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Tag: President Buhari

  • My wishes for Nigeria: An open letter to President Buhari

    Please permit me, as a matter of rudeness, to interrupt your very busy schedule with the presentation of these humble wishes for our country Nigeria. I am aware that it is not Christmas yet when Santa can be presented with as many wishes as one can come up with. For you, Sir, as president of our great country, Christmas is every second, so I will make it a point of duty to identify just a few wishes and I promise to be very brief about these.

    As you will observe, Sir, the issues raised in the letter are of significant importance to our dearly beloved country, Nigeria. Consequently, it is my hope that you will find both the letter and its contents worthy of expression in this kind of forum so that all Nigerians can partake in the subsequent debate of the issues.

    Structure Nigeria now! Your Excellency now is the time to look at Nigerians in the eye and tell them the honest truth about their country; it has no structure! It was and never has been structured. Now, by the special grace of Allah, is the time to structure it. Most of the pretenders clamouring for re-structuring of the country are either unaware of what they are saying or are doing so for self-serving reasons or both. They are interested only in what they can gain for themselves and not what Nigeria can gain from the experience. They have, consequently, been narrow focused, disorganized and continue to point the country in no specific direction.

    Multi-people countries like Nigeria have two major problems; one, the problem of unity and oneness; and two, the problem of democratic governance that is culturally relevant to them. The first requires the agreement of the heterogeneous groups, through their sovereigns, by virtue of their being custodians of their peoples’ sovereignties, to come to agreement in a forum and openly express their desire to be one country. They even have the right to call it whatever name they think is appropriate. That is it for unification and once this is agreed to, comes the issue of democratic governance; how, who and all the instrumentalities that will be used to govern themselves by.

    Your Excellency, I have gone through so many archives, at home and abroad, in search of who, when, and where the decision was taken for Nigeria to be one country and found no answer!

    Because there is no mention or indication that any royal fathers met to discuss and agree on whether they want their peoples to unite in one country or many; and since they did not meet to agree on the modalities of governing the agreed to country, I humbly submit Mr. President that Nigeria remains unstructured and no amount of mumbo-jumbo pretenses and illicit paraphernalia of institutions Britain may have left behind or which we contrived ourselves can sufficiently make up for these lapses. So, Your Excellency, I humbly wish that Nigeria be structured NOW!

    It is not an assignment for politicians because they cannot “father” the type of a child they want to be.

    Give Nigeria a national development for strategic direction and orientation: You are aware, Your Excellency, that in the 1970’s, under General Gowon, Nigeria presented a National Development Plan prepared by a team led by the Asiwaju of Ijebuland, Professor Adebayo Adedeji to the world. At the same time, South Korea, Singapore and a few others presented theirs to the world also. Nigeria’s plan was adjudged to be the best of the plans. Let me add here that South Korea and Singapore were not then considered to be at par with Nigeria. In fact, it is on record that Singapore was using the map of the Lagos Marina as prototype for its own Marina.

    However, in an irony of sorts, both South Korea and Singapore went ahead to implement their plans. Today, South Korea is numbered among the G20. Nigeria’s plan was jettisoned, shelved and discarded into the dustbin of history following the Murtala/Obasanjo’s assumption of office after General Gowon was overthrown. Since then, no administration, military or civilian, has thought it fit to revisit the issue and present the country with a National Development Plan.

    Instead, we have resorted to using the annual budget as our primary planning vehicle. No country has ever developed using annual budgets this way. Annual budgets are used to support and implement development plans and ensure a focus on the plan’s benchmarks. When there is no plan, as we currently have in Nigeria, budgets become objects of, you guessed it, padding and other political shenanigans now famously and conveniently termed “constituency projects.”

    Reform the Civil Service: It took you a few months after your election in 2015, Your Excellency, to appoint the ministers.  You were taken to task for this and it was reported that you averred that civil servants do the job and ministers just come in as heads of the ministries. Your Excellency, you were right in the assertion except that you based it on the presumption that the present day civil service is of the same caliber as the star-studded civil service in place when you served as Federal Commissioner for Petroleum and military Head of State.

    Please observe, Your Excellency, that gone are the dedicated, patriotic, brilliant and experienced civil servants the likes of Chief C. O. Lawson, Mallam Damcida, Alhaji Abdul Atta, Alhadji Liman Ciroma, S. B. Awoniyi, Ahmed Joda, Yusuf Gobir, Phillip Asiodu, Allison Ayida, to name just a few, who anchored the service as Permanent Secretaries and provided selfless service to the nation.

    In the cacophony that the service has now become, there is word in the grapevine that people pay millions of naira in bribes to become Permanent Secretaries.

    The glory days of the civil service that provided succor and stability to Nigerians at the nation’s most trying times and hours must be returned. It is my hope that you will consider this wish one of urgent national interest.

    Provide Nigeria with an effective and efficient machinery of government: This wish has some relevance to my third wish Your Excellency. The lack of a dedicated, patriotic, brilliant and selfless civil service implies that there is no effective and efficient machinery of government. How do we explain the fact that the Office of Secretary to the Government of The Federation, the “engine room” of governance, took over two years to prepare a list of less than two thousand people for board and other appointments with gaping and confounding errors!

    There are other areas of concern. Ministers are appointed by the President. Executive Directors, Chairpersons of statutory boards, under the different, are also appointed by the President. They work in the Ministers’ ministries but are accountable to the President. The Permanent Secretary is the Ministry’s Accounting Officer, which, ideally, means that no one, not even the Minister, can have access to N1 without his permission. This set-up means confusion already! How is efficiency and effectiveness assured?

    Take control of the APC: Your Excellency, it is my humble wish that the President takes a much more active control of the activities of the ruling party; APC. It has been the experience that whenever the President does not have a firm control of his ruling party, issues get out hand and never get resolved in time and in the national interest.

    Give Nigeria the legendary Buhari “lion’s roar”: Your Excellency, anyone who has had the privilege of working with and for you is aware of this roar of yours. As a boss, whenever you give an assignment to someone, you asked the assignee what he/she would need to get the assignment completed in a specified amount of time and you went ahead to provide him/her with all he/she requests for to ensure on-time completion. On-time-completion of the assignment met with your kudos and appreciation. Failure to complete the assignment on time was met with this legendary lion’s roar that shook buildings. The six-story building on Yakubu Gowon Street in Lagos had many of these roars.

    Journalists around the country when you were military Head of State will attest to the ground-shaking nature of these roars. At your first press conference as Head of State, you were asked if you will tamper with the press. “Yes,” was your answer.  The ink was hardly dried on the reporting when Decree No. 4 got promulgated and journalists who got caught in the web of the decree are still describing the effect of the decree on their trade till today.

    Your Excellency, the roar has suddenly disappeared! The Villa needs the roar; Abuja needs it; and Nigerians are screaming for and are in waiting for the roar once again. What with directives, orders and such not obeyed or followed; how could there be so many thousands of “ghost workers” in the federal service and no heads are rolling? How can snakes be swallowing money, and on, and on; in an administration headed by President Buhari? It is absolutely inconceivable and yet it is the reality staring at all of us in the face. PLEASE BRING BACK THE ROAR YESTERDAY YOUR EXCELLENCY!

    These are my humble requests Mr. President and they are submitted for your urgent consideration. May Allah give you the wisdom, fortitude and courage you are known for in granting these requests and wishes. Than you very much for reading me, Sir.

    Your Excellency, please accept the assurances of the highest esteem.

     

    • Prof. Angelicus-M.  Onasanya writes from Ijebu-Ode, Ogun State.

  • Boko Haram: Committee submits reports, identifies 6,512 detainees

    The Presidential Committee on Boko Haram Detainees has submitted its reports, identifying 6,512 detainees including toddlers, who followed their mothers into detention.

    The Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Mr Boss Mustapha, commended the efforts of the committee, when he received the reports in Abuja on Wednesday.

    Mr Lawrence Ojabo, the Director Press, Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (OSGF) quoted the SGF as giving the commendation on Wednesday in Abuja.

    Mustapha, who received the final report of the Presidential Committee on Special Detainees linked to Boko Haram Insurgency, thanked the committee for a good job.

    He noted that the report was compiled in five chapters, with detailed information on detainees’ profiles and categorisation.

    The SGF spoke through Mr Olusegun Adekunle, the Permanent Secretary, General Services Office, OSGF, at the presentation of the report by the Chairman of the committee, General Abdullahi Mamman (rtd).

    Mustapha also applauded the Minister of Interior, Lt.-Gen. Abdulrahaman Danbazzau (rtd), for initiating the committee and the idea of looking into the welfare of the unfortunate citizens.

    He promised to forward the report to President Muhammadu Buhari immediately, due to its urgency as stated by the chairman of the committee, especially on the aspects of international relations, inadequate infrastructure, and human rights.

    The SGF further reiterated the commitment of the present administration to address all security challenges ravaging the country.

    He also assured the committee that the report would be given quick attention with the view to implementing all the recommendations.

    Earlier, Mamman said the committee was inaugurated in December 2016 with the mandate of profiling and categorising the Boko Haram detainees in detention across the country.

    He disclosed that 6,512 detainees were identified including toddlers, who followed their mothers into detention.

    Mamman also mentioned that some detainees had spent up to nine years awaiting trial, calling for justice for suspects who might be innocent.

    The chairman commended President Buhari for taking the plight of Nigerians seriously, thanking him for giving them this task.

    He added that they were ready to make themselves available for future assignment.

    The Permanent Secretary, Political and Economic Affairs Office, OSGF, Mr Gabriel Aduda, also commended the Committee for its patriotism, passion and doggedness in carrying out the assignment.

    NAN

     

  • Presidency raises alarm over fake Facebook account in Zahra Buhari’s name

    The Presidency on Friday in Abuja raised alarm over fake Facebook account in the name of Zahra, President Muhammadu Buhari’s daughter.

    The Presidency’s concern is in a statement by Mr Femi Adesina, the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity

    “merchants of mischief have taken their antics against the first family further by creating a fake Facebook account in the name of Zahra, President Muhammadu Buhari’s daughter,’’ he stated.

    Adesina said that the fake account, conspicuously different from the authentic one, was used to post a message on April 17, at 9.07 a.m.

    The presidential aide revealed that a picture of President Buhari with snowflakes all over him, and being welcomed to a foreign country was used, alongside this message: “children of God, here is a 75-year-old man walking in snow without cardigan just to rescue the battered economic status of Nigeria and some of you senseless people feel he travels too much, as if he travels for partying or merry making.

    “God bless Nigeria. Please share…”

    Adesina, therefore, repudiated the Facebook account, saying it did not belong to Zahra and urged members of the public to be wary, and see through the intentions of those behind it.

    He added that those behind the fake account sought to attract odium to the first family, and did not mean well for the country.

    NAN

     

  • ‘Let justice prevail on NDDC’s appointments’.

    ‘Let justice prevail on NDDC’s appointments’.

    Youths under the aegis of Niger Delta Youth Movement (NYDM) in Ondo state has called for the composition of a new board for the Commission.

    They noted that that the tenure of the present board had expired since December 31, but the new board was yet to be reconstituted.

    Besides, the group lamented that Ondo state had suffered deprivations in the allocation and implementation of infrastructural facilities being executed by the NDCC.

    This development, it observed was because the state was not presently represented in the management structure of the Commission where decisions are made.

    A statement by the Chairman of the group,Agbejoye Adetoye clamoured for dissolution of the Board and granting Ondo State, the Managing Directorship position of the commission.

    It said “Section 12(1) said there shall be a commission, a managing director, and two executive directors who shall be indigenes of oil producing areas and Ondo state ranked number five on the production table after Akwa Ibom, Rivers, Delta and Bayelsa states.”

    NDYM stressed that since allocation of positions and other benefits is based on quantum of production and flowing from section 12 of the NDDC act, it is the turn of Ondo to legally and morally produce the position of the Managing Director.

    The group called on President Buhari to do the needful in the in the interest of justice and fairness to the people.

    The statement emphasized that since 2001 when the board was officially inaugurated, Ondo state has not been granted any key position in the NDDC.

    It urged President Buhari in the spirit of fighting corruption, resist power play in the NDDC and give Ondo  State, its rightful position in the Commission.

  • Audio: Tinubu reconciliation committee fantastic, says Sen. Leader

    Audio: Tinubu reconciliation committee fantastic, says Sen. Leader

    Senate Majority Leader Ahmed Lawan, says the appointment of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu as “Chief Mediator’’ of the internal crisis within the All Progressives Congress (APC) by President Buhari, Lawan was `fantastic’ move.

    He spoke at the opening ceremony for the two-day summit on national security organised by the Senate on the spate of killings by herdsmen and other crimes across the country.

    According to him, the committee should have been constituted long time ago to reconcile all aggrieved members of the party.

    “Fantastic! In fact that  committee should have been constituted long time ago because APC is plagued by some internal issues and I believe that these are issues that are surmountable.

    https://soundcloud.com/thenationnewspaper/audio-tinubu-reconciliation-committee-fantastic-says-sen-leader

    “The Tinubu committee will definitely add value into reconciling the warring sides so to speak.

    “Time is against us, we have to really kick-start these processes of reconciliation immediately and I believe that as a family we should be able to come out very much united than we were before.’’

    The Senate leader observed that the ongoing security summit organized by the National Assembly was a typical example of collaboration, cooperation and partnership between the executive and the legislature.

    “We are so happy that this partnership is working,’’ he added.(NAN)

  • President Buhari’s 2nd term: Where will the votes come from?

    President Buhari’s 2nd term: Where will the votes come from?

    When on Sunday, 15 September, 2017 I wrote the article below (slightly edited for space) on these pages, my intention was to rouse President Mohammadu Buhari, free him from the suffocating grip of a mafia whose mindset is cast in the 17th century, and wake him up to the reality that he is president of a multi- ethnic, multi-religious and, a culturally diverse country of almost 200 million in population. That those hopes have largely been dashed became clear to me after the totally unconscionable appointment of a Northerner to replace the former Yoruba Director – General of the National Intelligence Agency, thus completing the banality of Northerners’ complete control of the Nigerian security apparatti, the effect of which we now see in the shambolic way the security agencies are treating the murderous Fulani herdsmen.

    If the article was advisory then, things have so degenerated now that if APC is to have any hope of victory in 2019, the Buhari government must be rescued from that un-elected cabal.

    Declared the President’s wife, First Lady Aisha Buhari last year on BBC: “The president does not know 45 out of 50, for example, of the people he appointed and I don’t know them either, despite being his wife of 27 years.” “Some people are sitting down in their homes folding their arms only for them to be called to come and head an agency or a ministerial position. … if things continue like this up to 2019, I will not go out and campaign again or ask any woman to vote like I did before. I will never do it again.”

    “My prayer had always been that God will restore President Muhammadu Buhari to perfect health, to  such an extent his health will not even be an issue in the 2019 elections. That prayer has largely been answered in the affirmative. The question to now ask is: where will the votes come from, to earn him a second term? To answer that question, let us examine the man and his government.

    Relying exclusively on what I knew of contestant Muhammadu Buhari up until 2014/15, and seeing how then President Goodluck Jonathan had firmly enthroned systemic corruption in the country, I wrote on these pages, shortly before the APC primaries of December, 2015, that Nigeria needed Buhari more than he needed her.  But can I, in all honesty, say that today?  President Buhari showed very early in his administration that he was not going to be his own man when, in what many saw as a dig at Ashiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a man who gave a leg and an arm for his victory, he said he was for nobody, but for all, as if anybody said he should be beholden to Tinubu.

    By the time he ended his ‘search’ for his ministers – a mere five months – his relations, and assorted Hausa/ Fulani/Kanuris, to the near total exclusion of Nigerians from other ethnic groups, have taken over the government. That the country’s entire security architecture is in the hands of Northerners must have been the icing on the cake. If all that was resented in the Southwest which had been crucial to his election, what about the North Central geopolitical zone which the progressives won for the very first time ever? Political pragmatism should have informed the President to encourage the party to cede the senate Presidency to the nPDP after CPC and APC had taken the Presidency and the Vice presidency, respectively. That is how, very easily, the extremely polarising executive –legislative face off which has since haunted the party, and the government, could have been avoided. The President did no such thing. Today, the National Assembly is controlled by the ruling party only in name.

    How then have these avoidable missteps affected President Buhari in the performance of his duties, and how, in turn, will they affect election 2019?

    The President has recorded considerable achievement in the discharge of his promises to the electorate on anti corruption and the fight against the all pervading insecurity he inherited from President Jonathan, even though some critical, but avoidable, challenges remain. While inter agency squabbles have significantly hampered the anti corruption war, despite EFCC’s sterling performance, and not insignificant successes, the judiciary has been most unhelpful, with some judges, despite ACJA, still granting unreasonably long adjournments, and giving rulings that show they don’t care a hoot if Nigeria goes to the dogs, far from the decent society of law and order which Nigerians crave. The judiciary, especially some judges and a few, very identifiable members of the senior bar, have constituted themselves into a bulwark of support for corruption’s ferocious fight back. Many Nigerians, quite unfortunately, attribute the consequences of this judiciary-corruption entente, to President Buhari who, of course, cannot by himself jail persons accused of corruption.

    Similar mitigating challenges are also trail the war against insecurity, especially Boko Haram which though, severely degraded, remains not only a potent enemy of state, but one on which so much money is being expended. With President Jonathan having largely played politics with Boko Haram, it has succeeded in establishing serpentine liaisons with the local communities which has made its complete rooting out literally impossible. Kidnappings, armed robberies, serial killings etc continue to be the bane of every Nigerian citizen. Cost of living is high just as youth employment gnaws at heart of most parents’.

    All these should tell President Buhari he has his job well cut out for him from now on. Nor can a resurgent PDP, which is already stoking the embers of citizen’s malcontent, be taken for granted. In this respect, President Buhari must realise that Nigerians have very short memories. Yes, PDP is a party of buccaneers, yes they stole the country blind, yes, they literally turned the country into Somali and Southern Sudan combined, but hey, if Nigerians are still this hungry by 2019, the electorate will not remember that it was President Jonathan who turned the CBN to an Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) and got, on his instructions, a 2.1Billion dollars earmarked for the military completely incinerated by his acolytes. How has the Buhari government fared on such key subjects as Education, top posts of which are also dominated by the North, Healthcare delivery, Housing, road infrastructure etc? Why so many strike in our institutions of higher learning and how come labour has become so unduly restive?”

    When the above was written, the Benue genocide and the Taraba bloodletting were still aeons away. Police men have not become game for Fulani herdsmen, with our security agencies looking askance. An arrogant, Emirs -backing, and probably shielding, miyetti Allah, confident the government would never lift a finger to check its murderous excesses, was still talking largely in whispers. Not now, when they are in the open, not only killing and maiming, but burning villages and farmsteads, and telling state governments what laws they can, and cannot enact.

    Happily, President Buhari still has some time, though not much, on his hands, to rouse himself, re brand, restrategise, and begin to run an inclusive government. He must ensure that these murderous killers are brought to justice, as killers must get their comeuppance; albeit, through the due process of law. The President must wean himself off his excessive ethnicity. It is as unjust, as it is unexplainable in a multi-ethnic society. He must see every part of the country, especially the thoroughly shortchanged southeast, as deserving of fairness and equity. He must abandon his insularity and let other parts of the country also enjoy the dividends of democracy. His shortcomings are largely the undercurrents fast turning the demand for restructuring into a pan-Nigerian obsession which he would soon discover is an inevitability, and a sine qua non, for peace and development.

    Nigerians must have a new lease of life. He must equally take interest in the affairs of the APC which is presently neither here, nor there, with problems in several of its state chapters. Key elections are fast approaching in some states and the President must be at the vanguard of ensuring internal party cohesion, especially immediately after the heat of the respective primary elections. He must realise that how the party performs at the elections will be a pointer to 2019, especially for the electorate.

    These are the irreducible desiderata, if he must win in 2019. President Buhari’s shortcomings notwithstanding,  and they are legion, I can never support the idea that we throw the baby out with the bath water and allow known thieves and predators, come back to steal, again, all the billions  already recovered  from them and return to  themselves, the hundreds of houses already forfeited to the nation. Buhari’s integrity remains unblemished: a former Head of state and chairman, PTF, he hasn’t a gas station, not to talk of an oil block, no hilltop mansion, nor a private university. He remains, Nigeria’s ‘numero uno’, politician of integrity, alive.

  • What is President Buhari up to?

    SIR: How can a band of robbers in whatever guise hold Nigeria’s jugular? We hear of herdsmen killings in Nasarawa, Taraba, Plateau, and Benue repeatedly with no intervention whatsoever from this president other than grandiose statements which only emboldens and energizes these criminals let loose from hell.,

    This president seems to surround himself with too many stakeholders who do not bother about country but only about their interests. And these people with many promissory notes will undermine his presidency. I expected him to be like Ronald Reagan, a warrior president, to tackle insecurity and also like him to speak to the hearts of people or like President Franklin D Roosevelt for his gift of persuasion, all of which he has not been able to do so far.,

    Popular votes is not enough reason to go sleep on a whale’s tail and even when he sees a killer whale in his dream in Benue, he chooses to do nothing.

    Like Goodluck Jonathan deracinated from power in 2015 President Buhari is squandering the opportunity to bring Nigerians out of extraordinary tough times.,

    Now it seems the popular uprising in 2015 which Nigerians hailed, a movement that gave them a voice for change and which many hoped would usher in a vibrant democracy is tether-bound by a few interests group in the presidency.

    It is the duty of a president to rise to national baits without creating red herrings, using platforms given to analyse and solve pressing national problems.

    Do soldiers have to wait for the order of a president to rein in these armed murderers who go about with fire power against the laws of the country? Isn’t there a rules of engagement clause in the armed forces handbook which prescribes that armed civilians are mortal enemy of state and should be engaged with force? Why is the case of the Fulani different?, ,

    Nigeria is a country where leaders are solicitors in the face of wrong. When a governor in Zamfara turned cleric and declared sharia, the political version of it, to cause trouble – in a region known for peaceful coexistence which consumed lives in Kaduna and other states, a president who should have used his powers to prosecute people went about acting as a solicitor. It’s the same way with militancy in the Niger Delta. When the men grouped, no-one said anything. Their supporters said they were on a mission only to make statements on the plight of the browbeaten people. They were tolerated and celebrated; then they began to kidnap oil workers. Now, oil workers can’t move around without a garrison of soldiers. Some people with mercantile spirits have moved away from oil workers to kidnapping Nigerians.

    Boko Haram like militants were financed by some people that the state is aware of but ours is a country of solicitors. We go to have forty-winks then return to solicit.

    Margaret Thatcher campaigned in the 1980s for the re-introduction of the death penalty which was stopped in the early 1970s in Britain because of the upsurge of terrorists’ activities of the IRA. The IRA killed many people in their fight against the state. Today they have seats in the British Parliament. It took the will of state to make Gerry Adams bow to the will of state.

    President Obama gave the nod for the state to ‘take out’ a US citizen with terrorists’ links abroad. Abraham Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus law during the civil war to allow the state keep and detain outlaws as long as the state wants. The IRA once boasted to Margaret Thatcher when she missed being killed in a bomb blast, that governments have to be lucky every day and the IRA lucky once.

    Haven’t bad people in this country been lucky more than once?

    • Simon Abah,

    Abuja.

  • Letter to President Buhari

    I was born a few years after your reign as Nigeria’s military Head of State from December 1983 to August 1985. Growing up as a precocious child with a prodigious talent for reading every and anything in print, I started to read the defunct Concord newspapers owned by the late business mogul, Chief M.K.O Abiola, at the age of seven though infrequently. It became more frequent at the age of 10 when my aunt who was living with us at that time secured a job with the Guardian newspapers so she always brought one free copy home every day which I earnestly devoured with pleasure. Quite naturally, I developed a passion for politics and began to have several discussions with my father about the state of affairs in Nigeria. One a certain day, while I was lamenting the inability of past Nigerian leaders to make the country great, my father suddenly interjected and uttered the magical words which birthed the feelings that later transmuted into my extreme love for you: “The only people who came close to making Nigeria a great country where everything works was the Buhari/Idiagbon regime. They paid back almost all of Nigeria’s foreign debt and those of us who were living in Lagos then, came very close to having 24-hours uninterrupted power supply daily. Though they were poor on human rights, their administration’s War Against Indiscipline and Corruption was on course to making Nigeria a corruption-free nation but they were short-lived in power”.

    Instantly, I knew I had found a hero, a mentor and a role model. Someone I could look up to in my quest to see a better Nigeria during my lifetime. I was in secondary school when you joined politics in 2002 and contested for the 2003 Presidential Elections alongside the colourful, vibrant, and bombastic politician, the late Oyi of Oyi, Dr Chuba Okadigbo as your running mate. I did not hesitate to give you my support even though I did not have the franchise. I was laughed at, scorned and was the butt of derisive jokes by my family, friends and classmates because of my support for a man many termed “unelectable”. I was undeterred and continued to support you in the 2007 and 2011 elections with the same cycle of events(with my friends) repeating itself over and over again until mother luck smiled on you in the 2015 elections when you were finally elected as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

    Dear President, you promised to do three major things for Nigerians if elected into office: fight corruption, rescue the economy from recession and fight insecurity. You have succeeded in the anti-corruption war by recovering trillions of naira of stolen funds. You have rescued the economy from recession. You have decapitated Boko Haram, recovering territories from the hands of the insurgents. But there is one thing that you lack or have failed to do which not only has the capacity of destroying all your achievements in office or making you lose the 2019 elections but also make posterity pass an unfavourable judgement on your tenure in office as President of Nigeria. This is the issue of insecurity in parts of Nigeria due to the massive loss of lives and destruction of properties by marauding bands of Fulani herdsmen.

    I know you are very much aware of their atrocious activities but permit me to cite a few examples. In Benue State, on New Year Day, over 50 people were sent to the great beyond by Fulani herdsmen who attacked several villages and communities. In 2016, in Agatu Local Government Area of Benue State, Fulani herdsmen killed over 500 in a wave of attacks on villages and communities that lasted several days. An international agency once wrote in one of its reports which was made public that close to 6000 people in Benue State have been killed by Fulani herdsmen between 2011 and 2017. The South-east has also not been spared of the venom of this murderous group. Many villages in Abia, Enugu and Ebonyi have been ransacked by the herdsmen with thousands displaced, women raped, properties looted and many lives lost.

    Permit me to highlight some of the implications of your silence on the menace of Fulani herdsmen in Nigeria. First is that while you were busy solving the security problems in the core North by fighting Boko Haram, you have deliberately turned a blind eye to issues of insecurity in other parts of the country. It also reinforces conspiracy theories that you are not in charge of the government; that you are a weak, ineffective and indecisive President who has effectively ceded power to a cabal which now superintends over the affairs of Nigeria. Attacks by Fulani herdsmen in the Eastern Nigeria have served to further alienate the Igbos reinforcing several conspiracy theories promoted by secessionist groups like IPOB and MASSOB. These conspiracy theories include but are not limited to; that you hate Igbos and are hell-bent on punishing them for not voting for you in 2015, that you are out to destroy them at all costs using the Fulani herdsmen and your 97/5 development theory for Nigeria which you allegedly talked about in London is a confirmation of these conspiracy theories. Do you now see the reason why IPOB, MASSOB and other secessionists groups in Eastern Nigeria have cult following alongside several covert and overt sympathizers even among the political class?

    Dear President, your predecessors in office did all that they could to fight insecurity in Nigeria even when such acts were perpetuated by criminal gangs who were from the same tribe with them. Olusegun Obasanjo issued the famous “shoot-at-sight” order to security agencies to kill any member of OPC found disturbing the peace in Lagos or any part of Nigeria. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan used federal patronage to silence most of the militant groups in the Niger Delta. The recalcitrant ones among them were silenced by force of arms. Umar Musa Yar’Adua forcefully crushed the Boko Haram rebellion in Maiduguri, Borno State which led to the killing of its leader, Mohammed Yusuf in 2009. Sir, why is your own case different?

    I support the call for the immediate proscription of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) and the Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore just the same way IPOB was proscribed by the Nigerian Army and the South East Governors Forum. Time to fish out the criminal elements among them who derive joy from shedding the blood of the innocents and haul them before the temple of justice for immediate prosecution. The security agencies should also be empowered with the latest and up-to-date intelligence gathering gadgets to forestall future attacks by herdsmen on innocent citizens. If you can do all these, it will save me from future shame and embarrassment from family and friends who taunt me daily about the inability of our president to bring an end to the violence perpetuated against innocent and defenceless civilians. Thank you sir for taking out time to read so long a letter. I still love you.

    • Akus, a blogger writes from Ifo, Ogun State.
  • Open letter to President Buhari

    Open letter to President Buhari

    It would have given me utmost pleasure to begin this letter with the pleasantries requisite of a letter to such an authority as you, but I’m afraid this is coming from quarters of turmoil – from a place where there has been so much disregard. I cannot but exude the disregard currently going on in this part of the country.

    Dear President, there has been so much disregard for lives in Benue State that one would wonder whether there are still political figures who superintend over our security and well-being. Armed Fulani herdsmen ambushed us while we were in jubilant yuletide spirits and butchered us like chickens: children, women, even pregnant women. Others were left with terrible injuries.

    Perhaps, I should have directed this letter to my governor, Samuel Ortom to combat this crime from his internal security resources. I also could have written this letter to the youths; that like aggrieved youths elsewhere; they could take up arms, block all access roads to the main towns of Benue, and destroy all government property in site until something is done. But I choose to write to you not just because of my respect for authority but also because I trust your efficiency. I know that your route would do in one way what others would do in seven.

    You obtained my trust in your efficiency with security issues with your clampdown on IPOB. This group’s activities climaxed at a time when you were being tended to on your sick bed. Upon your return, you needed just split seconds to commence a military operation that saw the calm of the situation in weeks. Soon, you proclaimed this group a terrorist organization even before the court did!

    Our dear President, your increased concern on the issue of cattle rustling also marks you off as a no-nonsense man. You have always shown great concern and put in high security measures to combat cattle rustling. In the fight against cattle rustling, you have even launched technological solutions! Your efficiency is in no doubt.

    What baffles me then, (and there are many others like me), is your go-slow attitude towards the perennial herdsmen attacks at the backdrop of your security efficiency. The issue of herdsmen attacks precedes your administration. But unlike other security challenges you inherited, you have put in a Spartan spirit and fought them to naught. Why then, are we yet to enjoy the dividends of a president who is hard on security challenges?

    I am not oblivious to the condemnations you have made concerning the recent massacre. Well done! But I daresay the response I have seen so far is not in tandem with the massive murder of over 50 unsuspecting, innocent people! Your body language on this issue does not synchronise with that of IPOB, cattle rustling and other security challenges under you.

    Trust is what, if lost, can never be completely regained. Your initial silence on this sensitive issue of national security has caused irreparable damage. You have lost many die-hard supporters including the author of this letter. The handwriting on the wall, as it appears, is clear enough for everyone to read: you belong to everybody but you belong more to others.

    Yes, you have condemned the killings now, but what you have done is sever the country only to mend it afterwards. What we are yet to ascertain is whether you are mending it genuinely. If you prove this fear right, you would become the real threat to the strength and unity of this country and not IPOB, Niger-Delta Avengers or Boko Haram.

    This seemingly licensed herdsmen attacks has implications other than national strength and unity. The growth of agricultural productivity in Benue State and the country at large has been impeded as a result of these lingering attacks and yet, you are the chief advocate of economic diversity. Politically, the votes of Benue State were instrumental to your victory in 2015 and our dissatisfaction with you has negative implications on your 2019 bid. But of course you can choose to ignore that, and we would be glad to excuse you.

    But what we cannot excuse, Dear President is the security of our lives. If we lose everything in this world, we have our lives to hold unto. You have a responsibility, as the chief security officer of this country to protect all her citizens and not a select few. Thus, I make a fundamental appeal that you back up your verbal condemnation of Benue killings with actions as swift and passionate as you did other security challenges. Commence a military operation in Benue and other affected states the same way you did against IPOB. Arrest and prosecute those behind these killings. This is a pressing issue of national security and we cannot stand the reality of your words being mere lip service. Please do something!

    In spite of my dissatisfaction, the debris of my predilection for you is yet to completely fizzle out. Thus, I would top up my demand with an advice. Please sir, renounce your position of grand patron of Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association. You are the president of Nigeria and the grand patron of us all. No position supersedes this in Nigeria. This will enable you not just to be objective in issues like this but to reclaim some of your public trust.

    Also, in the interest of fairness, justice and security, declare Fulani herdsmen a terrorist group and ban open grazing across the country. These people have been security threats not just in Benue State and in the Middle Belt region but all over Nigeria. They have since attained equal status with Boko Haram and should be treated as such.

    Dear President, these conditions may be tough, but I know you to be tougher. Even if you have suddenly become soft, you should be toughened by the realization of what you are: the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Federal Republic of Nigeria with the primary duty of protecting the lives and property of Nigerians.

    I wish you a positive contemplation of this letter.

    • Ortese wrote from Makurdi, Benue State.