Letter to President Clinton

Dear President Clinton,

President of the most powerful country in the world and King of the Free World, we salute you! We raise our clenched fists in salutation, and our voices in exhortation. May your shadow never shorten, may your efforts be crowned with success, may failure never dog your steps, and may prosperity embrace you until the end of your days. You will not be overcome by your enemies, you will travel always without mishap, your children will be numerous and surpass you in achievement, female friends will not erode the foundation of your home, you will never seek in vain, neither shall distress be your lot, you will live long, may your reign last forever!

We your humble African subjects welcome you in our own way, and seek your indulgence to put this missive forth in writing rather than by kind grant of an audience. We are constrained to do so because you have chosen not to visit the most populous African Nation, and your most powerful, economic, political and neo-colonial vassal and trading partner. It is a painful overfly for many of us in Nigeria, because we truly adore your country and culture. We are patriotic Nigerians, and prefer our country to any other, nevertheless we crave to work in your country, speak in slangs and send the money home. We would have liked to include Pounded yam and Egusi to the meals of Kenke and pepper Sauce that you ate by hand. We wonder how you would choose to visit six Nations whose total population (Botswana 1.4m, Ghana 17.2m, Rwanda 7.3m,Senegal 8.1m, South Africa 44.5m, Uganda 18.3m = 96.7m) does not equal ours (110m). We had hoped that you would realize that with stability, our country is potentially the largest and fastest growing consumer market in the world. We know that progress will enable us to advance technologically enough to be a sure market for American inventiveness and productivity. When you were in Ghana, just an hour as the Crow flies, from us, we cocked our ears to hear the jungle Drums, or the joyous ululation of the masses as they welcomed you. There was no breeze to carry the sound, it had been seized by that American pickin’, El Nino. We were almost distracted from our own jubilation as we sent off the most respected man in the world, and the Monarch of World’s richest State. His Religious jurisdiction extends to a population of a willing one billion Catholics Worldwide. Quite impressive compared to your ‘Religious’ (Democracy) kickin’ and screamin’ control of 4.6 Billion people of the world (save the 1.2 Billion people in China!)  Come to think of it, you both are very powerful men. The difference is, one of you always comes in peace and the other with menaces. You know what we’re talking about. The cap fits wear it! The transparency of your African Intervention initiative is risible. The Post-Colonial-Transito-Independence Anglo- and Franco-African Defense pacts had seared us once, you know. We have no intention of allowing our problems to degenerate into an anarchical situation, affecting the sub-region, and activating neo-Imperialism plans. Nigeria will unite and forge powerfully into the new Millenium if you will let us do so in peace. Constructive engagement is what we require and not a destructive engagement. Please take heed.

However, you are a man of peace, so you ask, why do we speak to you so? You only represent your Country’s Interests. That is the problem. In addition to the fact that of your 262 million strong populations, there are 32 Million of our African Brothers in your country whose interests are hardly represented, there is another problem. We know you are a feeling President. You are compassionate and kind as a person. (No, seriously, this is no Starrysm). You have always fought for the underdog. You know about deprivation, rejection, the feeling of not being wanted. Your past speaks for itself. Born on August 19, 1946, as William Jefferson Blythe IV in Hope, Arkansas you never knew your father, William Jefferson Blythe III, a traveling salesman that died in a car accident several months before your birth. Your mother Virginia Cassidy Blythe left you to be brought up by your Grandparents for the first few years of your life while she went to study to be a nurse-anesthetist in New Orleans, Louisiana. You became William Jefferson Clinton after your mother got married to Roger Clinton and the family moved to Hot Springs, Arkansas, when you were just four years old. Roger was an alcoholic and a gambler, often losing the family's money, including your mum’s earnings as an anesthetist. He cursed, sometimes beat, and verbally abused you, your mother, and your younger brother, his son Roger Jr. born in 1956. It was so bad you once had to stand up to him in protection of your mother and Stepbrother. You felt pain, and want. You knew dislocation and separation. You were an outsider. Like us Africans. This hapless youth transformed into the man who became the 42^nd President of the United States at the age of 46. You give hope to all those who share such early circumstances with you.

You share the record of being one of the youngest men to occupy that post with another of our heroes, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-1963) the 35th president of the United States, (1961-1963) and the youngest person ever to be elected to the post. Your Presidency, like his, has ushered in a New World consciousness of American Culture and Economic influence. He was adored. His family as you know is the nearest thing to Royalty that the Americans have. He was born with a Silver spoon in his mouth, quite unlike your humble beginnings. Yet, they attacked him too. They even killed him. Like him, you have worked on legislation to increase foreign trade and to address social issues, such as Health care and Education. Like him, your political influence is worldwide. Like him, your charm and charisma are palpably legendary. You share good looks, even if your nose is a bit Negroid, and you were wet-nursed by an African ‘Mammy’. Your blunt wit endears all to you just as it was for him too. You have so many things in common. Young people especially admired him, and perhaps no other president was so popular until you? He brought to the Presidency an awareness of the cultural and historical traditions of the United States and an appreciation of intellectual excellence. Because both you and JFK eloquently express the values of 20th-century America, your presidencies have an importance beyond the legislative and political achievements. Moreover, your Presidency ushers the world into the 21^st Century.

Interestingly, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was also the first Roman Catholic president. In fact, a largely Protestant America feared that a Catholic President might be subject to the orders of the head of the Roman Catholic Church, the Pope. Could your two years attendance of a Roman Catholic School in Hot Springs have contributed to the thinking of those who oppose you today? You have other similarities/dissimilarities. You both made an impact with your Military service records. He because of his valor at war, which earned him, medals, and you, because of the dexterity with which you dodged the Draft. You both encouraged programs specifically targeted at improving the lot of racial minorities, and both got the ‘Black vote’.

Just as John and Robert Kennedy sought the release of the civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. from jail for taking part in a civil rights demonstration in Georgia, you played your part too. In 1963, as an elected delegate from Arkansas to Boys Nation—a government study program for young people sponsored by the American Legion, a veterans organization—in Washington, D.C. you debated for Civil Rights legislation and met President John Fitzgerald Kennedy at a ceremony in the White House Rose Garden. The photograph is prescient.

The likeness does not end there. You both had problems with Congress with getting your Programs enacted into law. Similar programs, too. His was the Medicare bill, yours the Medicare and Medicaid. His, Civil Rights, tax cuts, and a bill to create a Cabinet-level Department of Urban Affairs which was soundly defeated, partly because Kennedy wanted the economist Robert C. Weaver, a black man, to be the new secretary. (Sound familiar?) Apart from opposition to your Cabinet appointments of Minorities, you were unable to agree with Congress on a federal budget for 1996. The debates ranged from how much to cut spending and how to reform welfare. Consequently, the Federal government had two partial shutdowns because money was unavailable for government operations. You overcame it.

One major American legal and moral conflict during Kennedy's three years in office was in the area of civil rights. Black agitation against discrimination had become widespread and well organized. President Kennedy attempted to aid the black cause by enforcing existing laws. A student then, you were so deeply moved by black Americans' fight for equality in the 1960s that when, in April 1968, a few weeks before you graduated, the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., set off rioting in several American cities, including Washington, you volunteered to work with the Red Cross and took clothing and food to people whose homes had been burned. James Brown’s “Cold Sweat” put out the flames. You helped to restore.

 President Kennedy had to use federal troops to enforce court orders allowing Blacks to enroll at Universities, and to integrate at Public Schools against the State Governors’ wishes. Kennedy also asked Congress to pass a civil rights bill that would guarantee blacks the right to vote, to attend public school, to have equal access to jobs, and to have access to public accommodations. Public opinion polls showed that Kennedy was losing popularity because of his advocacy of civil rights. Privately, he began to assume that the South would oppose him in the next election, but he continued to speak out against segregation, the practice of separating people of different races. Kennedy made it a policy to appoint several minority persons into sensitive posts. You, Mr. President have appointed more women and minorities as cabinet members—the heads of major departments of government—than had any previous President. These include Secretary of State, Margaret Albright, Attorney General Janet Reno; the first women to hold those offices, Former Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff General Colin Powell, Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy, Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown, Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala, and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Henry Cisneros. It is felt in many quarters that your unpopularity with the WASPs stems from your support for Blacks and other minority interests. The comparisons are inexhaustible.

In your family lives, your celebrated marriage gifted of an even more celebrated offspring is marred only by repeated tales of your concupiscence. He had that problem too. A forgiving America (Then, not now) overlooked all those human failings and venerates him and his Queen Jacqueline Bouvier, Onassis, (?) Kennedy even in death.

Let’s get back to the main reason for this missile, sorry, missive. Democracy, America and the preponderance therefrom. When taking office, President Kennedy looked for a program that would accelerate change in Latin America by strengthening democratic institutions. In March 1961, he introduced the Alliance for Progress, and in August the charter of Punte del Este established it. The Alliance for Progress was to be a Latin American version of the Marshall Plan, the United States plan to fund a cooperative, long-term program to rebuild Europe following World War II (1939-1945). All Latin American nations except Cuba joined the Alliance for Progress, pledging “to bring our people accelerated economic progress and broader social justice within the framework of personal dignity and individual liberty.” The United States promised $20 billion for the first ten years. Why has there been no “Marshall Plan” or “Alliance for Progress” for Africa? Aid to Africa by the US can be calculated in tens of Millions. There have been Military interventions, and now Military Associations with potential for Military mischief and belligerence. Why is there no plan nor projection for financial assistance to Africa to help accelerate economic progress and restore Nations that were destroyed in the onslaught of Racism that resulted in slavery, Colonialism and Economic Powers control? Some historians have called the 20th century the "age of total war,” and the “era of the refugee.” War theatres and struggles opened the century, and have predominated in Africa. Africans buy Arms from the developed countries. Enough is enough, Mr. President. No More War. Nigerians want a peaceful resolution of their problems. What a great coup for US Diplomacy if instead of Big Brotherism, the US President had visited Nigeria and conferred with the Government and been given audience to opposing parties, and proffered solutions to end Revanchisme, the Winner-Takes-all syndrome and Ethnic Balkanization. Oh What a Dream. Well one day…

Above all, Africans can never see the United States of America as a partner of progress unless the issues of Slavery are addressed and restoration of a kind is effected. How could a famous, feeling, compassionate, minority lover, like your goodself, Mr. President come to Africa, visit Six Nations and state that Slavery is not relevant? We presume it is not your personal opinion that you speak. You speak with um-forked tongue. How could the President of the most powerful (?) Country in the world visit Africa and not visit Nigeria? What has happened in Nigeria that did not happen in China? Yet, the American policy saw it fit to enhance Democracy in China by encouragement rather than by ostracism and bellicose Saber Rattling. Perhaps the Nigeria threat potential is not within the realms of the ‘ Balance of Terror’ indices. Perhaps.

Mr. President Sir, your Diplomatic Successes in the Middle East, in Haiti, in Iraq and other parts of the world where your influence has been made manifest will pale in comparison beside an all- encompassing and peaceful solution of the Nigerian political crises with full recognition of Sovereignty and Territorial integrity of our Nation. Any clumsy moves will result in a rabid opposition to everything American by right thinking, selfless and Patriotic Nigerians. Our Country should be helped not harmed. That is how we feel, Mr. Clinton. We are not dissidents; we are not Government Agents. We do not speak out of blind prejudice or out of a self-serving campaign for democracy-driven Dollar support. We are the true Nigerians who want to see our edifices (in all ramifications of the word), standing after the dust settles, The day after.

While reaffirming our protestations of Nationhood, Mr. President, kindly accept the assurances of our highest esteem and love.

Yours truly,

The Black Ascendancy Movement.

 

 

Dear President Clinton,

It is traditional that we welcome you with your oriki! Jafaru, giant King of a Giant country. Born William Jefferson Blythe IV, now known as Bill Clinton, President of the most powerful country in the world and King of the Free World. Our Father and our brother. Illustrious son of a wealthy father who had many wives. We the humble African citizens of your most powerful, economic, political and neo-colonial vassal and continental trading partner salute you! We raise our clenched fists in salutation, and our voices in exhortation. May your shadow never shorten, may your efforts always be crowned with success, may failure never dog your steps, and may prosperity embrace you till the end of your days. Your enemies will not overcome you, you will travel always without mishap, your quiver will always be full of arrows, and your children will be numerous and surpass you in achievement. You will never bury any of them, female friends will not erode the foundation of your home, you will never seek in vain, neither shall distress be your lot. You will live long, and may your strength be as great as your days, may you reign last forever! We salute you, O Son of the Soil, King Bili Kintan! Long live the King!

It is significant that the President of the most powerful country in the world chooses to endorse our new democracy by visiting us. The last time you came to Africa in a painful over fly over Nigeria, the ululation from Ghana wafted to us on the hot Savannah winds. This time, as you again painfully over fly Nigeria and visit Abuja, we wonder. Nigerians do not live in Abuja! The disenfranchised, poverty-stricken, irrelevant and brutalized Nigerian common man (apologies to Frank Olize) does not live in Abuja. Abuja is full of painted mannequins and masquerades cavorting in a Jury-rigged and whitewashed sepulchral Theatre of the absurd. True Nigerians live in Lagos, Port Harcourt, Kaduna and Kano, not in Abuja. That banshee wail you hear on the wind heralding your arrival is not jubilation; it is a lamentation in the land. As your plane slows can you hear the peoples’ primordial scream drowning out your reverse thrust? Can you hear the wailing throughout the land? The people are suffering. It is not yet Uhuru! For eons, Africa has been famous for its rhythmic music, dance and mastery of the arcane arts. It is also well known for its poverty, famine, internecine wars and insecurity of life. Our music today is the funeral dirge, as thousands die unattended, of curable and incurable diseases, victims of official insouciance and avarice. Ask Dr. Abalaka. Our dance today is the macabre cavorting of leprous jostling from one starting point to the other in the Rat race of survival. Our Voodoo today is in the endless permutations by Government seeking the conjuration to exit from the IMF labyrinth and escape from the World Bank Minotaur. Our abracadabra lies in the endless peregrination of a President whose efforts have succeeded in the “feat” of readmitting the Nation into the “Third World” back from the limbo of International ostracism. He still needs your help to find the Golden Fleece that was stolen from our shores. Hell used to be Nigeria and Nigeria used to be living Hell. But now there is hope! Now there is a new move in the land. This is God’s new country. He has moved. God is on the Throne. 

Welcome to the Kingdom of God, President Bill Clinton. Welcome home from home! We are in a Monarchy, a Theocratic Monarchy. Our Democracy is built on the Authority of God. It is the purpose of God. It is immutable. It is infallible. It is unshakeable. It is inerrant. Our indefatigable President, whose “ordeal by innocence” engendered an “encounter with God”, is anointed by Him for this purpose and is giving the true leadership necessary for our neonatal democracy. (at least not, “nascent”, Funmi Iyanda, feel better?). Welcome to this our land that Lady Flora Lugard called Nigeria after the River Niger (Niger – area). Did she name the country after the indigenous people, tendentiously? After all, “Nigger – area” contains one quarter of the Black population of Africa, and one fifth of the black population of the world. That name is overdue for a change. Moreover, that change may come in the least orderly manner. However, let us leave that for later.

Our permutation of the democratic catechumen in the Nigerian context as the world can see is starting to yield dividends. It will still take years yet, but slowly and surely, those who rape the nation are becoming castratti. The parasites perish, the succubae are defanged and the incubi shall be stillborn. Niccolo Babangida, P.T.F. Buhari and Adam Abacha, (He ate the forbidden fruit) have roused the Southern Nations from their destructive somnambulism. They have collectively sensitized the southern polity and have unwittingly prepared us for, “The Sultanate’s Last Stand”- a religious assault on the larger country using the Sharia Army. The association ends there. While the brave General Custer’s ill-fated attack on the larger Sioux armies precipitated the end of freedom for the American natives, the opposite shall be the case here. Sharia is a two edged sword without a hilt. He who clasps it firmly, hefts it and tries to cut another ends up severing his fingers and consequently, his dexterity for livelihood. He that has ears let him hear! Remember the Alamo! Remember Lebensraum! Remember Revanchisme!

As you arrive, Mr. President sir, we offer the assurances of our highest regard for you, your dear wife Hilary, and your darling daughter, Chelsea Victoria, named for a great team and a great Queen. We are not amused by the total charade of the Starr-studded Whisky-soaked x-rated Soap-drama, which almost Tripped you up. Our culture is more permissive so the outrage in all the phone – in programs in the country was at those who invaded your privacy. With the relaxing of tensions on Havanas, and as the first US President to demonstrably embrace minority issues we, continental Africans, blacks, seek an affinity with you. This linkage must transcend the rumor of your “High Yaller”, “passing” myth. It seems the political establishment wishes to make up for its oversight in electing a Southern liberal Democrat and the most unlikely President to have steered a boom in the American economy by sponsoring a WASP-Yiddish ticket. Will the real Mr. America Stand Up! Oy ve! Your wife and First Lady Hilary’s political ambition built on the detritus of your reputation is also no laughing matter. The Political and electioneering process for this Presidential runoff, and election promises to be as gripping as the O. J. Simpson Psycho-drama. (No similarity inferred).

To get to the point Sir, we laud the sweeping wave of economic reforms you are instituting during this August, August visit. Speaking of which, August is quite a significant month in the Annals of Nigerian History. Three of the most charismatic players in the Nigerian politico-ethnic standoff were born in August. General Ibrahim Babangidda was born August 17^th. You were born August 19^th, late Bashorun MKO Abiola (of blessed memory) was born August 24^th. Furthermore, your arrival in Nigeria on the 26^th of August coincides with the date IBB dribbled himself and unwittingly precipitated the fall of the Hausa-Fulani dynasty in Nigeria. Again, I digress. We applaud the African Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA). We eagerly anticipate the jumpstart the inflow of about $100 Million will give to our economy, if it doesn’t end up largely in private pockets. We querulously accept the siting of a U.S. Military base for the purpose of training Nigerian military Forces in International Peacekeeping. (Or should that read Intra-national?) This is meant to be an alternative solution to our refusal to join the American African Crisis Response Initiative, (ACRI). (Incidentally, are your soldiers Sharia compliant?) We hope for a decisive and impacting honest approach to our debt issue so that we also can take a reciprocal compassionate look at your bilateral proposal for Oil Price reductions.

The issue of reparations needs to be addressed eventually. It will never die, or fade away. Palliative tongue-in-cheek protestations of regret by America and the Roman-Catholic Church are not enough. Restitution and redress must take place for total forgiveness to occur. We have had enough of the World’s selective amnesia and blinkered tunnel vision. Specifically for us, the stashing away of Billions of dollars of our looted funds in Western banks, while those same countries spearhead the emasculation of our Nation through destructive and lopsided UNO policies baffles us. For these countries to assist in the repatriation of our looted funds would be the most significant indication of demonstrated willingness to lift Nigeria out of the quagmire of the debt trap. We also look forward to an African Union, weighty at the world level, which will take care of communal African political, economic, social and environmental interests. Certainly not to the blueprint of that “Enemy of the State”, Khadda…, Quadda…, Ghadda…, Gadda,..you know the guy I mean. As you are hosted in Nigeria, please note that everything you see in Abuja is “laBella Figura” of the country. Those of us in Lagos who have not sworn to the “Omerta” of the Legislative House and can be probed will talk. That is why you are not here. Finally, we ask that you accept our thanks for the decisive role the US played in resolving the Nigerian political impasse. Nigerians are survivors. May we respectfully request that you remember those noble ones who did not survive, Bashorun M.K.O. Abiola and Alhaji Shehu Yar Adua, messiah and martyr of Nigerian Democracy. In the resolution of the situation so aptly foreknown in Ecclesiastes Chapter 6 and Verse 1 of the Good Book, - A Luta continua! 

Finally dear Mr. President, we have watched your handsome youthful face framed by that attractive mane grow lined and hoary with the pleasures pressures of the US Presidency. As one of the youngest US Presidents to have attained the most powerful desk in the world, as the only Us President that took the democratic party in leadership from one Century to the other transcending two millennia, as the President whose government has initiated the greatest reforms in the American polity in 50 years, we look forward to your early retirement into charismatic elderly (?) Statesmanship. We anticipate your stepping out of the shifting quicksand of US Presidency and national politricks unto the chiseled granite of International Statesmanship. Specifically we look forward to a Clinton Institute, which will intervene decisively and honestly with these aforementioned North-South issues, especially Reparations. The records of Slavery are intact. It is possible to work out an internationally acceptable ratio and allocation of resources. As was done by the Japanese for the Koreans and Chinese. As was done by the Germans for the Jews. As needs to be done by Portugal, Sweden, Britain, America, Holland, France, Denmark and Spain for Africa. We need to end poverty and strife. You can do it. JUST DO IT !!!

 

Robot  # 1 | 13.01.2009 02:58

Barack Husein Obama will be sworn in as the next American President, a Democratwith family, personal and profilic credentials similar to two previous democratsand holders of the same post: John Fitsgerald Kennedy and William Clinton. I dug up an article that was published in THISDAY in 1998 when anomie reighned and Nigeria was a pariah nation. The similarities are an interesting read. Count 1...Read the full article.