First of all, I congratulate you warmly for
winning the nomination of your party for the
presidency of Nigeria.
Though you and I are different in ethnicity
and religion, we have many important things
in common. I am a few years older than you –
which means that if you and I had been
Yoruba boys born in the same Yoruba town
or village, we would have belonged to about
the same age-grade Association ( with us
Yoruba, age-grade loyalty is traditionally a
very important factor of life). Moreover, you
and I were young Nigerians in an era, the
1950s, when our up-and coming country of
Nigeria was a source of great pride to its
citizens, and an emerging titan eagerly awaited
by most informed people all over the world.
The three regions of our federation (East,
North and West) were engaged in an
ambitious rivalry for progress and for
improvements in the quality of life of our
people. They were able to do that and achieve
considerable successes because our
constitutional structure gave them much
leeway to manage their own affairs within the
common Nigerian family. We arrived at
independence in 1960 believing that our
country was set on the path to becoming the
blackman’s world power of modern times.
Unhappily, now that you and I are in our
seventies, there is nothing left of our country’s
ambitions and pride – indeed, there is hardly
anything left of our country itself. Relentlessly
crooked up, violated, robbed and depleted
since 1960, our Nigeria seems now to be
stumbling towards its demise.
As you prepare for your election, I decided to
write you this open letter concerning our
country, because I know you will understand
the pain and expectations behind my words.
The purpose of most of Nigeria’s rulers since
1960 has been to weaken and even destroy
regional and local initiatives in order to gather
all power, control and influence together at the
federal center. Their success in doing that has
enabled them to remove the management of
development far away from our people, and to
institute at the federal centre a viciously
corrupt, wasteful and incompetent
monstrosity. Reduced to the status of beggar
clients of the federal robber barons, the state
governments, as well as the local
governments, collapsed and fell in line as
submissive incompetents and mini-robbers.
In the process, real and productive enterprise
quickly declined among our people, as the best
and most ambitious rushed to join the ranks of
the sharers of fraudulently acquired wealth
from the public coffers. Our schools and
universities, our public service, our police
force, our military, our judiciary, all our
governmental agencies (electoral commission,
secret service, central bank, ports service,
immigration service, public examination
bodies, etc) – all collapsed under the weight of
crooked control, massive corruption and
generalized disloyalty. Poverty descended
mightily into our country and became the lot
of the overwhelming and increasing majority
of our people. Our government itself admits
that, today, about 70% of our citizens live in
“absolute poverty” and that that percentage
keeps increasing. With the growing poverty
have escalated horrific crimes, a culture of
dishonesty, a rush of our youths to Salafist
fundamentalist terrorism, and mass flights of
the educated to other lands – all of which are
compounding the poverty.
From your well-known record as a leader of
our country, I know that you are not only
aware of these things, but that, in common
with many members of our generation, you
are seriously pained by them. I confess that I
was very angry with you during your brief
stint as military ruler, 1983-5. First, you
seemed to me to be power-drunk at the time—
because you made no distinction between the
corrupt who had been stealing and sharing
public money under Shagari and those who
were known to have been resisting the
robbery. I belonged to the frontline of senators
who were well known to have, on the floor of
the Senate, resisted the mass corruption, and
yet your military government detained me
(and many like me), and I languished for four
months in prison without any accusation–even
without being asked any question by any
official.
And then, you and Idiagbon expended most of
your obviously shining capabilities in
pursuing nebulous and amateurish
programmes like WAI (War Against
Indiscipline), when what our country really
needed was (after you had fiercely shot down
corruption as you did) to massively divert our
enormous oil revenues into investments in the
lives of our people–through programmes for
expansion and diversification of education,
modern job skills development,
entrepreneurial development, small business
development, promotion of modern farming,
policies for improving the quality and
reputation of our labour force and thereby
attracting investments and businesses into our
country, policies for promotion of exports, etc.
Put a people to work and persistently multiply
the economic opportunities available to them,
and the attraction to prosperity through
competitive enterprise will gradually suppress
indiscipline in their land. Fanciful programmes
like WAI can have no lasting benefit or future
– as I hope you must know by now. That is
why the man who ousted you, Babangida, was
able quite easily to wipe out all the patriotic
gains of your regime.
Furthermore, I though t it was a pity that you
did not appear to recognize that the over-
centralization that was being given to our
federation was the foundation of our ills as a
country. You were wrong in thinking that
punishing the corrupt leaders would destroy
corruption abidingly. What is needed is to
change the system into which corruption has
been built. In our country’s case, we needed
(and we need) to reduce the magnitude of our
federal government and empower our state
and local governments, which are nearer the
people, to bear most of the burden of
development. Then we need to give
recognition and respect to our various
nationalities in structuring the federation –
which should mean that our larger nations
would each constitute a state, and contiguous
groups of our smaller nationalities would be
assisted to form states, just as the Indians
sensibly and profitably did in the 1960s.
By refusing to go that route, Nigeria has
abysmally depressed its nationalities. For
instance, my Yoruba nation came into Nigeria
in 1914 as easily the fastest modernizing
nationality in Black Africa; and we entered
into independence with Nigeria in 1960 as the
development front-liner and pace-setter in
Africa. Today, we are a battered, poor, and
disoriented nation, and most of our
achievements have been wrecked, thanks to
our being part of a Nigeria that destroys its
peoples. Every other Nigerian nationality has
similar stories to tell. My brother, I am, by
nature and by upbringing, averse to merely
lamenting an evil development; I act to change
it. My potential urge, even as I write this, is to
exert myself with others like me towards
pulling my Yoruba nation out of Nigeria if
Nigeria will not change course – and that is
something that we Yoruba are perfectly
capable to achieve if we are pushed to start
upon it. And the same is true of some other
persons and nations. In short, let’s not ignore
or minimize the danger of Nigeria’s
dissolution.
I know you have what it takes to change and
save Nigeria. I wish you luck in your election
– and I wish Nigeria luck.
Source: Sahara Reporters
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