Dear President Buhari,
I had planned to meet you one-on-one during the United Nations General
Assembly in New York. But recent events have convinced me that the central
issue of this letter has outgrown a private affair.
Not long ago, I was thinking that your recent long-stay in London could be
a blessing in disguise. Besides the need for your full recovery, I
fervently prayed that your brand of medical tourism, in of itself, could
abreast you with at least three common principles that are conspicuously
lacking in your democratic power. The first is that leadership is more
enduring through dialogue than through terror. The second is that a leader
of a nation is the father of all—regardless of political, cultural,
social, or tribal differences. The third is that opposing viewpoints are
the spice of democracy.
Little did I know that my prayers were a castle in the air. A leopard, we
were warned, hardly changes its spots.
Many instances abound but none is more fanatic than your approach to the
new Biafran agitation. Upon your return, instead of employing dialogue to
attend to a myriad of problems begging your attention after a long
absence, you chose to demonstrate your wellness by commanding the Nigerian
Armed Forces to “crush” or, more plainly, to kill some youths opposed to
your regime in the name of Biafra.
Mr. President, my position on the new Biafran agitation is an open book.
For avoidance of doubt, my innocent opinion is written all over my various
essays on the topic, for example, “How PDP and APC created New Biafran
Agitations” and “Buhari and Nnamdi Kanu Fighting the Wrong Enemies”, and
many others. To make it simple, I am for a united but equitable Nigeria. I
do not subscribe to the IPOB agenda nor fancy Nnamdi Kanu’s style. But
there are pertinent issues in their advocacy that must not be ignored.
In short, notwithstanding the sensational issue of secession for which
Biafra is better known, you cannot feign ignorance of the fact that the
rallying point of the agitation is anger against politicians like you, who
dwell in ocean of huge wealth, not by the dint of any hard-work or
intellect but through mere access to power. You, Muhammadu Buhari, cannot
claim not to know that these Biafran youths, like other Nigerian youths,
are angry at people like you and I, whose children school overseas and
receive expert medical attention in foreign hospitals while the masses at
home have nowhere to go for their own wellness.
On top of that, Nigeria currently has a president, you, who is generally
seen a tribalist, sectionalist, misogynist, and religious bigot veiled in
one garb. A majority of the Eastern youths, in particular, no longer sees
you as their president. And you cannot blame them.
In the first place, you began your democratic regime by vowing to punish
the people of the Eastern Region for the simple reason that they emulated
their Northern counterparts to vote for their native son in the 2015
presidential election. You have since doubled down your vow with lopsided
political appointments and projects that show utter disdain for the same
region. Today, while you are doggedly commanding the Nigerian Armed Forces
to “crush” the Eastern youths agitating for Biafra, you conveniently used
dialogue, and wisely so, to contain their Northern counterparts who issued
quit notice to the Igbo living in your region. Further, another group from
your tribe, the Fulani Herdsmen, have been terrorizing the Middle Belt and
Southern Nigeria, raping women and killing innocent civilians with
impunity; yet you have continued to carry on as if the victims are the
animals themselves.
As if your brazen pattern of sectionalism is not enough, your regime is
now in a shameless back-and-forth dance with a confusing stance of either
proscribing IPOB, associating it with terrorism or declaring the Biafran
youths as terrorists. Which one, Mr. President?
Either way, did I really hear “terrorists” as in plural of terrorist?
Before you make up your mind, let us consider what a terrorist truly
means. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, terrorist is defined as “a
person who uses unlawful violence or intimidation, especially against
civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.”
Your Excellency, with the Holy Qur’an on your hand, please quietly go into
“the other room” and look at yourself in the mirror and answer the
following twin questions: Who is the terrorist in the current Biafran
crisis? Could it be you, General Muhammadu Buhari, who is intimidating and
murdering civilians opposing your regime by way of self-determination as
enshrined in the UN charter or the innocent victims themselves?
There is no need to grapple with the questions any further. The answer can
be gleaned from an emerging world view that once again casts you as a
dictator bereft of ideas to lead but desirous to garner followership by
intimidation. This explains why Tom Marino, a high-ranking member of the
Trump presidency and the current US Drug Czar, then a Congressman and a
member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, was bold to warn the United
States, just a year ago, to withhold selling arms to Nigeria until you,
President Buhari, demonstrates true “commitment to inclusive government
and the most basic tenets of democracy: freedom to assemble and freedom of
speech.”
Mr. President, that view has not changed. The Americans, that I know, know
commitment to the most basic tenets of democracy when they see one. They
already know that your Operation Python Dance in the South-East Nigeria is
stark opposite. The world knows that the military action is nothing but a
scheme to rekindle the zeitgeist of the Biafran war—hoping to regain your
waning popularity within our party and the nation at large.
But Nigerians are wiser. That is why patriots from the east, north, and
the west, including my very humble self, are uniting against you. We
recognize that your Python Dance—no matter how constitutional or
elegant—is misguided and ill-timed. Unlike you, the vast majority of
Nigerians recognizes that dialogue is the way forward, not terror. Unlike
you, we recognize that the lives of these Biafran youths are not less
important than the lives of your children and grandchildren silver-spooned
by the way of our common wealth.
You will also fall into the temptation of deploying your Igbo appointees
to attempt to paint a different picture at the UN gala. But that strategy
is also a vain hope. Their voices will be outnumbered by the true Nigerian
ambassadors in the Diaspora, who are deeply entrenched in the global
political economy, the Igbo elites very well-included. These patriots,
most of whom have understandably maintained stoic silence, will be
provoked to counter you with the truth anywhere. As I had counselled in
the essay, “Buhari’s New Change Ought to Begin with His Igbo Problem”;
your sole wining option is to trek back to where the rain started beating
you; the world in 2017 is no longer that of 1967.
So, Your Excellency, come back home. Come back home. The current Biafran
crisis is not as insoluble as you portray it to be. Even a blind squirrel
can sometimes find a nut. What is needed, therefore, is for the “change”
to truly begin with you. With a new lease of life, you can still muster
the willpower to become a detribalized leader who truly believes in united
but equitable Nigeria. You can still develop the capacity for dialogue and
value for all Nigerian lives. The problem, though, is that you have not
tried. True
SKC Ogbonnia+
Email: SKCOgbonnia1@aol.com