Mr President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism. No one is hated than he who speaks the truth.
Certainly, l do not belong to the school of thought and reasoning that Nigerians should continue to wait and bear for your government’s timeless undirectional and ineffective policies to materialize when there is no light in the tunnel of the vision. That was how Nigerians waited hoping against hope for Muhammadu Buhari’s wasteful eight years visionless policies without positive results. All what Buhari was able to offer were punitive measures on the poor masses of Nigeria, while people like you and others that held the country hostage were busy carting away the resources of Nigeria that belong to the entire Nigerians . Your cabinet appointees are people who are deep neck in corruption and have contributed in putting this country in vicious circle. Out of the forty five Ministers you appointed forty one of them have criminal charges against them. Mr President, let me ask you, is the country now throughly and currently caught in a web? The former governors in your cabinet were alleged criminals that turned their States moribund.
How does one who doesn’t know how to read alphabets be called upon to teach others how to read alphabets. These appointees have been in the public office system for decades without making good changes to the country’s bad situation which facts have them as behind the problems. By re- cycling them, the future of the nation is now highly endangered. The poor masses wonder at the danger these appointments pose to the society. Nobody gives what he or she does not have.
A government whose visible structure is corrupt can certainly not nurture an ideal economic situation in Nigeria. The total disdain and practices demonstrated by your government are enough for one to doubt its capability to conduct the business of good government in fragile democracy such as ours credibly. Like l said earlier in my third letter to you, the votes you got was not because you were a better and more qualified contestant than others. But because Nigerians thought you would be like St Paul (formerly Saul) in the bible, who after all his atrocities repented to follow Jesus Christ.
However with the events of things in the country and looking at your body languages since you came to power there is no doubt to say that the aim of your government is nothing than to strangle the poor masses and bring corruption to highest level. Your unfriendly policies are mercy killing.
Your Ministers and others appointed to administer the country are not better than the immediate past CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, and the former EFCC Chief, Bawa that are being prosecuted by your government. Some of them are not only richer than their States but richer than African countries. Their sources of wealth were public funds stolen their State’s coffers.
One is not holding briefs for Emefiele and Bawa, some of your appointees are worst than them. If really in your conscience you were out to fight corruption your appointees who are having corruption charges out to have been allowed to be prosecuted. Where are those who assisted Emefiele and Bawa in the alleged corrupt dealings? Why are they not being prosecuted? Are some animals equal than others? Why are they not being prosecuted? What about Alhaji Aliko Dangote, your Chief of Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajamibiala etc.?
In time of deceit which we are now in Nigeria because of bad leadership, telling the truth is revolutionary . This opportunity that came to you to become the President is an opportunity for you to cleanse yourself of your bad deeds and return the country to the right track. But instead of riding on the opportunity positively, it seems you have decided to use it to propel corruption and make yourself the worst President in Nigerians’ history. You may think because you are the President today, you are above the laws so you can eat your cakes and have them. It doesn’t work again in this present Nigeria. For any negative action executed by anyone there is a day of reckoning.
Let me remind you. In 1999, Mr President, you were sued by Dr Balogun and Alhaji Seriki for forgery. Same year late Human Rights lawyer, Gani Fawehinmi sued you for lying under oath and forgery. Between 1999 and 2002, a basket mouth and one of the alleged criminals in your present cabinet Festus Keyamo, eyeing the governorship seat under APC, come 2027, sued BAT and LHOA for allowing Tinubu get away with certificate forgery and perjury. Came 2013, you were dragged to court by Dr Agbola Dominic for forgery. Then came2022, Mike Enahoro Mbah also dragged BAT to court for forgery. Alhaji Abubakar Atiku, the Presidential standard bearer of the PDP in the recent concluded Presidential election is on the same matter in court in 2023. Why? Because a lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. Issues especially of national interests can not be swept under the carpet. Earlier the masses saw hope of new Nigeria in your government but with criminals appointed to pilot the affairs of the country, the hope was dashed because you have totally derailed from the expectations of Nigerians. There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic,nor popular, but conscience tells them it is right.The masses are highly and seriously neglected by your government. They are hungry while the criminals are feeding fat. Mr President, please are we in Animal Farm where all animals are equal but some are equal than others ?
Mr President you should know that the wind of change is blowing all over the world. Africans are very bitter and angry with their leaders. But Nigerians are very, very bitter, annoyed, angry and provoked with their leaders . I thought by now your government ought to have learnt a serious lesson from what happened in Niger Republic and Gabon recently which would have made you to face the good way of good governance by righting the wrong.
Don’t be deceived Mr President, by the recent assurance of the Chief of Defense Staff. Know that when the chips are down it will be, to your tent oh Israel. Learn from the mistakes of others. You can never long enough to make them. Be the change you wish to see in the world. Remember that, at his best, man is the noblest of all animals, separated from law and justice he is the worst. It is the province of knowledge to speak and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen.
Susan Rice, a former UN Ambassador and National Security Adviser, NSA, to Barack Obama, has detailed in her new book, the last moments of the presumed winner of the June 12 presidential election, late MKO Abiola.
* Abiola died July 7, 1998 in the custody of the Nigeria military junta after 4 years in detention.
* The book is titled *‘Tough Love: My story of the things worth fighting for’,* is a 531-page autobiography.
* She dispelled a widespread conspiracy theory that alleged that she gave Abiola the tea laced with arsenic that killed him in the presence of Rice, then US Ambassador to Nigeria, Bill Twaddell; and Under Secretary of state for Political Affairs, Thomas Pickering.
* According to her, the tea was offered to Abiola from a tea service on the table in the room, five minutes into the conversation when he started coughing rackingly and consistently.
* She said the intent of the meeting was to meet with Abiola whom she said was wrongfully imprisoned, to negotiate his freedom so he could participate in the elections scheduled then.
* According to Rice, Abiola came into the meeting *‘robust, and happy to see us, sat on the couch and began to tell us how poorly he had been treated during his four years in prison. He was wearing sandals and multilayered traditional Nigerian dress. I noted that his ankles were swollen”*
* She continued *“About five minutes into the conversation, Abiola started to cough, at first mildly and intermittently, and then rackingly with consistency. He said he was hot, so I asked his dutiful minder, “Please turn up the air-conditioning.” Noticing a tea service on the table between us, I offered Abiola, “Would you like some tea to help calm your cough?” “Yes,” he said, with appreciation, and I poured him a cup. He sipped it, but continued coughing. Increasingly uncomfortable, Abiola removed his outer layer, leaving one layer on top. I shot Pickering a worried glance”.*
* Ms. Rice disclosed further *“The coughing became dramatic. I told the assembled men, “I think we better call for a doctor.” No one argued. The minder immediately placed the call. Abiola asked to be excused and went into the bathroom of our meeting room. When he emerged, he was bare-chested and sweating profusely, barely able to talk. He lay down on the couch writhing and then rolled facedown onto the floor. The doctor arrived promptly, took a quick look at him, and declared that Abiola was having a heart attack and must be transported to the hospital immediately. The men labored to lift the heavy Abiola into a small car, and we rushed to the nearby, rudimentary presidential hospital. I grabbed his eyeglasses off of a side table where he left them, his only belonging, thinking of his daughter Hafsat in the U.S whom I’d met before we left. The doctors worked on him, furiously, but within an hour they pronounced him dead”*
*”We braced for violence. Abiola’s sudden and mysterious death would hit like a bombshell in Nigeria’s political tinderbox. Conspiracy theories would spread like metastatic cancer. Serious unrest throughout Nigeria was possible. Washington would hyperventilate, since it’s not every day a major figure drops dead with senior U.S officials. His family would need to be told. And, urgently, Nigeria’s acting president would have to hear directly from us, even though his minister was present at the hospital and knew how it went down.”*
*“Ambassador Twaddell panicked and urged me and Pickering to rush to the airport and leave the country immediately. “Hell no,” we said. This delicate situation required deft management, not a hurried exit in a cloud of suspicion. Right away, I called National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, my former boss, briefed him, and dictated a White House press release. Then we went to the Nigerian presidential palace to relay the entire drama to the acting president. We urged him to issue a careful statement to announce the establishment of an autopsy by international experts, in order to quell rife speculation and limit the potential violence. The acting president did both.*
*“Next, Pickering, Twaddell, and I went with former Nigerian Foreign Minister Babagana Kingibe to see Abiola’s wives and daughters. All of us walked in together, but soon I realized that I was effectively alone in the room with these distraught women. The men had hung far back and left the job to me—just like the pouring of the tea. I proceeded to explain that their husband/father was dead. He had died of an apparent heart attack that began in our meeting. The doctors did all they could to save him but could not. The ladies’ wailing was so intense; it haunts me to this day.”*
*“We briefed the press, and I returned to the US embassy to write the official cable to report what had happened. As a senior official, I almost never wrote up cables summarizing meetings but in this case there was no more efficient way to ensure we got this very important history straight. As I was typing, I heard in the distance on the CNN a familiar voice of indignation. It was none other than the Reverend Jesse Jackson, then serving as President Clinton’s special envoy for the promotion of democracy in Africa. Reverend Jackson served capably in this role, and with good intentions, but on this occasion, I could have throttled him. He was riffling about how Abiola died under suspicious circumstances in a meeting with US officials. I could not believe my ears – our own guy implying we were killers! Immediately, I placed a call to his longtime aide Yuri and asked them to shut the Reverend down. “Please, just get him off the set.” That happened, even as I was still watching the segment.”*
*”We stayed overnight in Nigeria to try to calm things, offer any needed assistance to the government, and make an orderly departure. Fortunately, despite deep public upset, no significant violence occurred. The autopsy eventually confirmed the cause of death as a heart attack. Nonetheless, it was Nigeria where conspiracy theories abound. The most popular, which still has currency over twenty years later, is that I killed Abiola by pouring him poisoned tea. From that experience, I found that being a woman policymaker comes with unique hazards. The men would not have offered, much less thought, to pour the tea. They may have swiftly called for a doctor. They may not have been able to break the bad news to the wives. Not for the first time, it was I, not they, who took the public fall for a crime nobody committed.”*
[Extracted from: *“Tough Love: My Story of the Things Worth Fighting For”* by Susan Rice]
By
Susan Rice, Former UN Ambassador and National Security Adviser to President Barack Obama
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Indeed, your policies and appointments have exposed the cankerworm that bedevilled the country’s progressive moves. However, it is not a hidden agenda that 2023 onwards will be more difficult for the country, and the masses will be dying of starvation. The emergence of a renegade government like your APC led government in the corridors of power bureaucracy has culminated in the monumental deterioration, degradation and degeneration of the country. With what your administration is doing paints the picture luncidly. It is now imperative to note that the confidence reposed in your government like l earlier said above has been betrayed. Because your patriotic and democratic pronouncements were never from the resources of your heart but from the outward tip of your lip. Your government’s support of the attempt to make the country available for the riches and government criminals, and consequently subjecting the poor masses of Nigeria to perpetual poverty and sufferings is a direct contrast to your much publicised “HOPE FOR NIGERIANS”. That the military has not done coup in Nigeria since 1999, may be due to the unpopularity of such ventures all over the world today, and not because it cannot be done or that you or anybody holds the wand of stopping the military from taking over power. But with the recent happenings in Africa, the masses are beginning to accept military coup as the last resort or remedy to bad leadership.
