Mr. Muhammadu Buhari
President of the Federal
republic of Nigeria
Presidential Villa
Aso Rock – Abuja
Mr. President,
Sir,
Resign Mr. President, Let’s Restructure Nigeria!
Deliberately,
I had postponed penning an open correspondence to your goodself in the hope
that the dire expectations and sufferings the people of Nigeria were projected
to endure under your government would not materialize. Having delayed for over
two years, it is now in the interest of posterity that this letter be written.
In the political
campaign seasons prior to the 2015 general elections, I had severally asserted
that your being a person who had led your fellow renegade soldiers to
overthrown the democratically elected government of President Shehu Shagari in
December 1983 rendered your goodself, technically, a treasonable felon, who
was unfit to govern Nigeria under a democratic disposition.
I had also
emphasized the fact that ever since your sack from the office of Head of State
of Nigeria in August 1985 uptil the time you were contesting for the 2015
presidential elections, you had devoted yourself to two basic causes:
championing the interest of your ethnic group (the Fulani) and championing the
cause of Islam, with the primary purpose of ensuring that the Shari’a laws are
enforced throughout the Nigerian federation. This focus of yours made you an unsuitable person to
lead a multi-ethnic and multi-religious entity where the various component peoples
were already quite sensitive to ethno-religious nuances.
I had directly
also questioned your academic (on account of your lack of requisite academic
credentials and observed language defects) and physical (on account of visible
depreciation due to age) capacity to govern a multi-ethnic and multi-religious
high-population country with under-35 year olds comprising over 80% of the
population.
Two years
into your 4-year tenure, the worst of our expectations have been surpassed by a
wide margin. Nigeria has fallen from heights and is turned into a living
nightmare, a real-life horror experience that is scaring the daylights out of
its citizens, its immediate neighbouring countries and setting the wider international
community on edge on account of the unimaginable consequences and humanitarian
expectations from any socio-economic explosion or mass uprising.
When it took
you over 5 months to appoint your cabinet Ministers, and by self-inflicted harms
arising from policy summersaults and hurtful pronouncements against the State
and peoples of Nigeria, ignorantly pushed the Nigerian economy into a vicious
recession, it dawned on even the most optimistic observers that there had indeed,
all along, been no plans on your part to govern for the general good – your desperate quest
for power had merely been for non-altruistic purposes.
Your
pronouncements, mannerisms and deliberately skewed pattern of
appointing persons into government positions betrayed a disdain for some
specific sections of the Nigerian population and ethnic groups, and thus
engendered increased clamour for self-determination and at times disintegration
of Nigeria. It is deplorable to note that throughout the 2-years you have thus
far spent in office, in keeping with your policy thrust that you (your
government) cannot be expected to treat those who gave you 5% of their votes
during the presidential elections in the same manner you treat peoples who gave
you 97% of their votes, you have not deemed it fit to visit, or in any way set
your feet down in any of the five states in Nigeria's South Eastern (Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo Stats) indigenous to the Igbo ethnic nationality. Questions have thus rightly
been raised as to whether you are a President of Nigeria or merely the Sectional
President of Nigeria.
Under your
watch, deception, ethnocentrism, nepotism and unfair/unjust use of state
security and prosecutorial powers against perceived opponents and or peoples of
‘despised’ ethnic groups has been elevated to cardinal principles of governance
in Nigeria. Your so-called ‘war against corruption’ has, as a result of your
unwillingness and or inability to apply the investigatory and prosecutorial
powers of your government evenly on your perceived opponents and political
allies alike, been exposed as a mere witch-hunting exercise which only serves
to embolden some of your associates to perpetuate more brazen and daring acts
of corruption and profligacy.
Even in the
area of containing the Boko Haram insurgency which your government has touted
as its ‘unique selling point’, the continuing increase in the number of
Internally Displaced Persons (IDP’s), refugees from Boko Haram insurgency and
the fact that BH continues to show an ability to attack military formations
with ease, questions the authenticity of such containment. Whatever lull that
might have been witnessed in BH terror attacks in Nigeria’s Northeast region is
more than adequately replicated in the gruesome and vile attacks Fulani
herdsmen/militia have been emboldened to carry out across the various
geo-political zones in Nigeria. Under your watch, Mr. President, Herdsmen who
had traditionally negotiated their way across territories of other ethnic
nationalities, now have the audacity to herd their livestock with sophisticated
weapons which they freely use on hapless villages across Nigeria.
The suspicious
and questionable manners in which the release of the so-called Chibok girls
secondary school ‘abductees’ were effected, additionally, leaves so much to be
desired and questions the integrity, objectivity and good faith of the State.
Can anything
good be really said to have been occasioned as a result of your ascension into
office? I really did try, really hard, to find one, but unfortunately, nothing
good was found worthy of mention, as resulting from your occupying the office
of President of the Federal Republic.
In the
course of the past few weeks, fuelled by an absence of a President from
office and country and a vacuum of leadership, all manners of extremist
elements have had a field day in the Nigerian polity issuing ‘quit notices’ to
entire ethnic nationalities and threatening mass atrocities in the land. The ensuing
instability has led to a nose-dive in Nigeria’s fortunes; economic, social and
political stagnation and instability; and palpably diminished quality of life
for Nigerians. Nigerians have never had it so bad.
Dear President
Muhammadu Buhari, it is in the light of all the foregoing and acknowledgement
of your most unfortunate poor state of health and indisposition (which has made
it increasingly impossible for your goodself to exercise authority and control
of affairs of state for positive changes - presuming that you now desire for such in your later days) which makes it impossible for you to either be an agent of or effect
positive change in the Nigerian polity, that make it imperative to urge you Sir, to as a matter of urgency, resign from your position as President of
the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
As a man who
I suspect may still have a desire to leave some positive footprints in the
sands of the Nigerian time, it is further hoped that prior to such your
resignation from office, you will use the enormous powers at the disposal of
your office to put into motion the processes that will lead to a holistic
restructuring and the renegotiation of Nigeria in such a manner that will abate the perennial threats of violence from various quarters within Nigeria and ensure equity and justice amongst the various peoples of Nigeria.
It is
projected that sequel to or contemporaneous with your resignation from Office, the
federating units and component peoples of the Nigerian state will in keeping
with the several agitations and clamour for restructuring, justice, equity and ‘true
federalism’ and situate in the platform of the Recommendations of the National
Conference convoked by your immediate predecessor-regime, converge to
peacefully formalize the basis of a new Nigeria.
Arguably, entities
who believe they are benefiting from the current fluid and tenuous situation may
want to rely on legalese to question the ‘constitutionality’ of the process of
realignment suggested above. Faced with unfolding realities and the fact that
the Constitution which serves as Nigeria’s grundnorm is itself of very dubious
origins and foundations, the congregation of federating units and component
peoples to dialogue over the future of Nigeria remains the one option to diffuse
tension and chart a path forward. And even this option is fast ebbing away.
Mr.
President, Sir, as I wish you recovery from your ailment, do the right things: set
in process the machinery for sovereign national dialogue and Resign from
Office, and perhaps posterity may yet treat you kindly when assessing your stewardship as
ruler of the Nigerian state.
Wishing you Happy Eid celebrations.
Yours sincerely
Eze Eluchie, Esq.
Concerned citizen of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Picture: President Muhammadu Buhari
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