by Dele Momodu,
My dear President, please, permit me to wish you and your family a very happy new year. Let me also offer my words of prayers, and intercession, on behalf of your very handsome son, and his friend, who, according to reports, were involved in a terrible power-bike crash. I pray that God almighty will grant them full recovery and I believe my prayer is already answered because of my presence in the Holy Land of Jerusalem.
Now to the business of the day. Kindly permit me to be as brutally frank as possible. As a stakeholder who made his modest contribution to your emergence as President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, I owe you nothing but the truth. I was not a member of your party when I volunteered to support your mission and ambition in 2015. I was elated when Nigerians succeeded in chasing away the profligate and reckless government of the PDP, led by President Goodluck Jonathan. I was one of those who unleashed terror on that government and I subsequently presented you with a compilation of my articles in which I criticised and advised the then President, free of charge. I never expected that our situation could ever get worse under the APC government that almost literally promised heaven and earth. But it has become evident that it is easier to govern by words of mouth than by force of action.
It is indeed shameful that those like me who supported you so vociferously have become butts of jokes everywhere we go. Sir, I plead with you to ignore your acolytes who may be telling you that all is well in Nigeria. My unequivocal verdict, without any fear of contradiction is that things are very bad. While I will not, in all honesty, totally heap the blame on you, there is no doubt that your government has been less than competent. I’m reasonably convinced that you have not availed yourself of the abundant talents it has so pleased God to endow Nigeria with. Rather, you’ve chosen to saddle yourself with hungry lions and deadwoods that you’ve resurrected from penury and oblivion. Leadership should be about managing people and resources. Most of the people you are working with are already retired or tired and with little or nothing new to contribute.
It is grossly unfair that it was very convenient for us to lampoon and scandalise Dr Goodluck Jonathan, yet most of us have remained funereally silent and unreasonably complicit in the evil that the current men of power are perpetrating and perpetuating under your watch. Unknown to you Sir, some people are merely using you to rule by proxy. There is no evidence of discipline in your team, one of the greatest things you preached so fervently about in your first coming as military Head of State. Your acolytes are virtually getting away with murder. Someone, somewhere, sat down with birds of the same feathers, to conjure and compile the most disgraceful list of political appointees ever and yet nothing has happened to those who brought such perfidious insults on our nation. Instead, we are being regaled with tales by the moonlight to gloss over serious maladies in the polity and damning treachery against our nation. No serious apologies. No penitence. Only some foolhardy cockiness from those who will repeat the same nonsense when tomorrow comes.
Your Excellency, it has become very difficult, if not impossible to defend the excessive shortcomings of your government, please, permit my oxymoron Sir. We definitely want you to succeed but it seems some demons are desperately determined to make you fail by all means. The more your administration unravels, the more ridiculously hopeless it seems. You have waltzed from crisis to crisis instead of from glory to glory, as most of us expected. We thought you truly possessed the magic wand and talismanic effect to make all our problems evaporate and vamoose in a jiffy. We did not expect to be regularly mesmerised by impotent excuses galore.
I sincerely doff my hat to your wonderful wife for her rare and uncommon courage. Regardless of what her detractors may say, she is the only insider who has been trying to say it as it is. Even if some of her critics feel she’s seeking for relevance in your kingdom, it is still within her rights. I’m sure that when the day of reckoning comes, you will remember and appreciate her timely warnings. Without mincing words, what Madam Aisha Buhari has been trying to tell you in clear terms is that this government is swimming in a big foul mess and that you should not be carried away by the fake adulation and false adoration you see all around you. There is no government in Nigeria that did not enjoy the services of praise-singers who disappeared as soon as the government itself collapsed like a pack of cards. Ask President Jonathan!
I’m aware that your foot-soldiers are already warming up for the next election. I really do not know what they hope to tell and sell to the electorate this time, particularly after the colossal failure of the last three years. I do not see how they expect to fund your campaign without resorting to the same type of extravagant jamboree we witnessed in the dying and last days of the PDP’s prodigality. As a result of your decision to contest again, you are being forced by circumstances beyond your control to compromise and capitulate on your known principles. Is it not better, and more profitable, to return home, triumphantly, with your reputation intact than to win a pyrrhic victory with everything you ever stood for wasted on the altar of vainglorious aggrandisement? What guarantees do you have that you will win the next election even if you agree to sell Nigeria to the political gladiators?
Sir, I’m pleading with you in the name of God, the Merciful and all-powerful, that you don’t need two terms, or eight years in power, to prove your greatness. Nelson Mandela spent only one term in power and retired to superlative glory as the world’s most respected and revered and idolised statesman. Robert Mugabe spent about four decades in power, yet he returned home in total infamy and unenviable disgrace. It is a lesson of life that we must all learn, sooner rather than later, that man shall not live by power alone. I know my preaching is not likely to touch you and your hardened supporters but, at the very least, I want it to be on record that I spoke publicly, out of genuine love and concern, while you were being goaded on by those who stand to gain more if you win a re-election next year. For most of those asking you to continue, by fire and by force, it is always about their personal agenda and survival. They know their political careers would come to a shuddering halt and abrupt standstill should you fail in your bid to come back. In their desperation to come back at all costs, they are going to do exactly what PDP did, or even much worse. What moral authority would you then have to justify the continued detention and harassment of some of the PDP operatives accused of wasting government resources on Jonathan’s truncated re-election bid. Who amongst us can in good conscience say in the market place that you won the last election on pure merit and that no substantial government funding went into your campaigns.
This year promises to be an interesting one. You will soon discover how treacherous human beings can be when some of those hailing you today as the authentic messiah begin to show you their true colours. Our country is bleeding dangerously while some over-pampered politicians can only think of winning elections by hook or by crook. The quality of your appointees in recent time points to how directionless your government has finally become. In a country overflowing with so many amazing brains and talents, it is incredibly shameful that those are your best representatives for our country. The easiest way for a leader to fail is to continue to attract those much worse than himself. Conversely, the best way to succeed is for a leader to recognise and attract and surround himself with those much better in all aspects of human endeavour. This does not erase or take anything away from the leader but it actually enhances his personality and how he is perceived by everyone. The late sage of blessed memory, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, was a veritable example of how a leader can effectively tap into the collective brains of some geniuses and add to his own in a way that makes him appear super-human.
Nigeria has never been in short supply of whiz kids at home and abroad but Nigeria started dying when our leaders stopped respecting merit and preferred to enthrone mediocrity. The truth is mediocrity begets further mediocrity. The few good leaders in your government have not been able to display their wizardry out of fear and trepidation that some cabal would mark them out and hack them down so ruthlessly. It is a sign of the times, that the courage, astuteness and brilliance that made them stand out in the political crowd has suddenly taken flight and they are now little more than wimps in your insipid government. The bureaucracy in Abuja is enough to suffocate and disorientate any fertile mind.
If I were in your shoes, I would consider that it is not too late to groom and propel some of the best brains in APC or even those living beyond the shores of Nigeria to succeed me. You do not need to look far in this regard but I will not make any suggestions today, lest it be misinterpreted that I am touting any particular individual as a worthy successor. I’m reasonably convinced that you have worked very hard and seem to have reached your peak. To God be the glory. In a country of nearly 200 million people, God has been too kind to you. Apart from former President Olusegun Obasanjo, no other Nigerian has been given a second chance so miraculously. You will be able to justify this unmerited favour by leaving Nigeria much better than you met it. The only way you can do that in the next remaining year is to sacrifice your own personal ambition and hand over the country to proven and tested modern and cosmopolitan technocrats. The world has moved beyond the backwardness that we are being saddled with in Nigeria today. The world expect us to be the true giant and leader of Africa not by words but in deed.
My appeal to you is to urgently do a self-assessment to determine and decide on whether you are what Nigeria needs at this time and age for our country to join the comity of other nations in their march towards technological advancement, political stability, social security and economic prosperity.
With all due respect, Sir, if your answer is yes to the above, you may go ahead and contest but if in all honesty, the answer is no, my prayer is that you will find the courage and selfless spirit to quit the stage while the ovation is loudest. That in itself would be a deserving legacy. I’m watching and waiting for your patriotic decision with bated breath.
Thank you, Mr President, for your usual attention and kind consideration of my latest memo to you, albeit so early in the year.
