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Open Letter To His Excellency President Umaru Musa Yar’adua By Max Gbanite
Welcome to the hottest seat of power in Africa. I hope your prayer-mallams prayed well to sanctify and remove all “demonic and satanic forces” (Gen. Yakubu Gowon’s statement), and all the “occultic” and fetish materials (Gen. T.Y. Danjuma’s words) left behind by your predecessor in Aso-Presidential-Villa. If not done yet, then be ready for every negative attacks and underachievement that will come your way. Please, be wise and protect your spiritual flanks.
Your hundred days in office is fast approaching and Nigerian press can’t wait to alarm the nation with either positive or negative propaganda on your accomplishment. One of the articles to be missed would have been written by your current media adviser Mr. Olusegun Adeniyi had he not left ThisDay Newspaper to serve the nation on your beckon; believe me, his article would not have been so merciful upon you.
Sir, my understanding of how God works, was influenced by two epochal events in my life, the first was in 1994, when four members of my family were lost on the same day in a ghastly car accident, and the second, was the four terrible plane crashes the nation suffered, notably the Belview, Sosoliso, Donier, and ADC crashes. After each occasion I had cause to meet with my parish priest to ask questions, and each time the priest with sadness in his eyes, yet, with courage will point to heaven and proclaim that “it’s the will of God, he gives and he takes life, and more importantly, all powers belongs to HIM.” As a human and with humility, I came to understand why HE chose you amongst others to become our president. May HE be praised for HE is Great, amen.
FLASHBACK:
Many people, this writer inclusive were screaming fowl on how you emerged to become the president of Nigeria today because a good majority of us are suffering from amnesia. Presently, the BBC are revealing to the world-at-large that the British government rigged the elections that brought in our late prime minister Alhaji Tafawa Balewa in 1960 and 1965; Late Gen. Aguiyi Ironsi’s emergence in January 1966, though he was not the candidate of choice by the mutineers led by Major CK Nzeogwu, Obasanjo’s best friend; Gen. Yakubu Gowon’s ascendancy in July 1966, wasn’t what those that led the bloody counter coup envisaged; when Gowon was eventually removed, Gen. Muritala Mohammed, who replaced him in 1975, was an after thought by the junta; after the murder of Gen. Mohammed, those that stabilized the system had wanted Gen. T.Y. Danjuma to take over but the superior thinking man refused, instead he asked Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo to preside; when Alhaji Shehu Shagari emerged as president in 1979, he was not the first or second choice of his party, the National Party of Nigeria; when Gen. Buhari, in Dec. 1983, overthrew Shagari, records from Major Jakolo on his various interviews showed that Buhari was not the first or second choice, rather he was a compromise candidate, and when he was overthrown by Gen. Ibrahim Babangida in August 1985, Babangida was probably the only consensus candidate of the regime; Chief Ernest Shonekan, never expected to be the president of Yoruba land, yet, he rose to become the interim Presidentof Nigeria; Late Gen. Sani Abacha, was a circumstantial president because of the situation at hand in 1993; Gen. Abdulsalam Abubakar, was to be retired, but God delayed that retirement, and he rose to become the Head of State in 1998; again Gen. Obasanjo, an ex-convict, was granted pardon by Gen. Abubakar, through God’s intercession, and using Generals’ Babangida, Aliyu Gusau, Danjuma, Abdullahi, and a host of others, he became the president again.
When you go through these arrangements, most of these men never expected to or lobbied to become president. Therefore, your emergence as the President today and for as long as it lasts is by divine arrangement, and if you believe it, then your duty in to be grateful to God, and carry Nigerians along with the understanding that “voice of the people is the voice of God.”
Please continue to do your best to build the government of national unity (GNU), and disregard the current statement of Gen. Buhari, who said that “he does not recognize you as the president.” The fact remains that Buhari only recognizes himself as the true president of Nigeria, forgetting how he emerged to become one, and it’s this shear arrogance that alienated those that supported him in the first place. He never recognized Shagari, Obasanjo, Babangida, Abacha, (though he worked for the man), Abubarkar, and now you; he is a lone-ranger-self-righteous-man. God gave him his own opportunity, he did what he thought was his best then, but his programs were not accepted by the people, and they prayed against him…the rest is history, and he too shall remain part of our history.
I commend your appointment of Alhaji Babagana Kingibe as your SGF, and that of Mallam Tanimu Kurfi as your Deputy Chief of Staff; they are both experienced technocrats, intellectuals, and veritable source of sincerity, honesty, integrity, and they will perform to and beyond expectations.
Now that the business of ministerial appointment is over, the time to get to work is now. You must bear in mind that every president before you had his imprint and legacy that he is judged by today. You must out-perform your predecessor in every area, otherwise, you will be adjudged to have failed God who gave you the mandate for Nigerians. Gen. Mohammed was the Head of State for only six months, but Nigerians that experienced him can never forget what he accomplished in that short period of time. As a matter of fact, Chief Obasanjo in all his years as Head of State and President, failed to inspire Nigerians to greatness the way Mohammed did.
Pundits are instigating you to fight, cage, reverse everything Obasanjo did against Nigerians in the past eight years, and those in Obasanjo’s camp are equally complaining that your current actions like the adjustment of the sale of the refineries, the remittance of Lagos State seized funds, modifications of all contracts awarded, the deductions from Local Government funds on health, and the insistence on adherence of the rule-of-law, as a sign that you are ungrateful to the fingers that fed you or selected you to be the president. Please ignore both groups. You must understand that besides God, the power rests with you now, and you must use it wisely. Obasanjo is no longer the issue at stake. Nigerians are expecting you to give them true democracy; strengthen the judiciary to be very independent; encourage the national assembly to be proactive, vigorous, and independent minded, and above all to respond to their primary constituencies, and a larger Nigeria; restoration of hope and the right to live and co-exist as citizens by inspiring hope; restoration of their faith in God and their inalienable right to worship in any religion of their choice; restoration of security; restoration of the power sector; restoration of road networks, the education sector, encourage rural infrastructure and community development; restore the health system, and give the people portable water to drink; boost agriculture and agro-allied industry; modernization of the refineries and oil & gas sector; creation of jobs for those qualified; restoration of various security agencies; expansion of alternate transport systems like the water-ways, rail system, aviation; rejuvenation of non-oil export sector and strengthening of the SMIE’s by providing adequate loans as start-up capitals; re-establishment of small banks that can work with SMIE’s, while encouraging the mega-banks to continue with renewed entrepreneurism; continuation of the expansion of the telecom industry must be sustained; and the war against corruption must be intensified with the application of rule-of-law; afterall, to whom much is given much is expected. If some presidential candidates claim that you don’t have the peoples’ mandate surprise them by carrying the people along; God’s mandate is exhibited in the way you emerged. Yes, God may have used one considered by many Nigerians to be ‘that animal called man’. You are the show now. That ‘animal’, if he is truly one, has gone back to his ‘animal-farm’.
Sir, to be able to achieve some if not all these expectations you must resist the pressure to be cowed into probing or witch-hunting your predecessor. However, to be able to do the right thing and assert a lasting legacy by avoiding the errors of your predecessor, you must appoint various task forces or panels to study and evaluate what went wrong with the disbursement of funds, implementation of the budgets, accrued income from all revenues received.
The task force must do their duty with due diligence and get Nigerians to understand what happened to their tax money, for instance from 1999-2007; 900 billion naira was allocated to the power sector, yet, the power being generated today is less than what the government inherited; 850 billion naira allocated to the Ministry of works and the roads are still death traps and impassable; the 500 million dollars allocated for the turn around maintenance of the refineries; what happened to the crude allocated to the various refineries that were not even operational, were they diverted elsewhere, and if yes, where?; the fund recovered from the late Gen. Abacha family and friends; the purported third term bribe money; and many other nefarious acts perpetrated against the good people of Nigeria must be evaluated, and recommendations made to you. The information obtained will guide and enable you to make better decisions and carry out the emancipation of current and future generations, and cast your name in marble of performance. If during the evaluation by the task force certain individuals are found to be wanting, please allow the EFCC, ICPC, and the Code of Conduct Bureau unfettered access to do their duty as the rules of law allows. This act in itself is not an act of probe, rather it’s a research effort that will act as an anchor on how not to repeat the same mistakes, and you would indeed have set precedence on non-confrontational manner of dealing with past mistakes. And, please caution your spokesperson(s) to use adjustment instead of reversal; evaluation instead of investigation or probe, so that you are seen to be less confrontational, yet decisive and resolute in action.
I will like to draw your attention to the state of our security which is non-existence at this moment. I remember in 1999, when the first ethnic revolution was acted upon the nation by odua peoples congress (OPC), prompting President Obasanjo to issue an order of shoot-at-sight. The various arms of security, especially the State Security Services (SSS) and Nigerian Police Force (NPF) were asked to come up with a security plan to avoid such from happening again. A Director of SSS from the north, though now retired, articulated a wonderful plan for the agency in dealing with ethnic insurrections, militancy, terrorism, and other forms of insecurity that could derail our nascent democracy, and threaten the corporate existence of Nigeria. His paper was allegedly put in the cooler by the DG-SSS because he is from the north. The agency instead went after massob with impunity as the only threat to the nation. Please talk to Mallam Tanimu Yakubu, he will tell you who the retired Director is. If his program was followed and implemented, the problem in the Niger-Delta region could have been managed and the interruption of flow of oil reduced, while the kidnapping of foreigners could have been avoided. The morale within the SSS is at its lowest since the inception of the agency; you must move fast to replace the current DG, and bring someone with patriotic passion, detribalized, and has the understanding of the SSS system, and can reinvigorate the agency, boost its morale and get the field operations to get back to serious work; whomever you chose must give you a master-plan on what he intends to do. The powers of the DG must be curtailed and he must be made to submit raw intelligence gathered to the national security agency (NSA) for analysis before it’s presented to you. Before 1999 to 2007 that was the way things were done, but due to ethnic parochialism, protection of a regime became paramount over that of the nation…sadly enough; the nation is suffering for it. Records will show that the agency did more work to advance the cause of third-term, election mal-practice than it is doing to protect the lives of Nigerians and the preservation of the state; the primary reason for which it was created in the first place. They also have the records of the Killer-Governors that operated from 1999-2007. Please look into this matter.
I am also pleased that you are taking command of the power sector for now. You must understand that for the nation to move forward to sustainable growth, reduction of crimes through the creation of jobs, the manufacturing sector must be powered by energy. It is therefore imperative that you decentralize the power sector. Kainji Dam should be serviced to full capacity to supply power to North west; Shiroro Dam for North central and North east, pending the completion of Mambila which takes over the North east; Jebba Dam to supply the Middle-belt and some parts of the East; Egbin to supply the South west; Afam Power to supply the South-south and the rest of the East, pending the restoration of Oji River Power, which will take over the East; other Independent Power Projects will become options for businesses; this act will reduce the strain on the national grid and allow for easy service, and also has a security advantage to the nation; It’s also important to tell you that the containment structure of Jebba Dam is about to collapse, and when that happens, very soon I might add, the whole community living within the vicinage will be flooded and some may even lose their lives just like what happened in Zamfara State and Osun River Basin.
The contract for the restoration of the Dam was awarded to an indigenous contractor with international reputation for dam restoration since 2005.The company won against notable giants like Julius Berger and others competitively; and due process certificate was issued to them. However, because they failed to grease the palms of some of the ministers of OBJ’s cabinet they were black-balled, and the minister’s connived amongst themselves and invited an unregistered Chinese company where they have vested interest, who was not part of or participated in the tender to be awarded the contract; the matter is currently in FCT High Court, and your Senior adviser on Power, Engr. Makouju, a good man, and the Permanent Secretary for Power are both aware of this. Please rectify this problem before the Dam collapses; a stitch in time saves nine.
As you can see, the only stumbling block to your continuance as the president is the election tribunal. Quid-pro-quo is part and parcel of politicks, therefore, to get former Vice President Atiku Abubakar to withdraw his petition and support your government, you must look at the inherent danger and if it is clear and present, then you must make him an offer he can’t refuse; which might include the opportunity to be the Chairman BOT for the party and other concessions. Remember, you lick a hot soup with caution.
Some may see it as betrayal of Obasanjo, well I see it as your survival to do good for the nation. For the past eight years you avoided coming to Abuja for meetings and only showed up maybe once a year. Critics believe that you did that because of your health, but my investigation revealed that you did not want to corrupt your pedigree with the shenanigans, septic and profound obnoxious corruption being practiced by your predecessor and some of his ministers. I found out that you were quietly against third term. However, you have now seen that as man proposes, God disposes; you never wanted to come to Abuja, but today HE has put you in Abuja, therefore, your allegiance is to HIM first, and your duty is to serve Nigeria.
As for Obasanjo, had your late brother Gen. Shehu Musa Yar’Adua lived to witness what devastation he visited on the psyche’ of Nigerians, he would have joined a thorough officer, a gentleman, and gallant General T.Y. Danjuma in calling him “a fake statesman, fake friend, and a pretentious Christian.” And, in return, OBJ would have closed your brother’s bank, seized his vessels, and render his farm impotent. Besides, Obasanjo was never loyal or beholden to those that God used to make him the President of Nigeria for eight years; so why should you be an exception.
In closing, I urge you to carry Nigerians along on this democratization and developmental journey. Your family’s name is worthy of preservation, Nigerians will pray as usual without Rev. father Kukah and Primate Mbang, for the election tribunal to see the greater stability of the nation while deliberating on their ruling on the petition against you; the tribunal should remember the words of Vice President Atiku Abubakar and Professor Jerry Gana, after the rigging of 2003 elections, who told the international community that, “there was no rigging, but admittedly there were electoral flaws and maladies identifiable in an emerging democracy such as ours, therefore, the International community should allow Nigeria’s nascent democracy to flourish.” If that was the case in 2003, the election tribunal in their ruling should also, based on precedence, accept that, true the elections of 2007 was equally flawed and allow you to continue. Hopefully, your health, will, by the special Grace of God, allow you to take us to a greater height where we should have been.
Atiku Abubakar, with humility, should thank God for making him the Vice President of our great country for eight years, while we commend him for his gallantry in the fight against third term, he should also accept part of the blame for the wrongs brought on Nigerians by Obasanjo and the party he helped to found; moreover, he once said that, “if the fish’s head is rotten, so is the body.”
Has he forgotten what they did to former Vice President, Alex Ekwueme, at Jos, in 1999 and Abuja, in 2003 conventions? If Ekwueme who was VP for four years only can accept his fate as act of God, so can Atiku Abubakar in the interest of true reconciliation; after all is said and done, ‘the bull has been eased out of the China shop’ and power has once again shifted to the north for another four-eight years. Nigerians are watching to see what the north does with it.
“Everything else is embellishment” and “it is about issues and not about individuals” (apologies to Dr. Mo Ene).
Long live Federal Republic of Nigeria. |