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An Open Letter To Vice-President Atiku Abubakar: What Is The Deal For Nigerians? By Mohammed Umar
Your Excellency on democracy day, 29th May 2006, my friends and I attended the burial of the third term agenda and none other than His Excellency, President Olusegun Obasanjo delivered the eulogy at 7.00 a.m. in a national broadcast as is the responsibility of the President to talk to Nigerians on such occasions as today, though it was not easy for him. It is not that Nigerians have so quickly forgotten or forgiven the traumas we were put through by the disciples of third term and their chief priest, consequently the pains of the President were lost on us. We were anxious, eager and happy for the burial to be over, for we had attended as witnesses and not as sympathizers. We wanted to assure ourselves that third term was indeed dead and buried. Tangent to this is the official takeoff of your campaign for the office of the president of Nigeria through the launching of your campaign office last week. As a responsible citizen of this country and as is also my right, I decided to write you this letter to ask you, though I know you would in due course be faced with similar questions, what is your deal for Nigerians?
My urge to write you was stimulated by the official flag-off of your campaign and the roles you have been playing in the recent political history of our country since 1999. Your ambition to run for the presidency has been known and thus it was no surprise that you stood with us in the fight against third term agenda. Now that the third term agenda is dead and the PDP has initiated reconciliation move and you have indicated that you would like to run on its platform and serious negotiations are going on between the President, yourself and other party members, I would like to ask you to picture the faces of the masses of this country in these negotiations. I am confident that the PDP is a dead, or at least a spent, political force in Nigeria and for you to accept to run under its umbrella is ominous. Your link with members of the ACD is also indication of your belief that the PDP platform is weak or unreliable. The truth is very simple and that is, that Nigerians can no longer trust PDP and its stalwarts and thus the party shall not make any serious showing in the next general elections. While conceding that your role in the anti-third term effort has emboldened your stand with Nigerians, your sticking with the PDP has the capacity to quickly erode your newly acquired toga of seeming acceptance. More than that, it seems to suggest that you are not ready for change, which should be characterized by humanizing the so called reform agenda of the present administration, thorough investigation of its tenure and fast tracking the political and socio-economic transformation of Nigeria. Your desire to convince the President that you are a man that can be trusted with the present reforms and who will spare the administration embarrassing revelations is making us very jittery and worried about you. Your Excellency, you must in the next couple of days, as we shall insist, choose to follow the masses of this country or to follow Baba Iyabo. It will be naïve to assume that you would not need to hold some form of discussions with the President in his bid to assuage the demons that are tormenting him, but whatever assurances the President requires should not mortgage the future of this country and it teeming masses. In short Your Excellency, you must leave the PDP if you really want us to take you seriously. Our worry about you stems from your antecedents of, if you would excuse my language, blind loyalty to Baba Iyabo in the name of deft political strategy. You would recall the plight of Nigerians in 2003 and the role you played in entrenching the present administration. That the 2003 general elections were the most rigged in the history of Nigeria and that you were associated with them has made us even more worried. We thus insist that you must clearly and unambiguously make your stand with the masses. Your Excellency, you are either both with us and for us or not and I will want to assure you that the 2007 general elections would reflect the maturity of the Nigerian electorate. I hope and pray that your calculations are not based on settling with the established powers that be, buying the masses and fixing the elections as the usual Nigerian political mathematics. You will excuse my prying, but these are some of the agitations on the minds of Nigerians concerning Atiku Abubakar.
The speech of the President on democracy day urging Nigerians not to elect leaders that would entrench corruption and make Nigeria loose opportunities for progress come 2007 crystallized my urge to write you. Not that I believe that the President has the credentials to advise Nigerians on the type of leader that they should elect considering the disaster that he has turned out to be. However, that does not mean that Nigerians do not appreciate some of the progress made and some of the reforms initiated that we would like to see sustained. Although the EFCC has turned out to be the President’s dog, the fact that it makes corrupt politicians and other corrupt Nigerians jittery is a welcome start. The pace of progress and development during the administration of Baba Iyabo is to say the least appalling. Thus, our stand against third term was anchored more on fear of entrenching a twelve-year or more administration of a totally rascally and irresponsible government. In other words had Baba succeeded in getting third term and after him or whenever we get a really terrible leader, we shall be stuck with him for twelve years or more. Given that you have been an active participant in the present administration and that the administration has been marked by extremely slow or no progress and corruption, what kind of leadership would you offer Nigerians. What would be new in an Atiku Abubakar administration that would ensure that it is not business as usual? Nigerians are worried about you and your romance with the PDP and its elements, most of who unfortunately cannot claim to be corruption free. Nigerians are seriously questioning if you are the leader that would provide the selfless leadership that would lead to the elimination of corruption and commitment to fast paced and sustainable progress. Your Excellency, you must address the fears of Nigerians and demonstrate your commitment by aligning with voices of the masses and not that of the establishment.
Your Excellency, I also feel compelled as a Northerner, to ask what your plans are. As things stand now the North may well clinch the presidency, but be that as it may whoever takes over from Baba Iyabo would be under the prisms of Nigerians and their yearning for change and progress would be daunting. As a Northerner, it would be a disaster for the North and for Nigeria if you should be elected and you are unable to perform. As you may be are aware, the North has been the weeping horse of Nigeria to be whipped every time things don’t work out. Baba Iyaba has alluded to his fear of handing over to the thieving elite from the North and yet despite his desire for a third term we have not been able to hold Western Nigeria responsible for his antics and I don’t believe we should. I want to assure you that as a Northerner you would not be so lucky and every action you take would be associated with all of us. Northerners are worried about you, because of your antecedents. Your dedication to the North has been less than acceptable. You have been known to trash the region, its leaders and its interests in the past and we find it difficult to trust you too suddenly, especially now that you needed us more than we need you. Your Excellency, you must talk to the North as you must indeed talk to all Nigerians as to why and how we can trust you to deliver on our collective but masses identified interests and priorities. I will urge you as you calculate your political strategy to countenance that the political clime in Northern Nigeria has changed. The case of Dr. Umar Hambagda should serve as a warning to all self serving politician who believes that the North is there to serve his interest and only to be discarded after it has been used.
Finally Your Excellency, I want to draw your attention to some of the mountains of disillusionments and despair that have become the lot of the common man in Nigeria, nay that you may remember in the days ahead. I hasten to remind you knowing that you are the number two man in Baba Iyabo’s administration that is responsible for our plight. We are faced with serious unemployment and under employment. Our capacity as common people to survive on a day to day basis in Nigeria has been greatly hampered by this administration. Even people who should ordinary belong to the middle class are emasculated to the extent that there is no clear middleclass in Nigeria. You are either rich or poor. We are compelled to generate our own electricity (through the use of micro-generators), to provide our own water (through the construction of boreholes and the services of Mai Ruwa), and to educate our own children (through the services of exorbitant private schools since the public school system has collapsed). This is the reality even in Abuja the federal capital talk less of other cities and the uncountable villages in Nigeria. Thus, Nigerians are worried that you aspire to be their president knowing fully well that you actively participated in this administration. You Excellency, you must speak to Nigerian masses to assuage their fears that their poor condition would change for the better if you takeover, that indeed you and Baba Iyabo are not one and the same. We are worried and we dare to ask you what the deal is for us in an Atiku Abubakr presidency. The time to start providing us with answers in now, for tomorrow (2007) is nigh at hand.
I pay that Allah would be your and our guide in the coming days and He would lead us aright in choosing a leader that would be right for this country, a leader that would be courageous, sincere, kind, upright, fair, devoted, foresighted, attentive, and benevolent.
Thank you for your audience. |