The Nation Newspaper

Category: Letters

  • Open letter to President Jonathan

    SIR: Permit the liberty I take in addressing this open letter to our President, Dr Goodluck Jonathan. I am a bona fide Nigerian and a senior citizen. I am by the grace of God past 84 years.

    I have been active in politics since I was 16 years old from the secondary school. I was a very active member of the disciplined Zikist Movement. I was a local president of the NCNC/NEPU alliance in Bukuru on the Plateau in the 1950s. I was a very effective and successful Trade Union leader as a young adult on the Plateau. I have made great contributions in both participating in sport and in the development of youth through sport.

    Forgive my talking a bit of myself. I do so only to justify the liberty I take to address this letter to my President because I am going to base this letter to the President on my Christian faith and understanding of politics and governance.

    My understanding and only accepted definition of politics is that it is the proper management of the affairs of men. Nigeria for decades has been indulging in politics and governance that uphold the politics of steal, kill, and destroy Nigeria’s economy and in consequence, the Nigerian people. I had hoped that you might incline your pattern of politics and governance to providing life and life more abundantly for our economy and people.

    Your Excellency’s government and politics to my understanding, inadvertently mingles and battles to sustain the policy and practice of hurting Nigeria.  I therefore deem it a bounding duty and responsibility to draw your Excellency’s attention to my personal views on events and developments since you became president.

    Corruption is not just the dynamic manifestations of the sordid acts of scoundrels and kleptomaniacs; it is the calculated ruining of that which is good by any individual, group of people, or government. In the polity, corruption has developed to a very dynamic and powerful major national religion. It is an admixture of religions in Nigeria championed and piloted by Christians and Muslims. Corruption as number one religion of Nigeria, craftily eschews tribe, gender and religion as qualification for membership. The only qualification for membership is that one can steal, kill and destroy the economy of Nigeria and in consequence what sustains Nigeria’s greatness. Governments and some leaders in Nigeria are ‘unconsciously’ obligated to make a bee-line for membership of the religion of corruption because of the attendant benefits of filthy lucre.

    Dear President, the goings on in Nigeria polity under your leadership is progressively taking on new, worrisome and dangerous dimensions. It is beginning to appear that President Goodluck Jonathan is either re-elected in 2015 to rule us for another four -year term or there will be no Nigeria.  May it not be so please Mr. President! The prevailing pattern of politics and governance in Nigeria is awkward, very irresponsible, heartless and treacherous.  It sustains a season of falsehood, deceit and confusion. These add up to one word: – TERRORISM.

    You met us as one Nigeria – even though currently a very sick country. You can facilitate our healing and improve our lot by applying the “Balm of Gilead”. If you cannot heal and improve our lot, please apply a soothing balm: The “balm of Gilead”. The ongoing politics is perilous and portends nothing but intent towards the destruction of a nation.

    Dear President, I persuade you not to run for election in 2015. You are already President and as ex-President, your privileges will be immense and kept alive for as long as you live. You will also have the privilege of being a positive reference point for politicians because of your noble act in contributing to the preservation of your country Nigeria.

    The most unfortunate thing that has happened to Nigeria during your regime is the unfettered advantage and privilege given to hypocrites, evil doers, godless and dangerous folks who found their way into your choice team of senior advisers. They are vehicles of destruction. They are hell-bent on amassing wealth and destroying Nigeria. They desperately need another four years to accomplish their devilment.

    Like the First Lady once rightly exclaimed, “There is God o!” Let the mischief makers realize that there is a God Almighty – the final arbiter who can kill both body and soul in hell.

    Do not contest the elections in 2015. God bless you Mr. President!  Save Nigeria and you will have a worthy name.

     

    • Rev. Dr. Moses Iloh

    Lagos

  • Bring back our girls: 84 days after

    SIR: More than 80 days after close to 300 schoolgirls were kidnapped in Chibok by Boko Haram, and many weeks after the Nigerian army claimed it had located them, nothing concrete has been achieved and the missing girls remain in the bush, far away from their families.

    The girls were said to have been loaded into trucks by Boko Haram insurgents on April 14, as they slept in their school dormitories in Chibok, a rural area 130 kilometres from Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State. While 57 escaped, at least 219 others have only been seen in a video released by Abubakar Shekau, in which he threatened to sell the girls into slavery unless they are swapped with detained Boko Haram members.

    Even with international help from countries like United States, Britain and France, the Nigerian army has failed to either rescue the girls or strike a deal with the insurgents to release them.

    It is now obvious that no one knows where the girls are or what has been happening to them. No one can say authoritatively how many of them are still alive or even well.

    After initially claiming that it had rescued the girls, only to retract its statement following media backlash, the Nigerian army seems to be losing credibility in the rescue saga by the day.

    The Nigerian government also seems eager to turn the page and late last week, President Goodluck Jonathan embarked on what the Washington Post called “newspaper diplomacy” by writing an opinion article in The Washington Post. His claims that his heart aches over the missing Chibok girls could be taken with a pinch of salt.

    The ban on #BringBackOurGirls protests in Abuja some weeks ago, the seizures of many newspapers critical to the government and the rhetoric by the Nigerian army against the Nigerian press suggest President Jonathan and his administration simply want to turn the page and focus on the 2015 elections coming up next year.

    But newspaper diplomacy and intimidation cannot erase the fact that the girls are still missing 79 days after they were kidnapped. The administration would like Nigerians to forget about the missing girls and move on. But we will not. Over 35,000 security personnel were deployed for the Ekiti governorship election.  Why can’t there such massive deployment of troops to rescue the girls?

    We believe the best diplomacy the President can embark upon is to first find the girls, rescue them and reunite them with their families. Anything short of that is just balderdash.

    • Oni Oluwatobi David,

  • On the plight of teachers

    The universally old and popular maxim that states, “change is the only constant phenomenon on earth” is so apt when one goes in retrospect to rationalise and analyse the fall of the teacher.

    From time immemorial, in every human society, those who belong to the noble guild or profession of teaching are held in high esteem. Teaching as a role is all encompassing as it cuts across the family, religious bodies, school and the work place. Teaching as a profession evolved through a long period of time as the role and function become more complex.

    In the ancient Greek society, itinerant teachers were common sight as parents engaged their services for the transfer of knowledge to their wards. The great and cerebral Socrates was above equals in that era that threw up the likes of Pluto, Aristotle, et al.

    Teaching as a profession through evolution enjoyed a pride of place in every clime. Even the informal and non-formal types due to the common thread that links all together, ‘repository of knowledge’. The sudden shift in policy priority that saw to the relegation of this noble profession to the background awed many people.

    Those who ought to know pretended not to know and today, the festering old wound is malignant. The victims are searing in pain so excruciating that they had to fight with the tenacity of self-preservation as the first instinct of man for survival.

    A cursory perusal of history textbooks, commentaries and analysis of developments in the education sector perhaps would reveal the missing link. The where, why and when things went awry in this sector call for sincere and holistic studies in order to proffer a lasting solution.

    Until the restoration of that old prestige to the teaching profession, enabling and empowering teachers through monetary incentives, the wound festers, when the sore festers, the victims who feel the pain can never stop complaining.

    In my own humble submission, I do strongly believe that the education sector holds the magic wand that can transform the country. Imagine a scenario where the country becomes host to foreign students from all over Africa and beyond. Also, importing teachers outside the shores of the country to teach and repatriate home foreign exchange.

    Britain and Ghana are just but few examples of countries in the league of education for foreign exchange (the knowledge economy that will outlast all natural resources). This is the fullness of time for government to have a rethink and translate this emphasis into a strategic plan.

    Going by the recommended percentage of a national budget by the UNESCO for the development of education sectors, we have a long way to go. It takes political will power, transparency, accountability and the genuine belief in human capacity building to rescue the deterioration the sector is in today.

    Given the vital role of education to human societies, human capital development, technology, political maturity and social cultural orientation, we risk underdevelopment by neglecting commensurate investment in the sector. The sad negative implication is clear as a crystal ball that one needs any analysis to discern the horrendous impact across generations.

    Is this gory scenario what successive leadership of this country wants to bequeath to the youths that supposedly are the leaders of tomorrow? Where then is the future for the youths to inherit and carry out their own leadership role as a continuum. The remedy to the impending anomie lies in fixing the education sector which is a crucial social institution for socialisation.

    We know many of the political elites today are beneficiaries of the purposeful leadership of the generations of leaders before them. It’s high time they borrowed a leaf from those old classes of leaders.

    At the turn of yet other journeys into a new centenary of Nigeria existence, the education sector has been at the front burner of national discourse. There have been and still ongoing educational summits by stakeholders to grapple with the ugly menace bedevilling the sector that has overtime become an albatross

    Given the germane logic of teachers’ demands which encompass emolument, benefits and provision of needed facilities in school, they stand indicted on moral ground. These prolong demands that have stifled progress in academic activities across the tertiary institutions in the country should serve as a revolution in the sector. The government should for the sake of Nigerian children meet these critical demands. The government will now be justified to role out tall orders that border on restoring morality, ethics and values to the education sector. The child/leaner will become a force to reckon with as their evaluations will decide the fate of their teachers. Teachers in various tertiary institutions abuse their authority by stepping out of bound in their teacher – student relationship. Unfair and unhealthy sex, money for marks/ grades negotiation has been the bane of the Nigeria’s education sector.

     

    By Comrade Ogbu A. Ameh

    Abuja

    Onwaters20ll@gmail.com

  • The new Emir of Kano

    The recent appointment of the former Central Bank Governor, Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, by the Kano State Government as the new Emir of Kano is clear indication that destiny can’t be prevented from happening.

    The rise of Mallam Sanusi did not come to many Nigerians as a surprise, seeing his many antecedents as regard his determination of being crowned as the emir of Kano any time the exalted stool became vacant.

    When the late Emir, Dr Ado Bayero, passed on, all eyes focused on who would become the next Emir.

    Many Nigerians’ attention shifted to him because he has demonstrated the trait and most of his comments have been to occupy the position which his father was not privileged to occupy during his lifetime.

    Also, providence played a significant role in his ascension to the throne, which would have eluded him if he did not show his fearless attributes when he was governor of CBN by blowing the whistle on the controversial N20 billion oil money not remitted to the coffers of government.

    Also, the reforms he made at banking sector made him one of the most popular Central Bank governors Nigeria has produced since independence.

    Malam Sanusi’s ascension to the throne in Kano would change the age-long tradition of doing things in the entire Kano Emirate, because he is going to bring vibrancy and modernise the ongoing affairs in the whole of Kano chiefdom.

    It must be noted that the new Emir, being a blue blood, would give the traditional institution in this country a different direction, with important role Kano has played in the political equation of this country.

    We sincerely hope the mounting of the throne by him as the 14th Emir of Kano would witness peace, progress, development and justice to the entire people of Kano and Nigeria in general.

     

    By Bala Nayashi

    Yashi Area

    Lokoja, Kogi State

  • What Jonathan should have written

    SIR: Last month, The Post published an op-ed by Ni­ger­ian President Goodluck Jonathan answering criticism of his response to the kidnapping of hundreds of schoolgirls by the group Boko Haram. This is what he should have written.

    I have remained quiet about Nigeria’s continuing efforts to find the girls kidnapped in April from the northern town of Chibok, because, honestly, I hoped the world would ignore it as just another “African tragedy.” But the attention brought by #BringBackOurGirls forced my administration to abandon its usual do-nothing strategy. I admit that for weeks, the Nigerian military was nowhere to be seen in Chibok and aggrieved parents had to resort to venturing into the jungle on foot to search for their children. But I assure everyone, we are doing our best.

    I am speaking out now because national elections are in less than a year and my Washington PR firm needs to earn the reported $1.2 million I am paying it to reverse the criticism that has overshadowed all my good intentions.

    I wish to assure Nigerians and the international community that, even though my military officially wrapped up its investigation into the kidnappings, without locating the girls, we are sparing no resources. We will keep the findings of the investigations secret, since my good-faith assurances are enough.

    My heart aches for the missing children and their families. In fact, my heartache was so painful that I canceled plans to visit Chibok. Instead, I eased my pain by flying to Paris for a national security summit. My first lady, Patience Jonathan, shares in my grief for the families affected by the tragedy. She was so troubled by the agitation of protesters demanding their girls back that she told them to stop their actions and allegedly ordered the police to detain several protest leaders.

    While terrorism knows no borders, and security threats rage on across West Africa, Nigeria has long been reluctant to accept counterterrorism assistance from the United States and other partners. Nothing is more important than stopping the machinations of Boko Haram, except maybe my desire to keep up appearances and show the international community that Nigeria was winning the war against the group. I know that I have characterized Boko Haram as a temporary scourge, but in the wake of the latest attacks and kidnappings of more women just this week, I recognize that it has effectively exploited the inability of the Nigerian military to put up any semblance of a sustained coordinated response. But in spite of all the challenges, we are definitely doing our best.

    Despite Nigeria’s status as a regional powerhouse with a population of 168 million, until now it had not occurred to me to collaborate with neighboring countries to fight terrorism. I wish to thank French President François Hollande for inviting me and other West African presidents to Paris to discuss this. When it comes to strategizing on African solutions to African problems, a European should take the lead. Besides, I do my best thinking in Paris.

    My critics say that decades of neglect have led to conditions amenable to radicalization in the north. My detractors will point also to human rights abuses perpetrated by the military. Let the finger-pointing stop. I am sparing no resources. I propose to set up an international summit to organize a fact-finding commission of investigative inquiry to study the progress of ongoing investigations of corruption and lack of development in the north. I have again asked President Hollande to provide a forum for this in Paris, though I would accept the French Riviera.

    Something positive can come out of the kidnappings more than 70 days ago. The world has seen what can happen when terrorism is left to run amok and the citizens of a country have little faith in the ability of their government to protect them. But I wish to assure Nigerians and the rest of the world that I am doing my best.

    • Karen Attiah,

    Editorial department,

    Washington Post,

    United States

  • As lawyers go to the polls

    SIR: I write this as a reality check based on status-quo as obtained in the Nigerian Bar Association today. I stand to be corrected. Conference and practising fees go up year in and out whilst welfare of members remains on the “miscellaneous” list of the national leadership. No professional body has lost touch with realities as the NBA as it is today which is one of the reasons why the annual general conference has turned into a quasi-tourist destination to cool off the stress of a tasking legal year rather  than a forum of intellectually stimulating and professionally rewarding discourses. Yet we are incapacitated to put good leadership in place, no thanks to the anachronistic delegate-voting system.

    To make it worse, these inauspicious signs are already rubbing off on the generation next known as Young Lawyers Forum. All hope is not lost, we can always get it right, starting with Abuja 2014.

    Delegates must go out decisively to vote for their conscience and credibility not endorsement or inducement under any guise.

    I look forward to a better, all-inclusive, active and reform oriented NBA leadership come August in Owerri.

     

    • Ogbeni Babatope Adebiyi Esq

    Ado-Ekiti

  • Femi Fani-Kayode’s mischief

    SIR: There is this popular statement that silence is the best answer to a fool.  However, when certain utterances are left without refutation, they are believed rightly or wrongly to be true. That is why I have chosen to reply the unguarded and mischievous utterances by former Minister of Aviation, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode who has suddenly canonized himself as a “saint”.

    For the past few days, Fani-Kayode has been using the social media to campaign against the All Peoples Congress (APC) and some of its leaders particularly General Muhammadu Buhari and former Governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. The most recent was his appearance on Channels Television on Monday June 30, where he cast a lot of aspersions on the duo.

    I cannot condemn his affiliation with Peoples Democratic Party since the choice of a political party is his exclusive right as a Nigerian.

    It is however, not a hidden fact that Fani-Kayode is one of the few Nigerians who earn their living by blackmail and mischief; this had paid him well in the past and being conscious of the benefits, he still believes that this means will bounce him back in the current era hence his new sermon.

    On Channels television and in other social media outfits, he accused the APC of plots to impose an Islamic agenda on Nigerians with the planned choice of Buhari and Tinubu as Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates respectively; that the APC and Buhari are sympathizers of Boko Haram; and that Buhari and his northern brothers have seen the leadership of Nigeria as their birthright and hence their connivance with a handful of southerners to remove a southern minority Christian in order to impose an Islamic agenda on Nigeria.

    When Chief Obasanjo was sworn in as President in 1999, Fani-Kayode was at the forefront of those who saw nothing good in the new civilian administration. I remember when he called the President a CIA agent – not fit to rule Nigeria. Shortly afterwards, he was appointed the President’s Special Assistant on Public Affairs where he immediately changed his tune. While serving in that capacity, he descended heavily on anybody that dared to differ with the president on anything.  I cannot forget the day he insulted Chief Sunday Awoniyi (of blessed memory) and Col. Abubakar Dangiwa Umar retd. for speaking out against the tenure elongation plot and other ills perpetrated in Aso Rock.

    When he was nominated as minister in compensation of the mercenary assignment he ran for the president, he would later tender an unreserved apology the National Assembly for his primitive vituperations. As Minister of Aviation for few months, billions of naira was stolen under his watch for which the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has since arraigned him in court.

    Going by these antecedents, what moral authority has Fani-Kayode to attack the likes of General Buhari and others? Look at the people he is accusing to have connived with northerners to Islamize Nigeria:  Tinubu’s wife is a Christian, Bisi Akande’s wife is a Christian, Ogun State Governor, Ibikunle Amosun’s wife is a Christian, Lagos State Governor, and Babatunde Fashola’s wife is a Christian. Can these people connive with anybody to pursue an agenda where their immediate families will be affected?

    Nigeria may be a place where mediocrity is celebrated and deviants crowned as heroes; but it is high time we allowed people like Fani-Kayode to know where they belong.

    • Comrade Richard Tersoo Mnenga

    Pfeffingerstrasse 12

    Basel 4055- Switzerland.

  • Suarez: When talent is not enough

    SIR: Uruguayan born football whiz kid, Louis Suarez is, no doubt, a talented footballer. Last season, before he finally agreed to stay with his club, Liverpool FC of England, he was a subject of fierce transfer speculations as major clubs in Europe jostled to snap him from the service of Liverpool FC. Though he started the 2013/14 English Premier League (EPL) season late, having earlier been suspended for nine matches, Suarez still emerged the highest goal scorer with 31 goals. Not only that, for his amazing exploits on the field of play, he was overwhelmingly voted the EPL Player of the Season. Such is the unbelievable strength of Suarez talent.

    As he does for his club, so also he does for his Uruguay national team. At the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, Suarez was partially part of the reason Uruguay got to the semi-final, breaking the hearts of many Ghanaians, and indeed, Africans, in the process. He has equally repeated his heroic acts for his country at the on- going World Cup in Brazil when he single handedly took England to the cleaners, scoring two great goals in their Group D second match.

    It is, however, unfortunate that Suarez has not been able to properly leverage on his mercurial footballing talent with some of his disgusting on-field acts. Rather than being remembered for his footballing exploits, the sheer mention of Suarez’s name, ironically, now evokes bad memories as a result of his numerous shameful acts of biting fellow players on the field.  At Holland, Suarez was involved in a brawl involving players from his erstwhile team, Ajax Amsterdam and PSV Eindhoven in a Dutch league match during which he bit a PSV player, Bakkal, on the neck. Also, in the closing stages of a 2012/2013 EPL game between his team, Liverpool FC  and Chelsea FC,  Ivanovic and Suarez jostled for the ball in the penalty area, to which Suarez responded by biting the Serbian defender on the arm.

    As if he has not done enough havoc to the game, Suarez recently made a hat-trick of biting during a Brazil 2014 World Cup game against Italy when he bit Italian defender, Giorgio Chiellini, on the shoulder during a penalty area scuffle.

    Football is, without doubt, a contact sport that involves physical struggles. There are, however, boundaries that players should not cross. Suarez has flouted the rules of the game on numerous occasions. His inability to turn a new leaf in spite of numerous sanctions in the past is simply an indication that his talent is not enough to make him a legend of the game.

    The Suarez case has clearly brought to fore the limitations of talent in man’s quest for excellence in life’s pursuit. There have been numerous cases of highly talented people, in diverse spheres of life, who still failed to achieve optimal success in life. The late Whitney Houston was blessed with amazing singing talent but ended up a failure in spite of her endowment.  Former World Heavy Weight Boxing Champion, ‘Iron’ Mike Tyson, became a multimillionaire before he clocked age 20. He, however, through his riotous lifestyle, squandered all the fortune amassed from boxing and today remains heavily indebted. In our clime, the name Etim Esin rings a ball, at least for football lovers. At the height of his footballing glory, Etim was compared to Argentine Soccer prodigy, Maradona. Such was the depth of his talent. Unfortunately, Etim blew it with his unruly style of life. Music genius, Majek Fashek, is today a shadow of his former self because he couldn’t properly manage his God given music talent.

    Talent is God-given. Talent, however, is not enough in the path to success.  According to American author, H. Jackson Brown Jr., best known for his inspirational book, ‘Life’s Little Instruction Book’,   ”talent without discipline is like an octopus on roller skates. There is plenty of movement, but you never know if it is going to be forward, backwards, or sideways.” How apt!

    • Tayo Ogunbiyi

     Ministry of Information & Strategy, Alausa, Ikeja.

  • Another needless doctors’ strike

    SIR: With due respect to my teachers, senior colleagues and colleagues, the call for downing of tool by doctors is needless having read the ratio on which the strike was called. Having worked within and outside Nigeria both in Clinical and Public Health domain, I am strongly obliged to state that the nation’s health drawbacks are essentially caused by doctors who are meant to be the leaders of the health team. It suffices to state that while it is true that the leadership of the health team is like a birthright, their roles and responsibility must equally be so. Only when these are aligned can we claim the leadership of the health team. As for the request placed before the federal government, it is sad to note that the issues are quite petty and trivial to culminate in the decision that will result to irreversible consequences and loss of lives.

    As a medical doctor with over 14 years experience, I have never had to face the question of whether or not I am the head of any health team where I found myself as the most senior doctor or the only doctor in a collection of health practitioners in a health mission. The simple reason is that I know my bound and appreciate that even the weakest link in my team count. The posture and activities of my colleagues both at the public and private sectors is appalling, such that it has left some of us who have seen our shortfalls and have made or shown some resentment to it are seen as deviants.

    I am not surprised at the backlash we receive from other team mates in the hospital. Looking critically at their opposition to us, you will naturally find that something is wrong with us as doctors, if not, how could we have lost the confidence of all our team mates including non medics such as the ward attendants, administration staff etc?

    Now my question is, of what value is the appointment of a Deputy Chairman, Medical Advisory Committee (DCMAC) to the already Chief Medical Director (CMD) and Chairman, Medical Advisory Committee (CMAC) that has been exclusively for doctors?

    How is the work of a doctor affected by the appointment of the most senior health practitioner to direct the activities of his other colleagues as a director; or how is doctor’s work affected if a health practitioner has reached a level of expertise in his field and he is referred to as a consultant?

    It is quite worrisome to hear my colleagues down tools for the simple reason that the post of a Surgeon General is yet to be filled even when the two ministerial slots are occupied by doctors. I believe that the hazards’ allowance needs to be reviewed, but doctors especially our consultants must justify the little that has been paid by actively availing themselves in the daily routines of the hospital instead of turning attainment of consultant in the hospital as a gateway to truancy; my colleagues know what I mean.

    We are already fast losing our respect from the government and the general public, and in recent time even from our colleagues whose disposition is for the good of man.

    This piece is a wakeup call to my colleagues to look within and appreciate the rot and imbroglio our actions and in-actions have brought to this noble profession and the health sector in general.

    • Dr Abdullahi Baba Abdul,

    Former UN Medical Doctor to the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.

     

  • Re: President’s men at work

    SIR:  Gbenga Omotoso’s, your ‘President at work’ is first class. He is a good historian and expert at putting ‘high flyers’ in positions of authority which he called round pegs in round holes. He made a mistake though. Appropriately, Abacha should be allocated the Ministry of Finance where he would display his unprecedented talent at managing and applying national resources. Please reconsider the composition of your cabinet! I can assure you, at the end of the year you will top the list of editors with specialised skills for discovering talents. Pray, where were you in 1963 to 1966? Still very young? We had a formidable political leader, an elegant jurist and adventurer whose office was at Mokola Round-about in Ibadan and who was affectionately called Fani-Power. His party, the NCNC got married to SL Akintola’s breakaway party from the Action Group to form the concoction that snatched the election of 1964, that led to the coups of 1966, that led to the civil war of 1967, that led to the interminable military forays into the administration of the country. Good luck to us all.

     

    • Deji Fasuan,

    Senior Citizen, Ekiti.