My Dear President Buhari

By Eddy Odivwri…

His Excellency, I am constrained to write you this letter, not only because it is tough trying to see you, but also because this medium will enable me say all that I would like to say without being cowed or checked by the awe of your presidential presence.

Let me start by not only congratulating you on your victory, almost six months after, but more importantly, for your first 100 days in office. You were determined and persistent in your quest to govern this country. The journey has started. And God will enable you continue to trudge on in giant strides.

Given the choke Nigerians were experiencing from the seat of power, it was pretty worrisome that you won by a rather narrow margin of about 2.5 million votes. I thought the margin of difference would be far wider. However, you are there now and many of the over 13 million people who did not vote for you last March are watching to see if you will make mistakes so they will say, “Didn’t we say he was no good and meant not well?”. You certainly cannot forget the acrimonious campaign that preceded the election, so much that some even wished you dead. But God disappointed their wish and the enterprise of their minds.

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Many of your supporters were fanatical about your person. They swore they will go with you all the way. The rain soaked them, the sun baked them… while they waited to vote for Buhari. They endured the epileptic functioning of the card readers.

At the end, you emerged to their glee.

In supporting you, the hopes were high. The expectations were great, if not massive. Nobody voted for a magician, but they believed an “action man” was coming aboard.

There is great joy that even when you do not seem to have started real governance, 100 days after, the government and general public service is experiencing healing. Some things are changing. The fight against corruption has become the signature mantra of your administration. We hear many of those who stole public funds are returning them secretly.

We notice that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has become active and busy again. The crooks in the land are losing their cool, because a new Pharoah who knows no Joseph is on call.

Your administration seems set to rein in all who had collectively stunted our growth and development as a nation.

Many believe you are the prophet for the season.

But sir, everyday we are lurked in endless arguments whether you bode well or not. Those who are worried say you are damn too slow. They even now refer to you as “Baba Go-slow”, implying that despite your long standing ambition for the job, you failed to hit the ground running.

We have tried to argue that you are taking time to study what you met on ground before rolling out. But they said, you had about two months between when you were elected in March and when you were sworn in by May ending. And that it was time enough for you to sort out the structure and shape of your government.

They are alarmed that more than three months after your assumption of office, your cabinet is still locked in your brain.

His Excellency, perhaps of greater worry is the feeling of abandonment by your party men. Top members of the party (the All Progressives Congress) are practically scared of your mien and disposition. They do not seem to understand you as you are not in communication with them.

They simply do not know what you are up to. They are struggling to understand what you want to do and how you want to do them. The party is not in charge. There is a disconnect. They say you are dense and unreadable. I hope you know I am only reporting what I heard to you sir? Those are not my own words.

They are grumbling aloud these days, albeit anonymously that you are operating way above their wave length.

Mr President, they are saying that the falcon is not hearing the falconer., and that if it continues that way, the centre will cease to hold. I told them “God forbid”: that we cannot afford to go back to Egypt as a people.

Sir, let me whisper it to you that many of them are already thinking that the game may change by 2019.

I have heard them say that not only have you shut them out in your appointments so far, you have reclined into your shell to search out your old friends and allies, almost all of whom are from your northern neighbourhood, forgetting that you are the president of the entire nation.

They point out that the way things appear, there is a hidden agenda of what they termed the Arewanisation of Nigeria wherein save the Vice President, the first four citizens of the country are from the same northern region. Worse still, the heads of the three arms of government are from the north.

I got tired of their complaints and told them that you will ensure a balance with the ministerial appointments very soon.

But they will not be assuaged. They insist that you will be a bag of surprises, especially as you make no recourse to even the party structure under which platform you contested and won. But now you operate above and beyond them. And they are all flapping their wings helplessly like fishes tossed upon dry sand.

They are pained as they are being mocked by those who voted against you. You know how children pull down their lower eyelids to chide themselves in a way of saying “fry in your stew, didn’t we warn you?”

But I told them you are only a strict person, not a wicked ingrate who will reward support and loyalty with vexatious negligence.

You know I will hardly be able to tell you all these things if I sat with you, without your ADC ordering that I be thrown out. See why I chose to use this medium?

I am sure you have been hearing the rumble and grumble in recent days over some actions of your government. The nation has been howling that out of 31 appointments so far, 24 have gone to your northern region with just 7 coming to the entire south. Even then, no slot whatsoever has gone to the south east region. They say it is your own way of punishing the South east for not believing in you and thus voted massively for your opponent.

I assured them that you are an experienced army general and that you know that usually after the war, there will be reconciliation of warring factions and that you will surely carry the entire nation along, especially as the constitution, which you swore to uphold and operate prescribes a fair spread of appointments otherwise called federal character principle.

But they counter my argument with the explanation that the cardinal pillars of your government are the appointments you have filled with your fellow northerners.

Someone almost slapped me when I noted that you were in frantic search for competent and trusted persons, hence you went back to the people you knew. They spewed insults at me mindlessly. They asked me if the northern region has the exclusive preserve on people of competence and character.

When I said, you had to start with the people you had known and can vouch for, they snapped at me, asking where these your trusted allies were when they were risking their political career, money and even life in support of Buhari .

I did not now know what else to say sir. I was bemused, in a way. I could not argue further.

I then tried to change the direction of our discourse by saying that we are hopeful that by November, the scourge called Boko Haram will now be over, given the ultimatum you gave the new service chiefs to crush Boko Haram terrorism in three months.

I had hardly finished introducing the topic when the man sitting beside me, from one of the Middle Belt states, nudged me off the seat with his right shoulder. He accused me of red herring and insisted that they had foreseen this much ahead of time and hence they were reluctant to follow you.

The man regaled us with so many stories as if he knows so much about you. I did not quite believe him, but he said that was what you did in 1983 when you sidelined all the people who planned the 1983 coup and merely brought you in as Head of State. That you suddenly found new and trusted friends with whom you began to run the government then. And that when all attempts to break the barrier between you and them failed, then they began to look inwards…. And what followed is now part of our national history.

As he told the story, many people around were nodding and voicing approval of the storyline.

I responded by saying that I had to check the veracity of his story but that even if it is true, you must have learnt your lesson and will not be knowingly making the same mistakes of the past.

I maintained that you remember that you were not financially fit to compete with many who were opposing you. I told them you were (and still is) a man of very humble stead—with just 270 cattle, 25 sheep and less than N30 million, you couldn’t have been able to square up with the Daura Local Government chairman in a contest where financial war chest is a determinant of your valour.

And that the moral support you got from the poor masses would have been enough to see you through only to the courts again, not to the Villa. That you very well remember that the mass of the party faithful bore you with their all—money, goodwill, charisma, structure, etc. That you knew many such people at the time were not the best of honest businessmen as to have massed up such wealth in very decent ways. And that you will not now become so saintly as to love their money yesterday but hate their company today. That you are not that kind of person, as you will seek a balance to the complicating equation of your government.

Your Excellency, I hope I am speaking your mind on this issue?

I soon got back to the issue of security again and reminded them of how determined you have been in tackling the menace of insecurity with the rousing of the regional leaders from neighbouring countries and the huge success the military have recorded in three months.

Again, the chief antagonist, the Middle Belt man countered with this question: “if you claim he has achieved so much in taming the insurgents, how come bombs have continued to fly in the air? He asked another: “Mr Buhari defender, so where are the Chibok Girls?” I wanted to say the rescue of the Chibok girls is work-in-progress, but he placed his fore finger across the middle of his lips and said “shhhh, that is the same thing Dr Doyin Okupe and Mike Omeri were saying for former President Jonathan. You people promised ‘Change’, let us see it in practical terms”… I was bemused again.

Sir, this letter is getting longer than I thought. However, as if our little discussion was like a summit, they gave a synopsis of all that we had been discussing. They noted, point-after-point, that Nigeria belongs to all and that irrespective of where we hail from, we must treat Nigeria and Nigerians as a collective. They noted also that the greater issues of good governance as in responding to the socio-economic needs of Nigerians is germane. They added that all the content of the campaign promises must begin to be activated now as many are ready to do a documentary of all that was promised at the time.

They lauded the concerted fight against corruption but added that the said fight cannot be at the detriment of other aspects of good governance.

They pointed out that majority of Nigerians who were choking from the ruinous rule of the PDP have not got any form of relief yet and that they may gasp to death unless you do something urgent and fast.

Finally, sir, they observed that they will await the colour and character of your cabinet and will not make any other comment until you constitute it.

Hmmmm, Your Excellency, I have taken your time. But I believe it is for our collective good. I hope you do not brush aside the points made here sir like one of your “omniscient” predecessors will do I am like a bridge between you and the down town people. If you need us to further discuss this, send my Bros, Femi or my Oga Garba to fetch me. Until then, accept my best assurances sir.

RipplesNigeria …without borders, without fears

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