OPEN LETTER TO OBASANJO AND ATIKU

Written By Yushau A. Shuaib

OPEN LETTER TO OBASANJO AND ATIKU

New Nigerian May 18, Daily Trust May 19, Sunday Leadership May 21, Thisday June 4, 2006

Your Excellencies, conscious of your positions as the President and Vice President of Federal Republic of Nigeria and most powerful citizens on the land, I address this Open Letter to you with due sense of respect and responsibility. I choose to address you jointly because I believe there is only one Presidency which you are piloting having ascended it through your joint political ticket.

I could have dispatched this letter directly to your respective offices but doubt if it could draw your attention from voluminous mails you receive daily. I could have also channeled it through your special aides, but from what I know of one of your vocal spokespersons, I fear high sounding jargons may be deployed to denounce my attempt since even our former leaders are not spared from his bagful derogatory remarks, whenever they dare to express their personal opinions on national issues verging on your presidency.

Let me declare from the outset that since both of you have never openly campaigned for tenure elongation of your administration, I have refused to accept the general belief that you are behind 3^rd Term scheme. I won’t like to repeat myself too on that, as I had compared such an attempt in my review of Segun Adeniyi’s book, like plagiarizing the Abacha’s script on tenure elongation. See Reading Abacha’s Politicians Again.

Your Excellencies, I am neither a legislator who represents a constituency nor am I a journalist whose media editorials express popular opinion. I am an ordinary Nigerian who has tremendous respect for your powerful offices as symbols of our democracy.

Your Excellencies, the first tenure of your administration when the two of you worked harmoniously like twins, had impacted positively on our social, political and economic life. Your very cordial relationship was a shining example to some governors and their deputies who played cat and mouse games. I can recall how you initiated programmes and policies through collective efforts that further endeared you to the populace.

To consolidate your leadership for the well-being of the citizens, God in his infinite mercy blesses your administration with huge fortune: we witness a rise in monthly federal revenue from less than N25billion before your election in 1999, to an average of N200billion and more since your ascendancy, courtesy of skyrocketing global oil price. Through this unprecedented revenue profile, there are notable developments - the debt relief, the huge foreign reserve, enormous allocations to every sector and above all the recognition of Nigeria as a powerful nation, evident in its being entrusted with high global and regional responsibilities in addition to hosting some great international events in the last seven years.

I could have gone on and on to enumerate some verifiable achievements of your administration but due to the ongoing sentiment in the country where even fanatical Corporate Nigerians do not have the gut to publicly associate with you, I must also be prudent to escape an invocation of FATWA on my head from opposing fanatics. This sad situation has been brought about by the degeneration in your relationship since the beginning of the second tenure. Somehow you have allowed your differences to polarize your presidency and even the political party that brought the two of you to power.

Like a case of estranged married couple whose true source of discord is hidden from their rehearsed public argument, the genesis of your unhealthy relationship is hard to decipher. It is unfortunate that as visionary political leaders you failed to retreat and reconcile your differences thereby giving selfish supporters opportunity to rake in fortunes from the misfortune of your bickering. If your wrangling were kept away from the public, it could have been a different ball game all together. But by washing your unclean linen in the public, you have dampened the spirit of the ordinary citizens who are bewildered and confused, not knowing what to expect from their leaders and government. They are not helped by the media which is awash with scary lead stories on disunited presidency over purported egocentric ambitions. To compound the situation, the ongoing process of amending the constitution is already misconstrued on the shadow of your division and distrust with the strong speculation that it is a surreptitious antic of your administration for egotistic agenda.

Today the turn of event has created hopelessness in the followership confronted by seeming rivalry of the federating units, power tussle of the elite, frustration of genuine investors, ethnic chauvinism, disenchantment at legislative chambers, excessive political tension, bastardization of political processes and unsavory comments from global community. The most painful reality is that your lofty reforms programmes, global acclamation, and heroism are about to be rubbished by the political tension enveloping the nation now.

The level of cynicism on the political front is such that may not be mitigated even if your administration were to give every citizen a million Naira today. This simply points to the fact that the public rating of your administration is dismally low. It isn’t that you haven’t performed but that you have allowed your mutual suspicion and distrust to be used by your respective associates and some elements to play with our collective intelligent.

I wonder if your cabinet members give you truthful and honest advice on the present logjam, even though we know that most political office holders hardly proffer constructive criticism, an impetus for good governance, in their desire to fake loyalty to the boss. One thing that is very sure with such officers and party members is to render new tunes, after they lost out as new converts to the other side.

Your Excellencies, the ordinary citizens respect your offices but are fed up with the avoidable distraction which your frosty relationship has fostered on our nascent democracy. We yearn for nothing less than good service. It is high time you distanced yourselves from circles of societal sycophants and political jobbers who capitalize on the tense situation to make ends meet while the nation boils with anger.

I will not end this letter memo to you, Balogun of Owu and Turaki of Adamawa without counseling you to reflect on the past, examine the present situation and make a decisive decision on the occasion of Democracy Day for a peaceful, prosperous and united Nigeria. How I wish you celebrate your seven years in office as the longest serving democratically elected President and Vice President of the most populous black nation on earth by doing the RIGHT thing. Please use the occasion of Democracy Day to give Nigerians hope…hope from despair…hope of a new beginning…hope of uniting all warring groups….hope to strictly adhere to the Constitution and hope that you will all join the list of proud African statesmen like Nelson Mandela of South Africa.

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