Dear General Abacha
By
Wada Nas
My Dear General,
Greetings from our country men and women to you and other compatriots who have migrated to rest in peace in the final kingdom of the Almighty. Greetings also to your very good friend and special admirer, Chief Bola Ige, who peacefully left us, through the brutality of assassination, in the hand of some lunatic persons, to dwell in the kingdom. I have no doubt that you will exchange notes when you meet one another.
I am unhappy to break this news to you, Sir, that because of the excellent way we take care of our bomb depots, the one at Ikeja refused to explode recently, precisely on Sunday 27, killing only a very few people, a small figure of 600 innocent souls. This is coming on the heels of the ‘OPCillin’ injected in to 37 other innocent souls in Owo, when the great OPC warriors felt it proper that before shoving away the Gambari Emir of Ilorin into River Kwara, they should first of all deal with the Alowo of Owo and so they launched a fierce friendly and brotherly attach using dane guns on the palace. In their usual killer mood, they felt so happy that they saved 37 souls from living, having paid for their transport fare, in blood, to the final kingdom. I don’t need to tell you what vampires are.
Sir, you know these OPC patriots. They are so peace loving, so harmless so brotherly, so friendly and so patriotic that they are always happy wallowing and swimming in the rivers of blood as symbol of the patriotism and dear love for our great fatherland. They love us dead than living.
I have already told you about Cicero Bola Ige. His departure is a clear demonstration that since your departure we have never witnessed assassination in the land. This heinous crime suddenly ended the very moment you left. Equally worthy of special note is that for the past three years, we have never heard of communal or the so called religious crises. They all stopped quite suddenly. There is now peace everywhere in the land.
The other time, professor Sam Aluko, received praises of insults, from official mouth that your regime is worse than our current saintly one especially in the area of the economy. According to the highly respected intellectual, during your ‘dark days’ the Naira was #140 to dollar and in this bright and golden era it is #82? For saying this nasty thing about you, our highly adored president, called him senile, just as he called Biafran advocates ‘mad men’ and university teachers such other unpresidential name callings. It is the style these days, you know, for big men to indulge in insulting the ‘dregs’, such is how solemn our saintly country is presently.
It may interest you to know that some two years back, our president promised us that there would be no more NEPA antics as from 1 January this year. True to form, NEPA has been supplying bright light for twenty four hours interrupted daily keeping a lot of some places in the dark for several days and in some others for six or more hours without failure. Indeed, to show the level of its performance since January this year, no day ever passed without the Authority ensuring to take off light for at least six or more hours. Yesterday, for example, 28/1/02, we watched the Liberian –Nigerian match in the complete darkness of ebony black light. We were all very happy when it supplied us this black charcoal light. It has indeed lived up to the presidential promise.
Recently, labour leaders ordered us off the streets and in a typical democratic manner they were in turn ordered into police cell. When their leader was released on court orders, he was rearrested to enjoy the smelly atmosphere of police cells with tremendous gratitude. But when another court ordered the naughty labour boys to call off their strike, like dictators, they quickly obeyed, in line with respect for the law. The point here is that while the labour chaps “disrespected’’ the law by calling up the strike, as ordered by the court our big democratic oga “respected’’ the law by re-arresting the labour masters in violation of the court order. Such is our excellent level of respect for the rule of law. Those who are supposed to show example by disrespecting the law respect it. Good democratic sense.
This brings me to another issue. You know this young man, Na’Abba, who is the Speaker House of Representatives. The other day he revealed to us that Mr. President has respected the constitution by committing 100 impeachable offences with respect in the last two and a half years. Some 100 unimpeachable offences! This is great for our autocracy you know. It is part of the practice of democracy to disrespect the constitution. I very much admire their ways here.
Still on this, I want to report to you that having subdued and conquered the party system, dealt with NASS, except for the House rebels, threatened a show down with the judiciary, via a letter complaining about how some judges give interim rulings, he fired at labor. So, we may soon have a subdued NASS, a conquered party system, a defeated judiciary, a humiliated labor and a tutored media. Once achieved, our democracy would flourish in totalitarian dungeons and we would be better for it. Ours is a dodged fighter against the practices democracy.
This was why our good president was awarded the undistinguished medal of star of democracy, by his abled minister of information. Those present laugh out their hearts to tears wondering about this curious medal of dishonesty. Star of democracy, awarded for attempting to cage democracy, committal of 100 impeachable offences doggedness to subdue all democratic institutions and on top of it for failure to deliver! Oh yes.
During the media tour award night, many governors went home with several medals. Some had as many as five and nearly all had at least one. Ask them what medals Mr. mighty power went home with. Zero. Except star of democracy coined by the chief tourist, without any distinction attached to it, except for dragging democracy back. The failure of the federal government to receive even a bronze medal from the tourists confirms the observation of Nigerians that there is no much of democracy dividends in the last two years. I need to recall to you that the purpose of the tour was to disprove this. Now, the tourists, led by the minister, who hoped to use it to show Nigerians that dividends of democracy have been recorded,at the federal level has seen, with his own professorial eyes, that in fact and truth failure to deliver has been the success story of democracy at the federal level. This is no longer in doubt. Indeed as at today 29/1/02, some mouth piece was asked on the BBC Hausa service to name only two achievement of the administration in the last two and half years. He rampaged around with words saying almost nothing except mentioning fuel supply.
What else? Nothing. This is how excellent our baby democracy has been misperforming since 1999, May. If I were close to him, I would have whispered in to his ears that the conquest of democracy was another excellent performance during the period.
Under this our democracy there have been active and excellent attempts to create a one party dictatorship through the instrumentality of the electoral law. I am sure, Sir, Chief Ige must have told you what happened to warrant details here. All I can report, for now, is that Nigerians are saying “no way”. Seven of your children, led by General Bamaiyi, were excellently taken care of in Kirikiri where they were treated like kings. I am happy to report to you that they were freed on May 1, 1999, at the pleasure of our God given president, as a demonstration of his determination to reconcile Nigerians for which he set up the Oputa panel, which I know you are quite aware of. Before asking Oputa to reconcile Nigerians, he reconciled himself with members of your family by keeping your senior son in political detention and the other six children in Kirikiri maximum prison. All of them are now there in accordance with the reconciliation theory of our leader and national mentor who wants other Nigerians to reconcile while he doesn’t want to do so with anybody until he takes his pound of flesh. I am sure you will be happy to learn that one of the seven children has never been brought to the court since before 1999 for the good reason that a judge would not say he is a criminal before listening to his case, while another may not call his lawyer a gangster. So, they are protecting him in Kirikiri from going to court which means he may rot in there to their satisfaction. This demonstrates our commitment to the ideals of human rights.
This, in fact, is one of the reason why the star of democracy medal was awarded to mighty power.
I don’t know whether Chief Ige briefed you that genocide and mass murder are minor crimes compared to attempted murder. Yes: two great sons of favour who were taken to court on accusation of genocide and mass murder were allowed to go free, after slaying in detention of about four weeks or so, while those accused of attempted murder have been there since 1999 and some even before. You know how important such discriminatory practices are to democracy and ethnocracy.
This type of discrimination is what makes our democracy great and beneficial to the great sons of favour. After-all, there is a saying that democracy devoid of discriminatory practices is a sham.
Before I forget, let me brief you that the Abuja Stadium awarded at N38 billion one year ago, as against N16 billion believed by the Brettonwoods to be enough for the project, has gone up to N57 billion! You will agree with me that this is a very prudent way of managing scarce resources, very mindlessly. It is one of reasons for the Star of Democracy gold medal award.
Our Policemen are so happy with their condition that in show of appreciation they threatened, for the first time, to embark on strike having not been paid their allowances. What else could we expect form democracy more than our policemen and women threatening industrial action for the first time in our history. Another good reason for the Star of Democracy award. You know that if you do not pay your maigadi for several months, he would guard you properly and defend you with all the powers of empty pockets.
There was a news report from the high Military Command that Nigerian mullahs, with perhaps El-Quida terrorists, are going to attack our military and police formation all over the country. You know, some foreign intelligence agencies have now flooded the country with foreigners teaching our soldiers how to keep peace. I don’t think I need to tell you more than this for now, until our president speaks on the matter. If he doesn’t, then our suspicion is correct.
Be rest assured General that I will keep you abreast with all happenings. Until then.
I remain
Yours sincerely
Wada Nas