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An Open Letter To Our Leaders By Maxwell James
I tremble as I write this note to you especially with the open wound your unfeeling actions have continued to inflict on the generality of Nigerian youths who you constantly refer to as “leaders of tomorrow”. The profound leadership crisis when combined with the increasingly dangerous politics of neglect, spawns gloomy prognostication about our collective future as youths of this great country.
My dear leaders, let us start with concrete example. In a friendly chat at a conference organized by Youth Employment Network with the theme, Unleashing Entrepreneurial Skills among the Youths, in Nairobi Kenya, an Ivorien delegate was curious about Nigerian politics. A friend of mine, the leader of the South-South Youth Leaders Forum Moses Siloko Siasia led him to me because there was visible communication breakdown following his poor understanding of French language. The question the Ivorien asked that struck me was that “je remarque que le taux de chômage au Nigeria est étonnant malgré le niveau de votre economie…“ Despite your huge foreign reserve, your unemployment rate is still excruciatingly high) my translation. As the chat progressed, I discovered that my Ivorien friend has spoken in characteristic francophone understatement, having spent some months in Nigeria. His encounter with Nigeria’s escalating politics of convenience, politics of nostalgia and politics of neglect was more profound, more drastic.
As an erudite historian who studied Nigeria’s trajectory history, he listened with aching and rapt attention as I launched into a passionate narrative of Nigeria’s recent slide into politics of impeachment with no recourse to justice and due process even when some of you have taken the toga of Mr. and Mrs. Due Process. I also told him about the Government of the old by the old and for the old otherwise known as gerontocracy that is being practiced here. Lunch break over, we returned to the conference hall my narrative even though in French, still uncompleted.
My dear leaders, I am doubtful whether the system can be refocused to make any modicum of progress in the realm of the educational life of our dear country. This is largely because the statements that have being coming from that direction are contradictory and cacophonous. There are also the problems of near absence of charismatic leadership skills coupled with poor administrative acumen by you with due respect. It is rather unfortunate that it is only in Nigeria that one can see a graduate that has hardly heard of Plato, who thinks Kwame Nkrumah lives somewhere in Afganistan and whose knowledge of Karl Marx does not go beyond the sketchy bits of Newspapers. This, I am saying from experience that occurred recently after a protracted argument that ensued. To my chagrin and surprise, my fellow discussant was a graduate of Law from one of our numerous universities.
Just like what the firebrand education minister is doing, year in year out, for 7 years now, the “best” minds and brains from within and outside our dear country have gathered, discussed exhaustively all the facets of the Nigerian economy and passed highly informed and well-packaged recommendations on how to move the nation forward. But with due respect to you my leaders at all levels, today it is as though our economy is taking off from a Tabla Rasa with all of you dazzling us with New Economic Empowerment and Development strategy (NEEDS) which has largely become less strategic to our problems.
Dear leaders of my time, there is growing apprehension among the youths that as 2007 Elections approach, there is unabashed and surreptitious attempt by you to ensure the intergenerational perpetuation of certain hegemonic blocs in the country. I think a lot need to be done in order to dispel this genuine apprehension and subsequently push the frontier of leadership as far as human ingenuity can go.
I must confess that I find nothing wrong and strange about the eloquent testament of my ivorien friend. Our dear country of late has become the darling of international media albeit negatively. Over the few years of democratic experiment, I have seen you fight each other shamelessly. Our democracy has truly gone to the dogs! I am particularly worried because this negative publicity that never ceases to outrage our sensibilities and assault our basic decency as civilized youths has conspired to rob us of our collective integrity in the comity of nations.
My dear Fathers, may I ask this question please, is it true that some of you are drab, sycophantic, overzealous, scatterbrained, and megalomaniac? No, I don’t think so because you had a better education than us!
My leaders, this indeed is not a happy time to be a Nigerian youth. It is sickening that our country degenerated to such a stage that an ignorant, rascally, and harebrained twerp could sack an elected state Governor just to clear the way for his ignoble political ambition. Haba! Is that what you want to bequeath to us? Where is justice, where is democratic ethos? We have also heard of a state where a sacked Chief judge along side an infinitesimal number of a 24-man House of Assembly showed a Governor the way out. Another near absurd case is an 80-year-old man who sits in his house and decides who becomes Governor of a state. This detestable character has even been reliably informed on whom our next elected President will be.
With my firm belief in African ethics and tradition, I still have faith in you. I think this edge of despair can also be the threshold of hope. But it is also pertinent to note that, we the Nigerian youths have been excommunicated from the present realities. It is true that our national assembly is harboring many misfit and counterfeit Lawmakers? Our only hope now is that most of you who hunger and thirst for glory and political overdraft are moving “ahead” to unleash leadership terror as Chief Executives of your various states.
It may also interest you to know that we are pushed to the wall. Our parents are beginning to see us as unproductive rascals. This, my leaders and elders, I must confess is an irredeemable embarrassment to a nation that prides herself as the heart of Africa. Your attitude and approach are disturbingly predictable, so shocking, so unimaginative and very much characteristic of your predecessors in those dark days who watched helplessly as cherished values of leadership standard run utterly to seed and the whole system took its quantum leap into mediocrity and darkness.
I don’t see your office as a patronage-disbursing machine but I expect bold visionary measures capable of addressing this present crisis. Yes my leaders, that is what it is: a deep-seated and tremendous crisis of generational neglect. What we have from you are infuriating and bland comments that only deepen the gulf between your humble selves and us.
We don’t have the means to your patronage neither are we adept in unethical practices and innovations because we are afraid of deepening the rot of the Nigerian system. I make bold to say that the stench that emanates from the systemic decay of our beloved country like the impeachments, flaunting of court orders, and brazing loot of our treasury are so malodorous and capable of deadening one’s nasal sensibilities to a state of virtual paralysis.
Finally my leaders, please let’s not allow our dear country to become an asylum for moral cripples, treacherous thugs, degenerate fools, flyblown sycophants and nitwits of different shades.
Maxwell James Freelance Journalist 40, Lobito Crescent Wuse II – Abuja
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