This open letter is necessitated by issues of urgent national importance not unconnected with your 3 minute pre-recorded broadcast to Nigerians this Monday, the 21st day of August, 2017, where you stated that Nigeria's unity is settled and not negotiable.
Mr. President,
This open letter is
necessitated by issues of urgent national importance not unconnected with your
3 minute pre-recorded broadcast to Nigerians this Monday, the 21st day of August,
2017, where you stated that Nigeria's unity is settled and not negotiable.
Mr.
President, sir, I wasn't exactly born with a talent for political correctness
so I like to assume your permission to pay you the courtesy of being blunt.
First,
I want to register my displeasure that you, a mere servant and employee of the
Nigerian people, could derisively address your employers and the same people
paying your salaries even when you are hardly at work, as "my dear
citizens" instead of "my fellow citizens."
That
derisive opening line in your speech lent more credence to an already
established fact that you are an arrogant victim of a messiah complex who sees
his people, not as his employers whose wishes he must harken to, but as lesser
mortals and slaves who are his to do as he pleases. Even Emperor Nero didn't
address Romans in that condescending manner.
Mr.
President, sir, we are not your citizens. We are not even just your fellow
citizens! We are your employers! We are your boss! We pay your bills. We feed
you, Mr. President. Talk to us with some respect!
Mr.
President, when you told us how you discussed with Ojukwu in 2003 and agreed
that Nigeria's unity is non-negotiable, what exactly did you think the
reference to the late Biafra strong man would achieve?
Did
you think that line would magically address all the institutionalized grave
injustices in the system which you've made worse with your open display of
tribal bigotry, vindictiveness, raw hatred for people from a particular section
of the country and criminal disregard for the same constitution you swore to
protect??
That
you believe the unity of over 180 million people is something you, a Fulani man
and Ojukwu, an Igbo man, can sit in your small sitting room somewhere in your
small village of Daura and conclusively discuss, says a whole lot about how
much value you attach to the so-called unity.
As a
free citizen of a free world and one of those paying your salaries, I find that
statement criminally offensive and hopelessly disappointing. But even more disappointing
is the fact that even after spending billions of our tax money and over 100
days treating an undisclosed ailment abroad, you seem not to have learnt
anything from your numerous administrative blunders and trailer load of
un-presidential utterances, actions and inactions which, for the most part, are
responsible for the mess we are in today.
Mr.
President, sir, let me remind you that it was you - not Nnamdi Kanu - who
resuscitated and fuelled the current Biafra agitation. Even the activities of
the Niger Delta militants were all birthed by your tact-less, bigoted,
vindictive and mostly common-sensically bankrupt utterances and actions.
And
to prove that you are an unteachable ethnic jingoist with an iniquitous sense
of national unity and an atrocious sense of governance, all through your 3
minute address:
You
didn't tell your employers the kind of ailment that kept you away from your
duty post for over 100 days and gulped billions of tax payers' money.
You
didn't announce measures to resuscitate the economy which your criminal
ineptitude and analogue economic plans largely played a part in destroying.
You
didn't mention measures you plan on taking towards addressing the grievances of
the secessionist groups even when you admitted some of their grievances are
genuine.
You
didn't make any assurances towards calming frayed nerves considering the mood
of the country.
You
didn't categorically condemn the series of terror your fulani brethren are
visiting on Nigerians. Instead, you played it down as mere herdsmen/farmers
clashes.
You
didn't even categorically condemn your siblings (Arewa Youths) for publicly threatening
genocide on Igbos living in the North come October 1st, 2017.
You
did none of the above.
Instead,
you spent almost 50% of your broadcast threatening social media users and
aggrieved citizens who are only asking you to treat them as equal stake-holders
in the Nigeria project or allow them quit this oppressive union. The other 50%
was wasted on tales about your meeting with Ojukwu where the duo of you
supposedly decided on behalf of over 180 million of us that the unity of
Nigeria is non-negotiable.
In a
nutshell, you spent over 100 days abroad on medical tourism on tax payers'
money against your campaign promises only to come back with nothing but a
trailer-load of insults, derision and threats for the same citizens who paid
and are still paying all your hospital bills and salaries even when you were
hardly doing any job?
Quite
frankly, Mr. President, that speech would easily pass off as one hell of comedy
except it was a tragedy.
You've
simply proven that you are a man far detached from reality. It would seem you
are still stuck in 1985. Indeed, a leopard never changes its skin.
Now,
my dear president, as one of your employers, let me gift you with some advice:
First,
Nigeria is not a nation unless we've all decided to adopt a very confused and
lopsided understanding of the term "nation". More importantly, our
unity as a people is a farce. It doesn't exist. You cannot discuss the
negotiability or non-negotiability of a unity that only exist in your
imagination.
How
can there be unity when you, Mr. President, went to a foreign land and publicly
promised to discriminate against those who didn't vote you with your infamous
97%-5% speech?
Where
is the unity when you were busy gifting Boko Haram terrorists and the
marauding herdsmen with a juicy amnesty package and military protection
respectively at the exact time you were, and still are, visiting the unarmed
Biafra agitators with festival of bullets?
Most
importantly, Mr. President, mentioning "unity" and
"non-negotiable" in the same sentence betrays a very poor
appreciation of the queen's language. If it's unity, then the powers that bind
the parties together must have been birthed through negotiations. In which
case, any talk about the non-negotiability of such unity becomes the height of
conscientious idiocy bordering on the fringes of lunacy. If it's unity that was
a product of force, then it's no unity at all.
Mr.
President, sir, the clause "our unity is non-negotiable" is an
oxymoronic expression.
You
cannot threaten people of diverse cultural, religious and language background
into nationhood!!!!
Unity
cannot be forced!
On
your threats to agitators, Mr. President, you proved you lack basic
understanding of what the issues are. It is not just the southeast that is
aggrieved, both the south south, south west and even the North, your own
region, are all aggrieved as exemplified by the October
1st quit notice and threat of genocide against Igbos living in the
North. Every section of the country is aggrieved. Rather than proving you are
too bloodthirsty for dialogue, initiate a workable time-bound plan towards
restructuring this country in such a way to enthrone justice, fairness, equity
and merit.
Restructure
this British contraption now!
Or:
Watch
the whole country collapse under the weight of its own internal contradictions.
The
fastest way of escalating an agitation is by trying to suppress it rather than
addressing the issues that birthed it.
Mr.
President, sir, I am not unaware of the fact that in the coming days, we are
going to be witnessing more killing of the unarmed pro-Biafra agitators and
series of arrests, abduction and incarceration targeted at social media users
and your political opponents but I have a message for you, sir, just as we
survived your brutality between 31 December 1983 to 27th August 1985, We Will
Survive You!
This,
too, shall pass!
I
wish you exactly what you wish Nigerians.
Love
from,
Charles Ogbu
Charles Ogbu
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