A Letter to Nigeria’s President-Elect

By Tosan Okotie

Congratulations to His Excellency, Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, Governor of Katsina State for being Nigeria’s 2007 president-elect.

After your excellent performance in your state, you can be described as a well-spiced, toasted sweet lamb meat soaked in a rotten tasteless soup called PDP. No doubt, your party has failed in its civic responsibilities but that does not mean you should defect, never mind the hopeless Nigerian judiciary that says a person can forsake his political party at the presidential level.

For the first time, Nigeria will be managed by two college graduates. You both have all it takes to move the country forward. However, nobody expects you to be an epitome of knowledge. Therefore, what you could easily do is setup a websites where Nigerians across the globe can post suggestions you may consider to uplift Nigeria.

The maxim that absolute power corrupts absolutely does not apply to every educated mind and we’re sure you are one of those exceptions. Some of us believe that you will not repose that confidence we have in you. This writer had reiterated repeatedly that Nigeria is not a complex country to rule once the leader has vision.

Your being President-elect is not fortuitous. Going by the polls before the elections, among the first three presidential candidates, you have the best track record. With your quality leadership in Katsina, you’re certainly not an obdurate person with passion for being oblivious to the wishes of your people. In Katsina.  You looked over the shoulders of State Commissioners.  So with the same concept, all you need is plug on a higher antenna to oversee your Ministers.

To govern Nigeria is facile, if you don’t allow corrupt people to extol and hoodwink you. Definitely, you know better that, many of them in the National Assembly sold their properties to contest election and stole their people’s mandate. As such, they’re out there to recover their politically invested money by stealing and singing corrupt choruses to the presidency. At least you know that your predecessor did not wait for the National Assembly before he setup EFCC. Therefore, you don’t have to wait for them before you inaugurate a constituted body that would conduct elections in the future.

By the way, what’s wrong with the States having their own electoral board that does not report to INEC in Abuja? The States can fund and conduct their elections in the present dispensation. Nevertheless, the States’ board members can meet to plan a uniform election process across the country with a small office in Abuja to collate the figures and keep records.

Those of us outside the shores of Nigeria heard that the 2007 elections were ignominious, and so petitions now inundate the courts. When you hear people clamoring for the rule of law, you think that the judiciary as an Institution of governance will resolve vital issues to the betterment of Nigerians. Little do people know that the judiciary has contributed immensely to the poverty ravaging Nigeria.  If only we realize that, suffering of the masses emanated from lack of vision and corrupt leadership, then, we ought to look deep into the iniquitous role of the judiciary. First, who doesn’t know that stealing of public fund is the biggest problem in Nigeria? Of course, the judiciary supports stealing. Otherwise, how do you reconcile a person who carted away 17 billion and he is sentenced to just six months in prison; whereas a hungry thief that stole a loaf of bread is sentenced to many years in prison with hard labor?  Secondly, did we not hear recently how the judiciary nullified the impeachment of corrupt Governor Dariye? Is any one an idiot not to know the signals the judiciary is sending out with their stupid judgments?

Please Mr. President-elect, you should wear your garment of honor without any form of election complex and take Nigeria to her rightful position among the comity of African nations. Indeed, to overhaul the judiciary should be one of your immediate priorities because there’re too many senseless thieves among the Judges.

The mandate of the people is important in any democratic society. However, there has never been any kosher election in Nigeria. Therefore, the 2007 election is no big deal. Recall that in 1979, the electoral board in collaboration with the judiciary forced NPN on us, and thereafter we all witnessed the hardship from that administration. If the dividends of education are still available to the West of Nigeria till today, does any one need a soothsayer to know that, if Chief Awolowo was not rigged out of power, he would have taken Nigeria to greater heights, and the country would have been better off today?

This was a man of vision and up till present day, the Yorubas can boast of education with all its attributes. What did any other leader introduced to their region if what Chief Awolowo did in the West is nothing to recon with? The point here is that, for the first time a civilian has handed the baton of leadership to you after many years of corrupt military rule with their FSS, PSZ etc backyard paper qualification. The expectation is that, you should be able to sprint very well with this baton.

Sure, it worries that as Nigerians that after 46 years of Independence, we’re unable to crawl, how much more to stand on our feet. Apparently, General Buhari went to court in 2003 over election irregularities. Wasn’t that enough for the National Assembly since 2003 to craft better strategic election processes? If the National Assembly failed in their responsibilities to setup water-tight election procedure for Professor Iwu to follow, why should the incompetent professor now shoulder the whole blame? The fact is that, the corrupt professor circumvented the weak electoral process.

Can the National Assembly tell us that we can find solution to any of our problems in the Constitution they inherited eight years ago? If no, what have they been able to do in eight years knowing precisely the environment in which the present Constitution operates? Indeed, after lavishing the nation’s oil revenue to put up modern architectural design called National Assembly, you expect that the legislators would take advantage of the cozy environment to deliberate positively on national issues. Instead, most of them just excuse themselves from home to spend time with their girlfriends in Abuja, then, make silly noise inside the National Assembly. Today, many of them are agitating for cancellation of the 2007 election to stop the country from moving forward.

What amazes anyone is whether, they (legislators) have thought of how to remove the present structure that aided the rigging if this was the case before talking about conducting another election. Can the agitators overhaul the Police and INEC overnight to give room for their supposedly free and fair election?

Mr. President-elect, it will cost you nothing to make a national broadcast to the youths. Tell them to go and knock at the door of each of their constituent representatives, with the message that it’s time to re-write the Constitution especially on areas that touch on their everyday lives. If they (Assembly men) fail to do so, then, they (the youths) have the choice of directing their weapons towards them or the youths must accept their poverty forever. You certainly cannot compel the National Assembly to do otherwise. Let those who gave them the mandates iron it out with them, but you must continue and frequently tell the people of Nigeria the status of each agenda through national broadcasts.

This letter will not be complete without touching on the economy, vis-à-vis the stomach of everybody. Because oil revenue is the pillar of the economy, you must as a necessity look quickly into how the oil companies cheat Nigerians. They recalibrate the meters used in drilling the nation’s resources. Secondly, they manipulate and overload operation’s overhead cost to the detriment of the nation. Guess what? The few Nigerians that stumble into and know their cheating mechanism are sent out on cross-posting and replaced with foreign boys. If only you heard recent British Airways confession of how they cheated their fellow Caucasians, then you must understand that, these foreigners have always massacred Africans economically. On the other hand, borrowing cost (interest rate) from the banks to business owners is far too high. This has continued to be one of the causes of the galloping inflation. Thus, no country can tackle inflation without production. You would expect that after the bank’s recapitalization long ago, borrowing especially to small/medium size firms would have started having dividends. Instead, the dividends go to the banks’ shareholders at the expense of the masses. It should worry you that as common as egg for family breakfast, it’s out of reach to a good number of even the middle class.

After a certain age in life, people are supposed to sit-back and weigh options especially on very important issues before making decisions because many younger ones look up to them for good examples. What you don’t want to see during your tenure is glaring partiality that will portray reckless leadership. An example was when members of your PDP party wrecked havoc on Anambra State government properties worth millions and went scot-free. Your age bracket is the best to lead Nigeria, so you should be able to write your name in GOLD in the history of Nigeria.

God bless you.

Tosan Okotie lives in Texas, United States.

Robot  Villager

# 1 var sbtitle2012=encodeURIComponent(A Letter to...Read the full article. Posted by Robot| 26.05.2007 14:47