A reader of Africanews.it has sent us an email with this open letter to the president of Nigeria, Goodluck Jonathan. We publish it here below. These are his own views and we have no responibility in it.
MY LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA. HIS EXCELLENCY GOODLUCK JONATHAN
Dear Mr President,
after a period of hesitation, I decide to write you for an important issue that disturbs every responsible Nigerian.
I am sorry if you would have wanted it to be a private letter but I think that since it represents the preoccupation of many Nigerians, I should make it known to all. I must commence by saying that the situation of my dear country Nigeria does not surprise me.
For instance, already during the electoral campaign that brought you to power, I foresaw the impasse in which we were heading to and I started expressing my doubt on your capacity of running this complicated country. Mr President, from all indication, you could be a good candidate for a country, but I am afraid, it is not for a country like Nigeria.
It might sound hard to hear but your two great errors are hunting you and your regime.
Firstly, you had always counted on your good luck forgetting you do not run a county by luck. Though your good luck helped you to have a weak opposition and indecisive electorates who out of frustration and poverty went for any laudable candidate who you were it does not also permit to be more realistic and quick in action taking.
Your second and most important error is that you counted on the help of the party under which you ran your election but unfortunately the party has neither reputation nor scope.
My dear President, your downfall started just when you accepted to run for such a vital post under a political party without a determined manifesto and plan of action. When you accepted to run for such a post under a party that for more than a decade has ran Nigeria under a day to day planning, I knew the tenure was to be a moon dance like tenure.
Mr President, when you won this honourable post, I was among those who wanted to sit back and see where you will leading this country to, but seeing the pandemonium that is reigning in my beloved country; seeing that the labour of our heroes pas are trying to be in vain, I decided to write you as a loyal and humble citizen of one Republic of Nigeria.
I know that you might be more preoccupied than every other citizen of this country but I am thinking you are yet to understand well the situation of things in the nation. And what pains me most is that your Excellency has very few members of your crew who really are ready to help out matters in the present circumstance. However, I must state that you are not the cause of the Nigerian problem, but the right heir of a disorganized system.
His Excellency, I will not only blame you for your errors but I will also propose what could make your tenure a successful one. As you rightly know that the major problem of Nigeria is security, I must then say that there are situations that only when they are resolved the nation will know peace. However, I would not want to advice you on the matters of policy keeping and employment creation for you are surely aware they are necessities that every nation must redress.
Permit me to say that the techniques applied till now on the matters of crime fighting in Nigeria have not yielded enough fruit for reasons that are very simple.
In one of our last article, “Why neither FBI nor CIA might be able to help Nigeria resolve her security problem” We were trying to show why the differences in the duration of time necessary for the discovery of an author of a terrorist attack from one country to the other.
His Excellence, it occurs to me very often to ask myself why we spend huge amount of money buying helicopters and arms to fight those we do not know their identity? Do your security advisers ask themselves why proves of robbery and other crimes serve less in the identification of their perpetrators? How can one prove that a man whose birth was not registered and who has no electoral card exist? What does a finger print left on a dead body serve to the police who have no digital record of the citizens? How do you determine that a man declared death is dead in a country where there is no death registration? How can you know a citizen in a country where there is till now no National Identification Card? Does it occur to His Excellency that these are the secrets behind crime fighting? How many telephone numbers has an average Nigerian? How could the police trace a caller in a country where millions of telephone numbers are not registered and are changed as clothes?
Mr President, should I continue to mention the irregularities that mar the work of security agencies in Nigeria, it will never be exhausted.
All these and other related problems are the reasons that permit all sorts of evil in Nigeria, ranging from robbery, kidnapping, bombing and so on. And as long as there is no new redress of the system, there will be no progress in crime fighting.
Though I know it will take much to change the mentality of the people; though it might need many years of sensitization, I think it is a sin non qua non to crime fighting. Mr President, you might not be understood as you start this crusade but I think the nation need to be identified.
We need to register all new born babies obligatorily, we need to declare every death that occur in the nation, we need to have citizens that move about with their identity cards; citizens that identify themselves to the police at necessary checking points.
We need a country where the security agencies have dignity, a place where they know their duties and rights.
Finally, I would advise you, as a loyal and humble citizen of Nigeria, to be man enough to assume your office as the President elect of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
You should forget some of your friend who are not helping out matters in the building of the nation; you should abandon some outdated individuals who continue hunting your tenure. Call it your duty to make a history or tarnish the image of the nation by remaining inactive and insensible to the national plight.
Thanks Mr President as you make the best decision of your tenure in listening or not listening to this plea.
Yours faithful and humble citizen,
ALI Nnaemeka Cornelius.
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Wonderful observations and recommendations from a patriot! It must be noted that addressing the rudimentary issues raised in this text with respect to security is the prerequisite to any meaningful achievement in this all important area of our national life-security which is the primary responsibility of any government as spelt out in the constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria section 14 sub section 1 of the 1999 constitution .
Mr President, it is said that to be a male is by birth but to be a man is by choice. The earlier you take control of your government;the better for you. There are hawks and hypocrites around you, some are there to play sectional (ethno-religious) script while disguising to be working for and with you, be mindful! A lot are there for material gains; their pockets to them is more important than the Nigerian project. They can do anything to amass wealth without minding whose ox is gored, be careful. At the end of the day, IT IS THE ADMINISTRATION OF DR GOODLUCK E JONATHAN not that of anybody. I mean whatever happens within this four years carries your name tag and not that of your foot soldiers. Take actions that will send a message to the doubtful. Be in control. Don’t act in a manner suggestive of incapability; it will only allow the hawks to have their way. Nigeria is endowed with the good, the bad and the ugly. Harness this resources to the benefit of Nigerians.
Thank you and Goodluck.
Oliver U eze writes from Kaduna.
Good points .
Very courageous !!!!
Thanks for your appreciation!
Thanks for your educative contribution. Let’s keep on calling on them as we also continue doing our duty as true citizen of one Nigeria. Thanks once more!
Kudos to Mr. ALI Nnaemeka Cornelius, you are a true and patriotic citizen. I will also like to add a few to what you have written and i hope Mr. President reads and react to this positively. I currently attend College In America, with a handful of other Nigerian students. I am actually furthering my education in Nursing Science in an institution here. I left Nigeria because there are not enough schools offering Bachelors Degree in Nursing in my country and the few we have as a matter of fact has turned it into a profitable venture, a situation whereby over 10000 students apply for the course and only about 100 gets admitted. At this stage, it becomes “survival of the fittest”. These are some of the reasons why most nursing students are seeking greener pastures outside the shores of the country.
Staying outside the country has not reduced my interest in National issues as i always read the news daily. It bothers me to hear that the likes of Alao Akala and Gbenga Daniel were granted bail with a whooping sum of N500 million naira each and with two sureties with same amount. My question is this, for them to have paid such a large sum of money just to avoid jail time on account of money laundering, how much have they actually stole? Here in America, there are numerous Nigerian students working to pay their school fees, presently as i am writting this, most nigerian students here have been evicted from dorms and are no longer allowed to eat because they have not paid their fees, yet some people are paying N500 million just to avoid jail time while some lives are wasting away here just because of like $10000 per year. No wonder, the American people no longer have mercy on us here because, we only claim we are poor, our leaders are actually very rich enough to pay about $3.2million just to avoid jail time.
Some other countries actually value the lives and education of their citizens as there are a lot of students here that are sponsored by their respective countries. No wonder most Nigerians dont like coming back to Nigeria, because, the Government only recognise them when they are successful, the rate at which Nigerians seek Green card here is so much and it shouldn’t be like that. I love my country but if my country will not contribute to my development in life, then my country shouldn’t expect anything from me too.
Mr. President, i wish you see this and take quick steps to rise up to these tasks. God bless Nigeria. (AMEN)
I also hope so, but whatever might be the case we continue doing our part and hoping that they will do their part one day. Thanks for your contribution.
ALISON
I am happy to see that you all observe the same weakness of the actual governement of Nigeria. Our nation, from my own point of view, needs men of your kind. Our effort might not be recognized since it is just one out of the millions of voices crying for a positive change in Nigeria, but our conscience will never torment us for keeping quite when things are going wrong in the nation. My advice to the youths, among which you are, is that we continue expressing our view as long as things are not moving as they should.
Surely, we will not fail to recognize all the positive efforts that will be made by all true patriots of our beloved country, but till every single member of our public servants biggings to work, we will continue calling on their conscience and hoping that one day a true Nigerian, a real patriot will get to that post of the President to deiver us from the hands of usurpers. Once more keep the flag flying my dear fellow citizens.
ALISON