POLITICS
A Nigerian-born academic and historian professor, Banji
Akintoye, in an open letter written to the presidential
aspirant of the All Progressive Congress, (APC) General
Mahammadu Buhari (rtd.), compared their lives and shared
his expectations about further fate of Nigeria.
The letter was published by Sahara Reporters.
It should be noted that the former military Head
of State won APC presidential primaries and will
face President Jonathan in forthcoming elections.
He chose Professor Yemi Osinbajo as his running
mate in 2015.
Read the letter in part:
“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-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 front line 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.
“Furthermore, I though 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. 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.”
Posted by NAIJ.COM
Fadaka Louis
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