An open Letter to President Goodluck Jonathan

Dear Sir,

I am writing on behalf of the deprived, dehumanized, hapless and traumatized poor people of Nigeria to express to you their disgruntled impressions about your government. Sir, your (s)election or ascendancy to the presidency of a castrated nation was by providence. Personally, I believe you ought to pounce on that privilege to make history. It has been argued as well in some quarters that you are a child of circumstances; that your political and academic nomenclatures do not commensurate with the mundane position you currently hold. I stand to disagree with your critics including this writer that nothing good can come out of your government. I strongly believe you still have ample time to act presidential. History of the world is very repititious. And history thought us that good things evolve from least expected situation and circumstances. The events of the past few months are litmus tests that the country under your closed watch and power is under attack and on the brink of disaster.

I am dwarfed to suggest to you sir what to do with the power in your hands but as a concerned citizen trying to conscientize you on behalf of a milked nation, it is my responsible and our collective responsibility to salvage the nation together from the impending doom looming over us. We are fast becoming a pariah nation and a safe haven for act of terrorism.

Sir, presently, you have a golden opportunity to turn the country around in a drastic and dramatic ways if only you act decisively. As the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the federal republic of Nigeria, the buck stops on your table to right the wrongs currently plaguing the country. The whole world is watching with keen interest the menace and insurgency of religion fanatics known at home as Boko Haram and in the international community as terrorists. And as you also watch nonchalantly or helplessly the pillaging of the country resources by a few cabals at the helm of affairs of the country. You have the onerous responsibility, the will and power within your disposal to stop them. Just to remind you sir, your professional good citizens abroad hold enviable government and non governmental positions across the globe contributing positively to development of other countries. In fact, a country where this writer resides is a classic example of one those countries. We are a nation blessed with abundant human and material resources. Nigerians in diaspora are willing to come home to contribute their individual and collective quotas for socio-economic and political development of the country if you create a conducive and secured environment.

In a nutshell, much has been said through symposia, lectures and agitations by a few in the country, but what can you do to salvage the country before these concerns translate into total revolt? The answers are not far fetched. Sir, firstly, the negative impression of Nigerians about their rulers need broad reorientation and cleansing through renunciation of corruption because there is a total disconnect from the needs of the people. Corruption needs to be killed and the corrupt politicians need to be brought to book, ostracized, rejected and excommunicated from our body polity. According to a recent reports, more than 500 billion dollars of accrued money from exportation of crude oil in the country have either been mismanaged or embezzled by the successive military and civilian government of Nigeria through chronic corruption in the last 50years of nationhood. One school of thought believed that Nigeria required revolutionary violence to throw off the shackles of its current and corrupt past in order to attain true federalism and egalitarian society. I hesitate to support this notion because those who had witnessed wars would tell you that it is easy to start a violence as it is difficult to end it. You can initiate a peaceful revolution now in order to prevent a violent one. You can mobilize your cohorts in power and past leaders by apologizing to all Nigerians for these socio-economic and political crimes that have been committed against the country. Your predecessors- Olusegun Obasanjo and Yar’Adua missed a golden opportunity when they set up a similar version of truth and reconciliation commission to correct the wrong of the past, because of lack of sincerity on their parts, the commission was conscripted to the dustbin of Nigeria history. We have drifted in the past from a prosperous nation to a failed and perilous state due to the hedonistic and a cancerous corruption that have eaten deeper into the fabric of the system. You have the onerous responsibility and power to do this, after all, Nigeria is a forgiving nation and one of the easiest nations on earth to rule. When you start to do this, I can guarantee you that other positive things will start to fall in place. You will be positively placed on the good side of history.

Secondly, discountenance your being seen as a naive, incapable, clueless and inexperienced leader. Consult with the brightest among your citizens at home and in diaspora, while doing that, beware of your political jobbers; have an eye with praise singers; come not near corrupt political associates with the tendency to distract your focus because they do not love you to make history. Send concise and comprehensive bills to the National Assembly to tackle corruption, I vehemently believe that bad leadership and corruption are intertwined, they are the hydra-headed mantra plaguing the country and also the diseases corroding the system.There is nothing wrong with the entity called Nigeria. Unless, these two monsters are expunged from the system, the country will continue to see underdevelopment under your administration, corruption is a menace that hinder progress and the provision of basic necessity of life such as security, power, roads, transportation, education for the citizenry.

Lastly Sir, do you really sleep good at night when you ponder over the state of the nation? Does it really bother you to hear that your citizens are being maimed with impunity by religion zealots called terrorists with no respite from your government? What do you have in your plans to stop the killing of the innocents? What kind of God do they worship that permits the maiming of the people? All these questions can only be answered by your humble self. As citizens of Nigeria, you owe us immediate answers and solutions to these endemic problems ravaging our nation. Again, on behalf of the good people of Nigeria, I wish you best of luck and Goodluck, wisdom and understanding, genuine will and power to be able to solve these political miasma and other mundane problems in Nigeria.

God bless you sir, and God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Yours Sincerely,

Yahaya Balogun
Arizona, USA.