The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Open letter

  • Open letter to Governor Amaechi

    Open letter to Governor Amaechi

    My dear governor, Sometime in 1980, under the tutelage of Professor Okwudiba Nnoli, I was introduced to the study of politics and thoughts of radical scholars. Walter Rodney, I was told, before I even had the opportunity of reading him, challenged every generation, out of relative obscurity, to fulfill its mission or betray it. This has been my watchword since then.

    As governor of Rivers State, you are one in whom every member of my generation must be pleased. In the face of tyranny by a federal government that has demonstrated lack of empathy for the people and cluelessness in discharging its responsibility, like a soldier of democracy, you have stood up to the emperor in Abuja, refusing to be crushed. You opted to speak out even when it appears out of fashion.

    In my corner, I applauded when, assured of the support of majority of the members,you held firm to your mandate as chairman of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum even as the emperor and his men chose to chase you out.  Since then, the joke has been on them, justifying how 16 has become the majority in a Club of 36 at a meeting attended by 35 members.

    Then came the charging matriarch who, lacking constitutional role, and the restraint that some polish could provide, has been content with mischief making. She decided to engage you in contest for territorial control. The competition is still on. I salute your courage. I laud your tenacity. I remember the words of Professor Wole Soyinka that the man dies in him who keeps silent or acquiesces in the face of tyranny. You have remained vocal.

    My dear governor, let me encourage you in the words of the Bible that when one walks in the path of righteousness, even if he finds himself in the valley of the shadow of death, he need fear no evil as the Lord would be with him. Be assured that as long as you remain steadfast and refuse to bow to their idols, He will grant you the strength to endure, and hand you victory.

    The path you have chosen to take is indeed narrow. As 2015 draws nearer, you will be deserted by many of those who claim to be solidly with you now. As the foe bares his fangs, many of your aides will jump ship. Those who are convinced that the locus of power is in Abuja are likely to run to obtain their share of the national cake.

    But, please do not listen to those who contend that the emperor is a giant before whom all should tremble and flee. There are giants who have only clay feet. The fact that Abuja has failed so far in getting the state House of Assembly to move in the direction it has chosen shows the majority of the people are for their governor and stand for the truth. I know you need no reminder that the battle is neither to the strong, nor the race to the swift and that the Lord God could choose to confound the wise with the foolish things of this world.

    Remember, brother, that Bola Tinubu of Lagos is a man of like passion. At a point when the sea of the country was turbulent and another emperor, perhaps one more vicious identified him as the one who troubles Nigeria, the then governor of Lagos refused to quake or faint. He looked the man who had thought he controlled all powers in the face and dared him to do his worst. Tinubu did not only survive, he won his respect and guaranteed his place in the hearts of most Lagosians. Today, a visit to his Bourdillon Street, Ikoyi residence is enough to show that the true champion in the political arena is the one who has the people behind and by his side.

    Today, you are a governor. Your performance in the past six years speaks for you, whatever anyone may say. This could translate to a permanent partnership if only you could continue on the path of steadfastness.

    Once again, peoples’ governor, it is the moment of decision. Some men of yesterday who chose to dance to the tune dictated by Abuja have totally lost their relevance. Those who located their masters in Abuja are out of range today. But, as many as realised that popular sovereignty resides permanently in the people, still stand today.

    I beseech you, brother, be ye steadfast, unmovable, stand with the people as a God-given assignment. Only then may you reap the promise that the Egyptians you see today, you shall see no more.

    I wish you the very best on this journey and Davidic victory.

    Your compatriot,

    BOLADE

  • Open letter to the President

    SIR: I write on behalf of the millions of dreams that are getting dashed by the day as the total shut-down of our universities persists. I write on behalf of the future of the several hundreds of thousands who have been privileged, amidst the stiff competition for admission, to grab tertiary education but may end up worse than their disadvantaged counterparts since they may never finish on schedule.

    The handwriting on the wall, more than ever before, foretells of a dangerous twist to the continuing imbroglio between your administration and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU). I do not know if the public keeps the date as much as we do, but it is well over 65 days already and I cannot help but wonder if anyone really cares as to what becomes of our street-wandering undergraduates.

    Our dear President, we are tired. We, the students in the federal universities are always at the receiving end of every impasse between ASUU and the government and all I can ask for now is that you and your think-tank reconsider your stand on the matter. We can only bear this much!

    I am not ASUU’s spokesman, but it is only logical that I expect your administration to honour the 2009 agreement with the union so normalcy can return to our campuses and of course, our disenchanted academic lives.

    I have spent more years than is required to have a second degree and yet I am grappling to take a Bachelor’s degree out of an institution that only recently had an internal strike because you would have our name ‘re-branded’.

    Mr. President, every day this strike continues, more dreams die and more

    future riffraff are born. Posterity will remember you for good or ill based on how you handle this crisis.

    It goes without saying that for 14 years that your party has held sway over the affairs of this nation, we cannot boast of a Nigerian university amongst the first two thousand in the world. This is more than enough reason to release the requisite fund for the upgrade of our educational infrastructure as well as the welfare of the future’s moulders. We can only get out of our educational system as much as we invest in it and though investment in educational is long term, it is also long-rewarding. The futures of our unborn children are in jeopardy even before their conception, but you can change all of these!

    Mr. President, help me and my fellow undergraduates live decent lives even if our parents are not among the top one per cent who squander our national earnings as political office holders. Would you do this for me, for us, for Nigeria’s future?

    • Joshua Oyeniyi,

    Lagos

  • Open letter to Chime

    A statesman recuperating from a debilitating ailment hardly needs any unnecessary distractions let alone one that could snowball into a conflagration, an uncontrollable combustion enough to trigger of an internecine hostility nay war.

    Permit me, Your Excellency to have taken this thorny and sensitive issue to the public domain, but this is possibly the fastest means of communication, considering the urgency it deserves and more so, your gubernatorial authority and dispatch can only nip in the bud this injustice.

    A vibrant town called Umualo, landlocked but strategic in Isi-Uzo Local Government Area, has for long endured the provocation and overt display of intrigues by its neighboring town,Amankanu, of Nkanu East Local Government.

    About three decades ago, the farmlands and settlements of Umuezuboke Village that border Amanakanu people, became the centre of a communal war when the latter forcefully encroached on Umualo lands to usurp them. The Amankanus were repelled, thus suffering a bloody nose.

    Only last week, 31 years after, another surreptitious attempt was re-enacted. This time, with an alleged tacit government support of the Ministry of Lands in Enugu State. A surveyor emerged on the lands again with some Amankanu people and illegally began demarcation encompassing farmlands of Umuezuboke, their schools and the natives who had resided there since the days of Methuselah.

    Of course, the natives rushed out and seized the implements, chasing away the surveyor and his collaborators. How lucky they were. Our people, who have the greatest respect for the governor, have always remained peaceful, a hallmark of Isi-Uzo people in general. In other very hostile climes, the intruders would have disappeared from mother earth.

    Before this ugly incident, the news had been rife that the Amankanu people would be giving their land to government for various developmental projects. What a lofty news, but would they be consigning parcels of land they don’t own to government. Are they Umuezuboke people who own and had lived there ever since the ancient days? No one toys with his ancestral land.

    Umualo cannot be an impediment to development. It is most welcome but if government should be keen on the area, it is only proper and just that the genuine people who own the land are consulted directly because it is an autonomous community and not answerable to interlopers.

    Let’s humour the commissioner for Lands and give him the benefit of doubt that he is ignorant that the proposed ‘Greek gift’, by the Amankanus are parcel of lands of Umuezuboke people of Umualo Town viz Igbogobe, Ikagwu, Egerum and Odobido amongst others. The alarming permutations have call for your immediate action, more so when it is feared that the commissioner coming from Nkanuland is out to railroad a long-forgotten dispute in favour of Amankanu.

    This writer cannot forget in a hurry the wisdom you displayed in settling amicably a hot bed of 23 chairmanship candidates vying relentlessly to become the flag bearer of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the last elections in Enugu State. So patient, so fatherly with firmness and fair play, you devised a methodology that eventually produced the PDP candidate after four-gruelling hours you gave to Isi-Uzo.

    Even when it was obvious other local governments lay in wait to have audience, you said inter alia: “I have all the time for Isi-Uzo people by so doing demonstrated a heart pure, untainted and love for my people.” You won my admiration that sunny day at the Enugu Government Lodge.

    It is on the strength and realising how decisive you resolved the burning issues of that time, that this letter becomes imperative to be channelled to you, to call the commissioner and his ilk to order.

    The Isi-Uzo people remain eternally grateful to you for doing the road from Enugu- Ugwogo-Ikem, making it easier for our people to get to the capital city. Some of us were born into seeing no such road since in the 50s. Although Umualo still awaits your promise of doing their road less than eight kilometres off the major Ugwogo-Neke-Ikem road, the community has borne the brunt of being the only community in Isi-Uzo without electricity, without a GSM service provider, it would be a telling blow if their ancestral lands would now be usurped through tyranny.

    This has fuelled the suspicion of our people that they have been wrongly lumped into Enugu East as yeomen instead of Nsukka which is their ancestral home and some of us who are unrepentant Nsukka people believe that the contraption was unjust and like a popular cart pusher plying the ever busy Ogbete market in Enugu with bold inscriptions on the body of his ‘car’ “Agaracha must return.”

    Our people must return to their kith and kin, it’s just time, just time!

    A good laugh, Mr. Governor.

    By Obinwa Nnaji

  • Open letter to education minister

    Open letter to education minister

    Some months ago, a cousin of mine, who lives and works in Minnesota, United States of America, shared a terrifying testimony of his wife’s experience on his Facebook timeline. It was titled, “Why FUTA (by extension, Nigeria) needs a change: The Story of my Wife”.

    He wrote: Last week I promised to tell more of the story of how my wife was forced out of her graduate studies at the Federal University of Technology Akure (FUTA). Please if you attended, FUTA, take time to read this piece. I must also say from the onset that it is nothing against the university but a desire to see a change…

    Yes, it is true that my wife – (name supplied) graduated with a first class honours from FUTA. She was honoured as the best graduating student in her department and the best graduating female student of the Faculty of Sciences. So she immediately returned to FUTA for Master of Science (M.Sc.) degree with the hope that she would eventually obtain the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree. As God would have it, the Redeemer’s University (RUN) was just opening their doors for students at the time, so she picked up an appointment as one of the pioneer lecturers. She would travel every week from the Redemption Camp to FUTA for classes and return to give her lectures.

    Just as she did during her undergraduate, she worked so hard that she scored A’s in almost all the classes she took and completed class works in three semesters. After completing the required classes for M.Sc. degree at FUTA, it was time for her to begin her research. That was when the trouble started.

    A particular lecturer –the graduate coordinator of the department during that session – assigned herself to be my wife’s adviser (or supervisor as they are called in Nigeria). Six months after she took that decision, it became clear she should not even be employed at FUTA and only God knows why FUTA was not only keeping her but the department head dreaded her like Almighty.

    This woman did not have a contact phone –and this was 2006; she did not have a car and she comes to the school whenever she wanted. The problem with someone like that working with any student was that such student(s) cannot make any plan outside being in school for 24 hours. And considering the fact that my wife was coming from the redemption camp every week, it became extremely difficult for her to move forward with this woman as her adviser.

    We later found out that a student already had a misfortune of working with this woman. This student had completed her classes one year before my wife did and she hasn’t even had a project topic because she could barely set her eyes on her supposed adviser.

    So after six months of doing nothing since completing her classes and with her job on the line (because she must complete the M.Sc. at a certain time if she wanted to keep her employment with RUN), my wife went to the department head and requested to be reassigned to another lecturer in the department. There were lecturers willing to take my wife as their student, in fact the oldest and the only professor in the department was so enraged about the state of things with my wife’s study that he volunteered to be her adviser. But the Head of Department (HOD) turned down her request. His reason was that he was not prepared to get into a fight with the woman. All efforts to get the HOD to see what potentially could happen to the careers of my wife and that of the other student already in this woman trap ended in futility.

    After more than nine months of doing nothing, after series of tearful nights and at least a car accident, we were forced to give up everything she has worked for at FUTA. She had to give it up because it became clear that the woman was only interested in punishing (her word) my wife.

    My wife applied and got admission into the graduate programme of the University of Ibadan (UI). The school was ready to waive some classes for her but almighty FUTA refused to release her official transcript – crazy, right? Their reason was that she did not graduate but the fact is that schools all the world issue transcripts even for one year of study.

    My wife had to start all over at UI. But it was not even six months after she got into UI that the University of Tennessee, Knoxville USA offered her an admission with full tuition waiver and stipend. And now she has graduated with a Ph.D. degree.

    My wife’s experience was actually not my first with FUTA lecturers basically ruining the careers of students they are supposed to build. There was this professor in the Computer Science Department while I was at FUTA that will not show up for classes until two weeks to the end of semester.

    Like I said, I am speaking out because I want the management of FUTA to know the impact of the behaviours of some of their lecturers on the careers of students that were entrusted into their hands. My wife spent exactly 11 semesters at the University of Tennessee but she would have spent less had the transcripts of the classes she took at FUTA been released but some people used their powers and added almost two years to someone’s time at school and they never felt bad about it.

    I don’t know how many students in Nigeria are still going through what my wife and others that I met during our unnecessary trying times at FUTA went through. But what I do know is that some students are still paying dearly with their careers for the actions and the inactions of some employees of the universities in Nigeria. One of such people is a friend who graduated from the Federal University of Technology Minna. After trying his luck in the labour market and with no luck, he attempted to apply for admission into a foreign school for graduate studies. However, when the time came for him to get his transcript from FUT Minna, his records were nowhere to be found. They told him because they have relocated, some records have missed and his own might have been part of the missing records.

    If FUTA and by extension, Nigeria are going to continue to treat human beings the way my wife was treated without repercussions, then I will not hesitate to say that it would be hard to keep hardworking people from going away from Nigeria whenever such opportunities present themselves”.

    Many have written so extensively about the state of education in Nigeria. I believe that the National Assembly committees on education and the Honourable Ministers for Education should at least take a closer look at the unjust action actions by university lecturers. It’s high time our democracy take its rule on its dissidents.

    Of course, the FUTA story is in every institution.

     

    • Olupona is Assistant Secretary General Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) Kogi State Chapter.