Setting an Agenda for the incoming Government-An Open Letter to the President Elect
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Dear Muhammadu Buhari,
I want to formally congratulate you on your victory in the recent concluded presidential elections.
The contest was spiced with hate speeches so much so that the “Ruling party” descended to the level of questioning your school certificate contrary to the evidence that has existed since 1961.There was also doctored videos that went viral with you being asked questions like, “What is the meaning of INEC?, what is the full meaning of APC like a primary school child who is about to sit for an entrance examinations into a secondary school. I did ask your opponents, where in the world do you ask a presidential candidate such questions with such answers coming from him, just to make a point that the videos were doctored. It was difficult to convince even the highly educated that those were doctored and even as I am writing this letter, it is difficult to convince people otherwise, your victory notwithstanding.
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Talking about victory, it is pertinent to inform you that you are not the only victor. President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan is a hero of Nigerian democracy and has placed himself in the rank of Nelson Mandela . When I made this statement in prediction of outcome of the elections during the period in my write up titled “I know who will win the presidential elections “in another forum, some people felt that my claim was outlandish but today I have been vindicated. That he conceded defeat even before the arrival of Bornu result is unprecedented in the history of Africa and the black race. This mark of statesmanship will remain eternal in the history of this country. I will therefore urge you not to forget him when we recognize the works of our past heroes. I want to believe that he has lived up to his name as I believe his conceding defeat and your ascending to the presidency will bring a lot of good luck to this country.
The other victors are the Nigerian people who extolled your virtues and placed all their hopes in you believing that your victory is a new dawn for this country and our democracy which has been deepened by the conducts of the INEC and GoodLuck Ebele Johnathan. On the other side ,your acceptance speech was inspiring and showed great statesmanship. Your carriage, discipline and restraint while the national radios and televisions vilified you on daily basis is worthy of emulation. You gave a firm promise of not victimizing anyone and extended your hand of fellowship to your opponents as well as putting the pre election events behind you and it is on this premise that my hope for my country once again has been rekindled.
My dear General, in the light of the above permit me Sir, to set an agenda on the following: National Unity, Governance, Terrorism, Corruption and National Development.
National Unity
Our country has never been divided along ethnic and religious lines as it is now. Utterances during the campaigns showed clearly that Nigeria is completely divided along ethno religious lines. There were three groups of voters, those who voted along ethnic lines, those who voted along religious lines and those who voted on principle of performance of the outgoing government. I believe strongly the last group swayed the votes in your favour. Consequently, the ‘Governing party” must address the twin devil of tribalism and religion.
A very deep wound has been inflicted on our national life along lines of religion, ethnicity and elitism. In surgery we always talk about factors that affect wound healing and these factors are variable with a significant percentage ascribed to the surgeon. In surgery the surgeon represents leadership and you as the surgeon here must do something drastic to enhance one of the positive factors that affect our national wound healing by reducing the influence of tribe and religion in our public business. Though some people may not agree with me but I believe that government should disinvest herself on pilgrimages other than providing the enable environment for pilgrims to travel as a first step.
Donations by government to churches and mosques should be outlawed. My General, you will recall that during your first coming, your government jailed governors who made donations to their political parties. Religion is a personal issue and should not be elevated to government business. Appointments based on religious affiliations should not be tolerated and the constitution only recognizes the federal character of the nation and not the religious character. If we do not deal with this timely, it will surely consume us. The National Youth Service Corp was created by General Gowon to foster unity in the seventies. How this has impacted on national unity to my knowledge has not been evaluated since inception. There is need to evaluate the impact with a view to reorganizing the scheme, we should also be thinking of similar schemes that will enhance unity. Government should be thinking of amending the constitution to redefine states of origin. A situation where an individual is born in a particular state and he spends his entire life in that state, not speaking any other language except that of the people yet he is regarded as none indigene is not acceptable. We should also be thinking of amending our constitution to give rights to non indigenes based in a state.
Governance
What happened in the last election clearly demonstrated the quality of people in governance. You were a victim of low quality governance. You should therefore hold the system that brought about your abuses responsible. In Nigeria people get to all sorts of positions in all kinds of institution without the proper prerequisite training in capacity and conduct. Otherwise how come even those in top government positions did not know it was wrong to denigrate a former head of state no matter the level of disagreement. The governing party should institute a mechanism whereby only people with prerequisite training and conduct should be appointed to political offices. A case in point is the case of former minister Godsday Orubebe whose conduct during collation of results was below expectation. However the fact that Orubebe realized his conduct and apologized to the nation speaks volume of his good upbringing and back ground. The danger is not people like Orubebe who will realize a mistake and apologize but with people who do not even know that their conducts are below civilized norms.
These are the people in governance in all levels of government in Nigeria. My dear General, Nigeria is not in dearth of patriotic citizens; therefore as you constitute your cabinet you need to search widely and carefully. Ministerial appointments should not be used as a compensation for part loyalty.
In your acceptance speech you reminded Nigerians that you are the president of those who voted for you, those who didn’t vote for you, and those who did not vote. Consequently, for the sake of continuity, do not hesitate to reappoint anyone you found exceptional in Jonathan’s government irrespective of party affiliations. I will therefore want to hold you by your proclamation, that your government would be a listening government. When concerned citizens criticize your government in the course of solving the existing challenges, do not see them as comments coming from those who are bent on discrediting you or those looking for political appointments. I strongly believe that such comments from patriotic citizens should serve as your feedback mechanism.
Insecurity
One of the mistakes of the outgoing government was politicizing the issues of Boko Haram. The government was quick to point accusing fingers on those who disagreed with it and our journalist followed with smearing articles on people. It was difficult for people to see that the government was fighting a formidable enemy whom she knows nothing about. The fact that the Nigerian military with records of achievements in spheres of battles, was unable to deal with the matter decisively as it arose, is part of the general decline in performance of public institutions as result of years of dwindling capacity occasioned by institutionalized corruption. There is no doubt that the capacity of the intelligence community is below accepted standard.
For example between the politicians in Nigeria our police men have been completely shared out as personal guards for sixteen years now. How does one expect a policeman who has spent 16 years of his career as a private guard to be able to investigate a crime or carryout other police duties if he returns to the police station? As a result of culture of impunity that has been on for years the average policeman in uniform believes he is above the law. He carries his horse whips accompanying politicians, driving against the traffic and blaring sirens to the consternation of the onlookers. Those remaining in the police stations harass innocent civilian extorting as much money as they can from helpless relatives. What kind of country are we running, were powerful individuals keep as many as fifty policemen in their private homes and use it to intimidate law abiding citizen. Powerful individuals in some states have coveted personal properties of individuals using contingents of members of police mobile force to subdue them.
Soldiers and the state security services are used by rich and powerful individuals to settle personal scores. There is no doubt that years of engaging in non professional duties unsharpened the skills of the individual hence the poor performance in intelligence gathering. My general this must stop.
There is need to restore discipline in the public conduct of members of the Nigerian police and other security agencies by way of reorientation of the personnel. Fighting insecurity in Nigeria also requires some restructuring to ensure true federalism by some constitutional amendment.
There is need to amend the constitution to allow states, local governments and communities to have their own police. I am totally aware of the controversies that have followed this discussion. I can assure you that police at all governmental levels in Nigeria have more positives then negatives. The Federal police just like the armed forces can maintain the overall surveillance on the performance of other levels of policing. I do not agree with those who say that Nigeria is not ripe for that. I don’t expect a young officer of Sokoto origin to go to a village in Imo and arrest a criminal. Members of a community are better placed to police themselves than a stranger.
Corruption
As a young man in 1983, I witnessed the complete run down of the country’s economy by the civilian administration (1979-1983). This was the time most industries in Nigeria collapsed and Nigeria depended solely on imports for essential commodities. We queued up in shops to be able to buy basic things like soap, detergents, vegetable oil, baby food etc. Those who had new babies will tell you of their harrowing experiences then. Indeed a very senior colleague of mine who was a renowned surgeon had to sell his vehicle to be able to feed his twin set of babies who were born then. It was at that time the army intervened and you emerged as head of state. You tackled corruption head on and somewhere along the line the whole exercise was politicized. You have openly agreed that there were mistakes and you have taken full responsibility which I see as a mark of a great leader in you. I will therefore urge you to tackle corruption with all arsenals available using the experience of your first coming as a tool. Under no circumstances must you allow this exercise to degenerate to witch hunting. Anticorruption institutions like ECFC and ICPC must be strengthened in terms of reward system for operatives, logistics and capacity building. As the saying goes, you cannot give what you don’t have. There is no gainsaying the fact that those carrying out investigation of grafts and corrupt practices must be properly equipped in terms of knowledge and technology. Giving authority without responsibility to agents of anticorruption creates its own corruption. There is need to monitor their anti corruption activities ensuring that they are not impugned by molestation of innocent citizens of our great country. Corruption is like metastatic cancer which destroys the entire human system. Like you rightly pointed out, if Nigeria does not destroy corruption, corruption will destroy Nigeria. That we are still grappling with basic development issues like power, water and sanitation, robbery and kidnapping are signs of system failure as a result of corruption. Fighting corruption should not be limited to sending people to jail. It should include but not limited to removing source of corruption, rewarding the diligent, strengthening mechanism of early detection and creating new values for the younger generation. Government needs to review its way of doing business to remove the source of corruption. Take for example the issue of thirty two billion naira pension fund fraud, the money was supposed to be invested in equities for the owners, how come the money was not invested and it became a target of the hawks of corruption. This case study of pension fund fraud brings us to the issue of promotions in the civil service. How come that such a man got to the level of his career with such dubious tendencies? Could he have been promoted above his diligent peers? Your government must institute mechanism to detect fraud quite early. The second example of source of corruption is the issue of security votes.
There is nowhere in the world that public money is spent without the public officer not accounting for it. It is even enshrined in our constitution. Public officers who spend public money under the subhead of security vote should properly account for it. The Nigerian public needs to be encouraged to apply the Freedom of Information Bill. When an organization awards a kilometer of road for hundred million naira, Nigerians should be told why it should cost that much, considering the market value of components used for the construction as provided by the daily market survey by national news papers. If you ask the opinion of the average Nigerian youth on his choice career, the answer you will easily get is politics and the reasons adduced for this is that there is plenty of money in politics. I believe that for a developing country like ours we should not encourage such perfidy. This brings to fore the amount of money purported to be earned by our legislators with accompanying constituency projects. My General, there is need for you to review the amount every legislator earns and review it downwards to that of the average Nigerian. In principle they are our servants and ideally they shouldn’t be earning more than we the masters. My General! There is nothing wrong in streamlining the salary or amount of money earned with that of the civil service of the federation. Government should strengthen its public procurement system and transfer immediately the constituency projects to public works institution. I have argued in many fora, that the reason why there is so much corruption and desperation is that there is too much money at the center. My General, I have always asked the question, what is the Federal government doing with agriculture, primary and secondary education, primary health care etc.?
There is no way someone will be in Abuja and run a primary/secondary school in my locality. The man in Abuja cannot be discussing fertilize distribution to the peasant farmer in a village in Sokoto. These things should be left for the states and local government to deal with. Governor Sullivan Iheanacho Chime has demonstrated clearly that state governments can do a lot for the people if they are responsible. I also believe that people like him are many at local government levels. Your administration should take a second look again at autonomy of the Local Government. Those who oppose it are doing so for selfish reasons. Lack of autonomy of the lowest level of government that affects the people directly is a major source of corruption for those who want to keep LGA funds. I attended the best primary school at Port Harcourt then and it was run by the council effectively. Those who offend the anti corruption laws of our country should be swiftly brought to book. In a situation where those accused of corruption in 2003 are working free and are even re-contesting elections negates the principle of justice. Justice delayed is justice denied. It is a denial of justice that those people wear the garb of corruption walking about without their cases concluded. The public then believes strongly that no war is going on against corruption when they see such people. Bulk has been passed between the judiciary and the agencies of corruption. My General there is need for your government to establish a special court for corruption through constitutional amendment. Just like we have industrial court to deal with issues of employment we should establish an anticorruption court with an equal jurisdiction as a state high court. There is no doubt that this will enhance speedy disposal of all outstanding cases of corruption.
National Development
As a child at Township school Port Harcourt I watched my headmaster, Mr Abafor, lower the union jack to raise the green white green of our national flag in 1960. The significance of that exercise was explained to us by the headmaster. That moment of history has remained in my memory and I grew up with a sense of patriotism believing in the ideals of this nation. Regime after regime my expectations of Nigeria sitting side by side with the United States as the black power in the world has not been met in anyway. As a young lad I learnt about the first national development plan at independence and the second national development plan started by General Gowon’s government and finished by Murtala/Obasanjo regime. It was in this second development plan that these present dilapidated express ways where constructed all over the country and some new universities and polytechnics built. The Shiroro dam was an offshoot of that development plan. The 3rd development plan by Shagari , I am not so sure, never took off. If there was a 4th plan I am not aware of it as not much publicity was given to that. All public infrastructures have collapsed and we shall be humoring ourselves if we think we have any. The state of our educational, health and other public institutions speak volume of our level of development. It is better to make assumptions that we are beginning all over again. I will therefore urge your administration to develop a 5year development plan in which states, LGAs and private sectors will buy into. This development plan must have a clearly spelt out key performance indices that we will use to monitor the progress and judge objectively the performance of your administration. A situation where a government will wake up one morning and create fourteen new federal universities without recourse to the quality of the existing ones does not help our economy. The key elements of the development plan shall include amongst other things, security, power, health, education, public infrastructure repairs, agriculture as it relates to food security and diversification of economy, support to Small Scale Enterprises, public transportation as it relates to railways and dealing with issues of mass unemployment.
The effect of massive public infrastructure repairs, development of rural agriculture and restoration of railways on mass unemployment cannot be overemphasized. Has anyone ever sat down to evaluate the loss of job as it relates to our four refineries not working? The main reason why there is unemployment is that the public institutions are all on zero performance and we went on like that over the years by finding an ad hoc solution to the problems arising from this. Our solution to our refineries not working, was to create another set of billionaires by importing fuel and creating a monster called subsidy.
My General, your administration can fix our refineries in 6 months through a robust transparent Public Private Partnership imitative as it is done all over the world. If you are worried by the low capacity and integrity of the country’s Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE) you can hire reputable organizations like Crown Agent and their equivalent to do it for the country. Your predecessor did same when he wanted the true situation in NNPC accounts.
I also believe that a robust plan on our national transportation system is the right way to go. In providing solution there should be a much more holistic approach to this. Couple of purchases of coaches and labeling them mass transit is hiding away from the obvious failure we have recorded in this area. The present approach can never solve the problem of transportation in this country and it will rather become source of diversion of public funds .Do not listen to voices who say handing over our railways, power, and refineries to foreign based companies who are world players, tantamount to loss of sovereignty. Nothing can be further from the truth. In USA, Chinese, UK and even African firms play major role in US economy and vice versa.
In pursuant of this national development plan that will encompass all, as stated above, I will like you in terms of framework to have your quick wins which is immediate restoration of power and security, short term, mid -term and long term plans
Conclusion
My dear General, It is my desire to see this country rise to a world power by exploitation of the existing potentials we have both in human and natural resources .In pursuant of this ,you should spell clearly in your national development plan the following main objectives:
To enhance National Unity,
To improve Governance
To eradicate Terrorism,
To eradicate Corruption
To ensure National Development
By the Year 2020 the governing APC party would have achieved these objectives if there is discipline.
My General, I have always followed your history both as a war time commander, General Officer commanding and as our Commander in Chief and Head of State. I know your values which are predicated on your background. I have assured many Nigerian, that the Muhammad Buhari I know will not fail us in his second coming. Please do not let me down.
May the Good Lord we serve be your strength as you strive to rebuild a broken nation.
Yours Sincerely
Uchenna Katchy
Uchenna katchy is a professional manager ,public analyst and an Orthopaedic Surgeon based in Enugu
Setting an Agenda for the incoming Government-An Open Letter to the President Elect
Dear Muhammadu Buhari,
I want to formally congratulate you on your victory in the recent concluded presidential elections.
The contest was spiced with hate speeches so much so that the “Ruling party” descended to the level of questioning your school certificate contrary to the evidence that has existed since 1961.There was also doctored videos that went viral with you being asked questions like, “What is the meaning of INEC?, what is the full meaning of APC like a primary school child who is about to sit for an entrance examinations into a secondary school. I did ask your opponents, where in the world do you ask a presidential candidate such questions with such answers coming from him, just to make a point that the videos were doctored. It was difficult to convince even the highly educated that those were doctored and even as I am writing this letter, it is difficult to convince people otherwise, your victory notwithstanding.
Talking about victory, it is pertinent to inform you that you are not the only victor. President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan is a hero of Nigerian democracy and has placed himself in the rank of Nelson Mandela . When I made this statement in prediction of outcome of the elections during the period in my write up titled “I know who will win the presidential elections “in another forum, some people felt that my claim was outlandish but today I have been vindicated. That he conceded defeat even before the arrival of Bornu result is unprecedented in the history of Africa and the black race. This mark of statesmanship will remain eternal in the history of this country. I will therefore urge you not to forget him when we recognize the works of our past heroes. I want to believe that he has lived up to his name as I believe his conceding defeat and your ascending to the presidency will bring a lot of good luck to this country.
The other victors are the Nigerian people who extolled your virtues and placed all their hopes in you believing that your victory is a new dawn for this country and our democracy which has been deepened by the conducts of the INEC and GoodLuck Ebele Johnathan. On the other side ,your acceptance speech was inspiring and showed great statesmanship. Your carriage, discipline and restraint while the national radios and televisions vilified you on daily basis is worthy of emulation. You gave a firm promise of not victimizing anyone and extended your hand of fellowship to your opponents as well as putting the pre election events behind you and it is on this premise that my hope for my country once again has been rekindled.
My dear General, in the light of the above permit me Sir, to set an agenda on the following: National Unity, Governance, Terrorism, Corruption and National Development.
National Unity
Our country has never been divided along ethnic and religious lines as it is now. Utterances during the campaigns showed clearly that Nigeria is completely divided along ethno religious lines. There were three groups of voters, those who voted along ethnic lines, those who voted along religious lines and those who voted on principle of performance of the outgoing government. I believe strongly the last group swayed the votes in your favour. Consequently, the ‘Governing party” must address the twin devil of tribalism and religion.
A very deep wound has been inflicted on our national life along lines of religion, ethnicity and elitism. In surgery we always talk about factors that affect wound healing and these factors are variable with a significant percentage ascribed to the surgeon. In surgery the surgeon represents leadership and you as the surgeon here must do something drastic to enhance one of the positive factors that affect our national wound healing by reducing the influence of tribe and religion in our public business. Though some people may not agree with me but I believe that government should disinvest herself on pilgrimages other than providing the enable environment for pilgrims to travel as a first step.
Donations by government to churches and mosques should be outlawed. My General, you will recall that during your first coming, your government jailed governors who made donations to their political parties. Religion is a personal issue and should not be elevated to government business. Appointments based on religious affiliations should not be tolerated and the constitution only recognizes the federal character of the nation and not the religious character. If we do not deal with this timely, it will surely consume us. The National Youth Service Corp was created by General Gowon to foster unity in the seventies. How this has impacted on national unity to my knowledge has not been evaluated since inception. There is need to evaluate the impact with a view to reorganizing the scheme, we should also be thinking of similar schemes that will enhance unity. Government should be thinking of amending the constitution to redefine states of origin. A situation where an individual is born in a particular state and he spends his entire life in that state, not speaking any other language except that of the people yet he is regarded as none indigene is not acceptable. We should also be thinking of amending our constitution to give rights to non indigenes based in a state.
Governance
What happened in the last election clearly demonstrated the quality of people in governance. You were a victim of low quality governance. You should therefore hold the system that brought about your abuses responsible. In Nigeria people get to all sorts of positions in all kinds of institution without the proper prerequisite training in capacity and conduct. Otherwise how come even those in top government positions did not know it was wrong to denigrate a former head of state no matter the level of disagreement. The governing party should institute a mechanism whereby only people with prerequisite training and conduct should be appointed to political offices. A case in point is the case of former minister Godsday Orubebe whose conduct during collation of results was below expectation. However the fact that Orubebe realized his conduct and apologized to the nation speaks volume of his good upbringing and back ground. The danger is not people like Orubebe who will realize a mistake and apologize but with people who do not even know that their conducts are below civilized norms.
These are the people in governance in all levels of government in Nigeria. My dear General, Nigeria is not in dearth of patriotic citizens; therefore as you constitute your cabinet you need to search widely and carefully. Ministerial appointments should not be used as a compensation for part loyalty.
In your acceptance speech you reminded Nigerians that you are the president of those who voted for you, those who didn’t vote for you, and those who did not vote. Consequently, for the sake of continuity, do not hesitate to reappoint anyone you found exceptional in Jonathan’s government irrespective of party affiliations. I will therefore want to hold you by your proclamation, that your government would be a listening government. When concerned citizens criticize your government in the course of solving the existing challenges, do not see them as comments coming from those who are bent on discrediting you or those looking for political appointments. I strongly believe that such comments from patriotic citizens should serve as your feedback mechanism.
Insecurity
One of the mistakes of the outgoing government was politicizing the issues of Boko Haram. The government was quick to point accusing fingers on those who disagreed with it and our journalist followed with smearing articles on people. It was difficult for people to see that the government was fighting a formidable enemy whom she knows nothing about. The fact that the Nigerian military with records of achievements in spheres of battles, was unable to deal with the matter decisively as it arose, is part of the general decline in performance of public institutions as result of years of dwindling capacity occasioned by institutionalized corruption. There is no doubt that the capacity of the intelligence community is below accepted standard.
For example between the politicians in Nigeria our police men have been completely shared out as personal guards for sixteen years now. How does one expect a policeman who has spent 16 years of his career as a private guard to be able to investigate a crime or carryout other police duties if he returns to the police station? As a result of culture of impunity that has been on for years the average policeman in uniform believes he is above the law. He carries his horse whips accompanying politicians, driving against the traffic and blaring sirens to the consternation of the onlookers. Those remaining in the police stations harass innocent civilian extorting as much money as they can from helpless relatives. What kind of country are we running, were powerful individuals keep as many as fifty policemen in their private homes and use it to intimidate law abiding citizen. Powerful individuals in some states have coveted personal properties of individuals using contingents of members of police mobile force to subdue them.
Soldiers and the state security services are used by rich and powerful individuals to settle personal scores. There is no doubt that years of engaging in non professional duties unsharpened the skills of the individual hence the poor performance in intelligence gathering. My general this must stop.
There is need to restore discipline in the public conduct of members of the Nigerian police and other security agencies by way of reorientation of the personnel. Fighting insecurity in Nigeria also requires some restructuring to ensure true federalism by some constitutional amendment.
There is need to amend the constitution to allow states, local governments and communities to have their own police. I am totally aware of the controversies that have followed this discussion. I can assure you that police at all governmental levels in Nigeria have more positives then negatives. The Federal police just like the armed forces can maintain the overall surveillance on the performance of other levels of policing. I do not agree with those who say that Nigeria is not ripe for that. I don’t expect a young officer of Sokoto origin to go to a village in Imo and arrest a criminal. Members of a community are better placed to police themselves than a stranger.
Corruption
As a young man in 1983, I witnessed the complete run down of the country’s economy by the civilian administration (1979-1983). This was the time most industries in Nigeria collapsed and Nigeria depended solely on imports for essential commodities. We queued up in shops to be able to buy basic things like soap, detergents, vegetable oil, baby food etc. Those who had new babies will tell you of their harrowing experiences then. Indeed a very senior colleague of mine who was a renowned surgeon had to sell his vehicle to be able to feed his twin set of babies who were born then. It was at that time the army intervened and you emerged as head of state. You tackled corruption head on and somewhere along the line the whole exercise was politicized. You have openly agreed that there were mistakes and you have taken full responsibility which I see as a mark of a great leader in you. I will therefore urge you to tackle corruption with all arsenals available using the experience of your first coming as a tool. Under no circumstances must you allow this exercise to degenerate to witch hunting. Anticorruption institutions like ECFC and ICPC must be strengthened in terms of reward system for operatives, logistics and capacity building. As the saying goes, you cannot give what you don’t have. There is no gainsaying the fact that those carrying out investigation of grafts and corrupt practices must be properly equipped in terms of knowledge and technology. Giving authority without responsibility to agents of anticorruption creates its own corruption. There is need to monitor their anti corruption activities ensuring that they are not impugned by molestation of innocent citizens of our great country. Corruption is like metastatic cancer which destroys the entire human system. Like you rightly pointed out, if Nigeria does not destroy corruption, corruption will destroy Nigeria. That we are still grappling with basic development issues like power, water and sanitation, robbery and kidnapping are signs of system failure as a result of corruption. Fighting corruption should not be limited to sending people to jail. It should include but not limited to removing source of corruption, rewarding the diligent, strengthening mechanism of early detection and creating new values for the younger generation. Government needs to review its way of doing business to remove the source of corruption. Take for example the issue of thirty two billion naira pension fund fraud, the money was supposed to be invested in equities for the owners, how come the money was not invested and it became a target of the hawks of corruption. This case study of pension fund fraud brings us to the issue of promotions in the civil service. How come that such a man got to the level of his career with such dubious tendencies? Could he have been promoted above his diligent peers? Your government must institute mechanism to detect fraud quite early. The second example of source of corruption is the issue of security votes.
There is nowhere in the world that public money is spent without the public officer not accounting for it. It is even enshrined in our constitution. Public officers who spend public money under the subhead of security vote should properly account for it. The Nigerian public needs to be encouraged to apply the Freedom of Information Bill. When an organization awards a kilometer of road for hundred million naira, Nigerians should be told why it should cost that much, considering the market value of components used for the construction as provided by the daily market survey by national news papers. If you ask the opinion of the average Nigerian youth on his choice career, the answer you will easily get is politics and the reasons adduced for this is that there is plenty of money in politics. I believe that for a developing country like ours we should not encourage such perfidy. This brings to fore the amount of money purported to be earned by our legislators with accompanying constituency projects. My General, there is need for you to review the amount every legislator earns and review it downwards to that of the average Nigerian. In principle they are our servants and ideally they shouldn’t be earning more than we the masters. My General! There is nothing wrong in streamlining the salary or amount of money earned with that of the civil service of the federation. Government should strengthen its public procurement system and transfer immediately the constituency projects to public works institution. I have argued in many fora, that the reason why there is so much corruption and desperation is that there is too much money at the center. My General, I have always asked the question, what is the Federal government doing with agriculture, primary and secondary education, primary health care etc.?
There is no way someone will be in Abuja and run a primary/secondary school in my locality. The man in Abuja cannot be discussing fertilize distribution to the peasant farmer in a village in Sokoto. These things should be left for the states and local government to deal with. Governor Sullivan Iheanacho Chime has demonstrated clearly that state governments can do a lot for the people if they are responsible. I also believe that people like him are many at local government levels. Your administration should take a second look again at autonomy of the Local Government. Those who oppose it are doing so for selfish reasons. Lack of autonomy of the lowest level of government that affects the people directly is a major source of corruption for those who want to keep LGA funds. I attended the best primary school at Port Harcourt then and it was run by the council effectively. Those who offend the anti corruption laws of our country should be swiftly brought to book. In a situation where those accused of corruption in 2003 are working free and are even re-contesting elections negates the principle of justice. Justice delayed is justice denied. It is a denial of justice that those people wear the garb of corruption walking about without their cases concluded. The public then believes strongly that no war is going on against corruption when they see such people. Bulk has been passed between the judiciary and the agencies of corruption. My General there is need for your government to establish a special court for corruption through constitutional amendment. Just like we have industrial court to deal with issues of employment we should establish an anticorruption court with an equal jurisdiction as a state high court. There is no doubt that this will enhance speedy disposal of all outstanding cases of corruption.
National Development
As a child at Township school Port Harcourt I watched my headmaster, Mr Abafor, lower the union jack to raise the green white green of our national flag in 1960. The significance of that exercise was explained to us by the headmaster. That moment of history has remained in my memory and I grew up with a sense of patriotism believing in the ideals of this nation. Regime after regime my expectations of Nigeria sitting side by side with the United States as the black power in the world has not been met in anyway. As a young lad I learnt about the first national development plan at independence and the second national development plan started by General Gowon’s government and finished by Murtala/Obasanjo regime. It was in this second development plan that these present dilapidated express ways where constructed all over the country and some new universities and polytechnics built. The Shiroro dam was an offshoot of that development plan. The 3rd development plan by Shagari , I am not so sure, never took off. If there was a 4th plan I am not aware of it as not much publicity was given to that. All public infrastructures have collapsed and we shall be humoring ourselves if we think we have any. The state of our educational, health and other public institutions speak volume of our level of development. It is better to make assumptions that we are beginning all over again. I will therefore urge your administration to develop a 5year development plan in which states, LGAs and private sectors will buy into. This development plan must have a clearly spelt out key performance indices that we will use to monitor the progress and judge objectively the performance of your administration. A situation where a government will wake up one morning and create fourteen new federal universities without recourse to the quality of the existing ones does not help our economy. The key elements of the development plan shall include amongst other things, security, power, health, education, public infrastructure repairs, agriculture as it relates to food security and diversification of economy, support to Small Scale Enterprises, public transportation as it relates to railways and dealing with issues of mass unemployment.
The effect of massive public infrastructure repairs, development of rural agriculture and restoration of railways on mass unemployment cannot be overemphasized. Has anyone ever sat down to evaluate the loss of job as it relates to our four refineries not working? The main reason why there is unemployment is that the public institutions are all on zero performance and we went on like that over the years by finding an ad hoc solution to the problems arising from this. Our solution to our refineries not working, was to create another set of billionaires by importing fuel and creating a monster called subsidy.
My General, your administration can fix our refineries in 6 months through a robust transparent Public Private Partnership imitative as it is done all over the world. If you are worried by the low capacity and integrity of the country’s Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE) you can hire reputable organizations like Crown Agent and their equivalent to do it for the country. Your predecessor did same when he wanted the true situation in NNPC accounts.
I also believe that a robust plan on our national transportation system is the right way to go. In providing solution there should be a much more holistic approach to this. Couple of purchases of coaches and labeling them mass transit is hiding away from the obvious failure we have recorded in this area. The present approach can never solve the problem of transportation in this country and it will rather become source of diversion of public funds .Do not listen to voices who say handing over our railways, power, and refineries to foreign based companies who are world players, tantamount to loss of sovereignty. Nothing can be further from the truth. In USA, Chinese, UK and even African firms play major role in US economy and vice versa.
In pursuant of this national development plan that will encompass all, as stated above, I will like you in terms of framework to have your quick wins which is immediate restoration of power and security, short term, mid -term and long term plans
Conclusion
My dear General, It is my desire to see this country rise to a world power by exploitation of the existing potentials we have both in human and natural resources .In pursuant of this ,you should spell clearly in your national development plan the following main objectives:
To enhance National Unity,
To improve Governance
To eradicate Terrorism,
To eradicate Corruption
To ensure National Development
By the Year 2020 the governing APC party would have achieved these objectives if there is discipline.
My General, I have always followed your history both as a war time commander, General Officer commanding and as our Commander in Chief and Head of State. I know your values which are predicated on your background. I have assured many Nigerian, that the Muhammad Buhari I know will not fail us in his second coming. Please do not let me down.
May the Good Lord we serve be your strength as you strive to rebuild a broken nation.
Yours Sincerely
Uchenna Katchy
Uchenna katchy is a professional manager ,public analyst and an Orthopaedic Surgeon based in Enugu
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