Greetings Mr. President with best regards of the day.
I was prompted to write this letter to you after reading the one written
to you by my brother and friend Japhet Omojuwa. It was the inimitable
Prof. Chinua Achebe that said that if you do not agree with what someone
else has written, then you should write your own. Japhet did not
comprehensively speak for me in his letter so I have decided to write my
on letter to you.
A caveat sir; this is going to be a frank letter. I will spare you the
accolades and commendations. I have a feeling that you are getting a bit
too much of them which is why we are where we are. I am going to be as
candid as I can be while striving to remain deferential and respectful in
accordance with the high office you occupy.
That been said, permit me to go straight to the subject matter of this
missive.
POWER COCOON
Mr. President, I am afraid that you have gotten to power and have been so
swept up in the cocoon and bubble at the Villa that you have forgotten the
people that put you there in the first place. Your appeal has always be
the fact that there are people willing to unconditionally stake all they
have on the line for you but your attitude since you assumed office has
been to display an almost disdainful neglect of your primary constituency.
You have come across in recent times as aloof, irritable and impatient
with your people. You do not bother to talk to us and when you do,
preferably to a foreign news medium during one of your numerous trips
abroad, it is always with an air of someone far removed from the daily
realities of the people he is governing.
Mr. President, what was that full ceremonial welcome at the Abuja airport
complete with a colourful Scottish guard of honour and red carpet all
about? In the midst of all the troubles we are daily facing, someone
around you thought that that was okay and you basked in it all without a
trace of embarrassment? I wager that the old Muhammadu Buhari who was in
touch with his loyal faithfuls would not have condoned that charade for
whatever it was worth but this new one is so far removed from us that he
believed it was okay. Sad. We are watching.
STRENGTHENING INSTITUTIONS
Mr. President, permit me to quote American President Barack Obama during
his trip to Ghana: “Africa does not need strong men, it needs strong
institutions.” Sadly, Mr. President, you have displayed all the trappings
of an African strong man who wants to be held over and above the
institutions in his country. So far, this presidency has been all about
you. Why have you been issuing directives to institutions of state to
carry out their statutory functions? Why are you directing EFCC to arrest
so so and so? Why do you insist at every interview that CBN will not
devalue the Naira? Would it not be better to strengthen these institutions
and encourage them to carry out their statutory functions without
executive interference? Is there no organic process for these bodies to
carry out their functions without the need for a Presidential directive?
Mr. President, do us a favour, step back and allow these organs of
government perform their functions. Thank you.
WAR ON CORRUPTION
Mr. President, you have not left anyone in doubt about your desire to
fight corruption. Indeed, this has been your strongest badge of honour
till date. You are indeed fighting corruption but the method leaves a lot
to be desired. We are back to the days of elaborate media trials and all
noise and zero substance. Mr. President, we have seen this before. It
usually does not lead to convictions. After the media cacophony, because
time was not devoted to diligent investigation and prosecution, there is
usually not enough evidence to convict the accused and they end up walking
or the trial takes forever. Would it not be better to gather all the facts
and put together a water-tight case before approaching the courts rather
than this current tactics of leaking tidbits of on-going investigations to
the press and creating a media storm that may not hold water at the end of
the day? The other day, it was your official twitter handle tweeting
allegations against Col. Sambo Dasuki. How did it get to that level?
Again Mr. President, this is not about you. This is about Nigeria and
Nigeria is bigger than you. Kindly ensure that this war on corruption is
fought procedurally so that its effect can permeate the system and ensure
that never again shall we return to the days of the locust. Already, the
initial Buhari fear is waning. Masu gudu sun bari gudu. They have seen
that it is all bluster and little depth so they have returned to their old
ways. Mr. President, the goats are still very much in the barn and they
are having a fill.
BUHARINOMICS
Mr. President, your economic policies are difficult to pin-point. Nigeria
is no longer the premier investment destination and things are really
difficult. In certain decisions you have taken relative to economic
policies, it is as if you are engaged in the Criminalisation of
enterprise. From the Forex regime to economic policies, it has been one
befuddling confusion after another. Surely, we can do better than this.
And while we are on this topic, it is no longer expedient to blame
Goodluck Jonathan for everything wrong with Nigeria. You have been in
charge for 10 months sir. Start showing us your own workings and stop
blaming others.
OSTENTATIOUS GOVERNMENT
Mr. President, under your watch, we are poor yet we are acting rich. I am
hard-pressed to find justification for your retention of the full
Presidential Air Fleet 10 Months into your administration. Your greatest
personal attribute is your frugality and your disdain for ostentation but
it sadly has not reflected in your Presidency. I know you have heard of
the Magufuli effect in Tanzania. Where then is the Buhari effect in
Nigeria? Where is the cut-back on wastages? Where is the attitudinal
adjustment to our economic realities? Some of the provisions in the 2016
budget make it difficult to take this change serious. Not just you but
your Ministers are living large. Upon their inauguration, a statement was
issued that Ministers will only move with two cars. We all applauded but
alas, we did too early. That was a hoax. Your Ministers drive by in Abuja
daily in convoys of upwards of 7 cars complete with Pilot and Escort
vehicles. Where is the change?
SOCIAL REALITIES
Mr. President, let me make this as clear as possible: There is suffering
in the land and I do not see any urgency on your part to fix this. From
the difficulty in getting fuel to worsening power situation and so on,
Nigerians are groaning.
Your Ministers have been largely ghost workers since their inauguration.
If it was a private company with 6-month probationary perform-or-be-sacked
policy, they would all be gone because there is no sign of their impact
after 6 months of their appointments.
What we are getting daily is you and your party denying promises that were
made to us during the campaigns or waiving them aside like unrealistic
demands of truculent children. Incidentally, they were not demands, they
were promises freely made by you and your party to Nigerians as benefits
of change from the former party to your party. Now that you have been
elected, you are distancing yourself from those promises. We are
observing. You will need our votes again.
CONCLUSION
Mr. President, this is the truth and perhaps the most important message in
this letter: You are losing your most ardent supporters. Those who used to
vociferously defend you all over the place are not so bothered anymore.
They either keep quiet when you are being castigated or worse, join the
complainants. Granted that you have good intentions for Nigeria but the
truth remains that intentions are not enough. Ability must match
intentions and at the moment, there is a disconnect between your good
intentions and the demonstrated ability to implement them. There is
something that your political advisers failed to tell you in the euphoria
of your electoral victory last year. Granted that a lot of people voted
for you as a person but there is yet an army who voted not necessarily for
YOU but AGAINST the status quo obtainable at the time due to
disappointment with the way things were. Those ones are independent
thinkers and they are not beholden to your party or your persona and trust
me, they are in the majority.
This is no longer about Jonathan supporters and Buhari supporters. This is
about Nigeria and the way forward. I am involved. You are my President
until at least 2019 and you are accountable to me. I write you this out of
a sense of patriotic obligation in the hope that you will take the
contents to heart and make the necessary adjustments. I do need you to
succeed. I need Nigeria to be great for my children and I. I trust you to
do the needful failing which, 2019 is not far away. We will meet at the
polling booth.
Regards sir.
Sam Hart
hartng@gmail.com