to initiate and perpetuate crisis from ethnic to intra- tribal and clan level clashes. Did I hear you say how callous? Well, it will do your intellect some justice to know that ours is a survival war or do you want the people down there to get educated, wiser and begin to challenge our grip on them? Over our dead bodies!
A few flashpoints in these deadly clashes orchestrated by ‘us’ are the Ife-modakeke, Zaki biyam, Jos; Jukun-tiv clashes in Taraba and many others. If you are in doubt, please contact your historians and political scientists at Oxford and they will buttress and further authenticate these facts for you. Don’t worry about the traditional African check and balance system. It doesn’t work here! Traditional rulers are our cronies; Pastors and Imams must sing our praise or face extinction or outright annihilation.
Honourable Minister, take a sip of water, juice or scotch whiskey and look around you in north and central London, you find our loot scattered all over the place. From Victoria to Kensington through the West-end, properties owned by ‘us’ are too numerous to count or valuate and they are on the increase continuously, thanks to your accommodating system. In my country today, one must own a property in a choice area of London and have foreign bank accounts before he can truly count himself as one of us. Again thanks to your accommodating system, money laundering rules are bent to the floor in order to accommodate our smartly (ill-gotten?) acquired wealth in your banking and financial systems. Let me use this medium to ask you to thank who ever is responsible in your country for this act of magnanimity and cooperation. You can see your economy is better off with us! In’it?
On the political front, I will like to report to you that we have just completed the comprehensive desecration of the polity after stealing virtually all the mandate there is in our electoral system. I can also promise a photo finish action of electoral thievery and fraud never seen before, come the year 2007. The constitution would have to be re-written if need be in order to accommodate our wishes and ambitions. Our Head Boy may even borrow your ‘parliamentary’ system for a while in order to achieve his ambition for a third term of office. For us politics is a means to the end; it is the short cut to riches, fame and power.
Resource control? That is our latest weapon against the people. Here, we create tension between communities in the oil producing areas and secretly arm the warring factors with ammunition to fight one another all in the name of who controls what. We then send the federal troops and police to shoot at sight. In the midst of this, we loot the crude, the main ingredient in our pot of resource control, leaving the land devastated and polluted. Can you beat that?
My dear Minister, do not bother about what people say. They would always have something to say. Not a long time ago, our undisputed kingpin and mentor was accused of being ruthless, intolerant, looter, vindictive, coercive and power drunk. Being a master that he was, he didn’t give a hoot. He only continued the siphoning of the economy till he was no more. See how he died? Peacefully, in his sleep. He didn’t die a victim of religious crisis, hunger, or killed by an armed robber. He didn’t die as a result of fire accident caused by kerosene used in lieu of NEPA power or as a result of motor accident on our dilapidated road networks in the country. In fact, rumours had it that he died doing what you and I like doing best. Remember Kimberly?
While I still have so many things to tell you, I would like to spare that till next time to allow you time to attend to your tight schedules. Once again congratulations and see you in Nigeria.
Yours truly,
David Blunkett, the Nigerian
Dahiru Maishanu
Writing from London
[email protected]
When editors of the Sun, the Guardian and other leading British newspapers were busy castigating you for ‘assisting’ Kimberly’s nanny, I laughed at their ignorance and lack of both insight and foresight. I know they didn’t know how we the Blunketts of this world operate.
When Little John of the Sun newspaper and another little man, Dahiru Maishanu kept on with their ferocious attacks on your personality and that of your colleagues and name-sakes in Nigeria, I felt so sorry for them, for they knew so little and under-estimate so much, our ability and resolve to continue to perpetuate ourselves and our grip on our people. I often reason with the parents of Little John for naming him little as if they knew how little his intellectual grasp would be when he grew up. I don’t even reckon with Dahiru Maishanu for as long I care, that name, Maishanu, could only have come from Nigeria or Niger, countries which we the Blunketts of this world have for long pocketed with ease. As the name connotes, Maishanu can only claim knowledge of cattle rearing being a Fulani boy on a sojourn to the Netherlands to probably learn about how the Dutch are so successful in the dairy and cheese industry.
Not to bother you so much about these little people, let me formally congratulate you on your recent election victory and your second coming into the cabinet of Tony Blair, this time as minister for works and pension. Let me also seize this opportunity to intimate you of some activities and events that took place in my country while you were forced to retire to the backbenches of Westminster.
Like I said earlier, it is a matter of fact that both maishanu and little john and others like them don’t have the depth of knowledge of our ‘operations’; they only so ‘incongruously’ touched on the periphery. As a fellow cabinet minister and or member of Parliament, I can intimate you of more activities (atrocities?) that we perpetuate on daily basis here in Nigeria. I know it would be difficult for you to comprehend these things because of the kind of environment you operate within. However, I trust you, if not for the system in your country, knowing your antics, you may be tempted to partake in same vein as we do.
The first point I want to make has been made by maishanu in his last article (David Blunkett as a Nigerian) about you and ‘us.’ Bedding another man’s wife as you did in the case of Kimberly over the years is considered as one of the sterling qualities that we as leaders should possess in this part of the world. In our case, that woman’s husband may even be cajoled or intimidated into congratulating the perpetrator of the ‘act’.
When you gave Kimberly rail tickets to join you for a kwanan gida and merely assisted her Nanny to get a visa while you were the ‘all in all’ of the Home Office, we here accused you of being too lenient with public funds. I can tell you that as your lover, Kimberly should not be seen any where near a train station for that is a means of transport for the poor here. Kimberlies of our land deserve an official car, a driver, a police (mopol) escort and an official estacode to service her taste and desires. As the minister’s mistress, Kimberly would be a party to the tenders system of the ministry, having a chunk of the contracts in her purse, dishing out contracts to contractors of her choice and pocketing the proceeds.
I know by now, you may be wondering how we managed to go on like this, controlling all aspects of our society and economy. I know you are beginning to think that this is impossible, immoral and completely irresponsible. But hold your breath colleague, and welcome to our real world.
Let me introduce to you to a few of our divide and rule tactics that have managed to see us in firm control over the decades. It is simple: we use religion, ethnicity, tribalism, nepotism, resource control, politics and many other issues to do this.
Don’t be scared when I mention religion for here in Nigeria we have perfected the method of using it to turn people against people to our benefit. We have over the years systematically created inter religious crisis between the followers of the two main religions and sectarian, intra religious strife (as you have in Northern Ireland) with enormous human and material casualty and consequences to our advantage.
Again you will say this is morally wrong, but unfortunately in our brand of politics, there no such word as morality in the dictionary. For us, it is all about our continued existence and relevance on the leadership ladder; nothing matters after that.
Did I hear you mused the word Shariah? This is one aspect where you will salute our genius. When you come to Nigeria, I will take you on a tour to all the states of the federation including the so-called Shariah states. I will not only take you to one of those Shariah states, I will also provide you with booze unlimited and as many Kimberlies as you and members of your entourage would like to have and nothing will happen. We have introduced a lot of ingenious strategies to ensure that only the down trodden in the society are Shariah-compliant while we, the leaders, satisfy our kleptomaniac, immoral and sexual desires without hindrance.
We use government houses and offices to share contracts and public funds to our selves and our cronies. We use government facilities to sleep with our mistresses; some of us even use government facilities and funds to sponsor gay relationships whether in Sharia or non-Shariah states. My dear Blunkett, no policeman or hizbah operative will dare come to the government house to enforce Shariah no matter what atrocity is being committed in that house. They only do as directed by us and disturb the poor masses like Safiyah.
We have created a lot of rifts, acrimony and deep suspicion between the followers of the two main religions and the many tribes in the country. We have also created dangerous flashpoints in the country where we remotely control the occurrences of religious and tribal clashes at will. It is only we, the leaders, that have the ability and tools to ignite trouble in Kaduna, Kano, Kafanchan, Lagos, Ife, Modakeke or Jos and we are always ready to do this at the slightest of provocation.
When your grandfathers created the three regions in Nigeria, the main objective was known to be the ease of administering this vast country they named Nigeria. The three regions while serving the interest of the British colonialists provided the platforms for regional, religious and tribal wrangling and tensions that on one occasions resulted in war. I will like to report to you that whether your grand fathers had this in mind or not, we have used these regions and the differences amongst the people to create, crisis, instability and war resulting in deaths of hundreds of Nigerians in religious, ethnic and tribal clashes all over the place. We have gone further to initiate and perpetuate crisis from ethnic to intra- tribal and clan level clashes. Did I hear you say how callous? Well, it will do your intellect some justice to know that ours is a survival war or do you want the people down there to get educated, wiser and begin to challenge our grip on them? Over our dead bodies!
A few flashpoints in these deadly clashes orchestrated by ‘us’ are the Ife-modakeke, Zaki biyam, Jos; Jukun-tiv clashes in Taraba and many others. If you are in doubt, please contact your historians and political scientists at Oxford and they will buttress and further authenticate these facts for you. Don’t worry about the traditional African check and balance system. It doesn’t work here! Traditional rulers are our cronies; Pastors and Imams must sing our praise or face extinction or outright annihilation.
Honourable Minister, take a sip of water, juice or scotch whiskey and look around you in north and central London, you find our loot scattered all over the place. From Victoria to Kensington through the West-end, properties owned by ‘us’ are too numerous to count or valuate and they are on the increase continuously, thanks to your accommodating system. In my country today, one must own a property in a choice area of London and have foreign bank accounts before he can truly count himself as one of us. Again thanks to your accommodating system, money laundering rules are bent to the floor in order to accommodate our smartly (ill-gotten?) acquired wealth in your banking and financial systems. Let me use this medium to ask you to thank who ever is responsible in your country for this act of magnanimity and cooperation. You can see your economy is better off with us! In’it?
On the political front, I will like to report to you that we have just completed the comprehensive desecration of the polity after stealing virtually all the mandate there is in our electoral system. I can also promise a photo finish action of electoral thievery and fraud never seen before, come the year 2007. The constitution would have to be re-written if need be in order to accommodate our wishes and ambitions. Our Head Boy may even borrow your ‘parliamentary’ system for a while in order to achieve his ambition for a third term of office. For us politics is a means to the end; it is the short cut to riches, fame and power.
Resource control? That is our latest weapon against the people. Here, we create tension between communities in the oil producing areas and secretly arm the warring factors with ammunition to fight one another all in the name of who controls what. We then send the federal troops and police to shoot at sight. In the midst of this, we loot the crude, the main ingredient in our pot of resource control, leaving the land devastated and polluted. Can you beat that?
My dear Minister, do not bother about what people say. They would always have something to say. Not a long time ago, our undisputed kingpin and mentor was accused of being ruthless, intolerant, looter, vindictive, coercive and power drunk. Being a master that he was, he didn’t give a hoot. He only continued the siphoning of the economy till he was no more. See how he died? Peacefully, in his sleep. He didn’t die a victim of religious crisis, hunger, or killed by an armed robber. He didn’t die as a result of fire accident caused by kerosene used in lieu of NEPA power or as a result of motor accident on our dilapidated road networks in the country. In fact, rumours had it that he died doing what you and I like doing best. Remember Kimberly?
While I still have so many things to tell you, I would like to spare that till next time to allow you time to attend to your tight schedules. Once again congratulations and see you in Nigeria.
Yours truly,
David Blunkett, the Nigerian
Dahiru Maishanu
Writing from London
[email protected]
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