Mr. President, as one of your most loyal and faithful subjects who
has nothing but the utmost respect for your person and your office, I am
constrained to write you this open letter. This is because there are a number
of issues that I believe that it is important for you to clarify and to come
clean on.
I say this because
some of your assertions of late are at best contradictory and at worst patently
dishonest. Whichever side of the political divide we are on I believe that we
can all agree on one thing: that the prosecution of the war against terror is not
something that any of us should play politics with. This is especially so given
the fact that human lives are at stake and the very existence of our nation is
under threat. Like much of the rest of the world our country is going through
hell at the hands of the jihadists and Islamist terrorists.
There is no gainsaying that we must all come to terms with the fact that the Islamic State in the Levant (ISIL), Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Al Shabab, Boko Haram, Hamas and another group that the internationally-respected Global Terror Index has described as the ''Fulani militants'' (aka Fulani herdsmen) are nothing but bloodthirsty murderers and the lowest form of life.
They are indeed the scum of the earth, the troublers of humanity and the vermin of hell. It is with this in mind that I urge you to take the war against terror far more seriously than you are doing and plead with you to stop passing the buck.
There is no gainsaying that we must all come to terms with the fact that the Islamic State in the Levant (ISIL), Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Al Shabab, Boko Haram, Hamas and another group that the internationally-respected Global Terror Index has described as the ''Fulani militants'' (aka Fulani herdsmen) are nothing but bloodthirsty murderers and the lowest form of life.
They are indeed the scum of the earth, the troublers of humanity and the vermin of hell. It is with this in mind that I urge you to take the war against terror far more seriously than you are doing and plead with you to stop passing the buck.
*Fani-Kayode
Your penchant for blaming your failings in this regard on the previous
administration is simply nauseating and it does not serve you well.
You continuously contradict yourself when it comes to this matter
and frankly such flip flops are unworthy of the office that you presently
occupy.
We your subjects look up to you for consistency, strength,
unequivocal commitment, a firm resolve and the ''leadership from the front''
that you promised during your presidential campaign in this war. We do not want
and neither do we need doublespeak, lame excuses and buck passing.
Permit me to point out a few examples of your contradictory assertions and your buck passing in this short intervention. Initially you claimed that your predecessor in office President Goodluck Jonathan never bought any arms and that instead he squandered and stole all the money that was appropriated for the procurement of arms.
Yet when the British Minister of Defense visited you in the Presidential Villa the other day the story changed. You did a U-turn and gleefully told him and the wider world that President Jonathan bought arms with raw cash.
One wonders which story you shall come up with next and which one
you will conjure up in the future. Kindly tell us what the position is: is it
that Jonathan did not buy arms at all and stole all the money or is it that he
used cash to buy arms? You cannot have it both ways. It is either one or the
other.
*Jonathan and Buhari
Quite apart from your glaring doublespeak on this matter there was
another issue which you ought to have raised with your highly esteemed and
respected British guest.
You forgot to tell him that his was one of the countries that not
only refused to sell weapons to us during the course of this bitter conflict
but that also helped to impose and enforce the international arms embargo on
our country even though we are at war.
This resulted in the unnecessary death of thousands of our people
because we found it difficult to procure the weapons to protect them.
Your guest’s country insisted on towing the American line and
doing this to us even though we were fighting a war against a relentless,
well-motivated, well-funded and well-armed fighting force that Global Terror
Index has described as the ''deadliest
terrorist organization in the world''. One is forced to ask: with friends
like this who needs enemies?
Given the fact that the embargo was in place one wonders how we
were supposed to procure arms unless we did so with raw cash on the black
market.
The alternative was to buy none at all, to do nothing and to allow
Boko Haram to take Abuja , Port
Harcourt , Enugu and Lagos . Perhaps that is precisely what your
western friends and allies wanted but thankfully it never came to pass.
Despite the challenges and constraints President Jonathan faced,
instead of losing any more ground, he rose to the occasion and retook no less
than 22 local government areas and virtually pushed Boko Haram out of Nigeria . The
only place that they occupied by the time the election took place was Sambisa
forest.
Jonathan achieved all this with those arms that he bought with raw
cash. This is apparently what you are now complaining about. Permit me to
remind you that it is those same arms that Jonathan bought with raw cash that
your army is still using till today.
Yet sadly since you were sworn in as President seven months ago
you have lost some of those same local government areas that were earlier
recovered and they are now back in the hands of the terrorists.
Despite this you keep telling the international community and the
Nigerian people that we are ''making progress'' in the war against terror.
As a matter of fact you went as far as to say that we had ''won
the war'' against Boko Haram and your Minister of Information, Mr. Lai
Mohammed, echoed that grotesque mendacity and reiterated that sentiment by
adding the words ''technically won'' (whatever that may mean) to the equation.
Sadly, two days later, on Christmas
day, in what can only be described as an eloquent response from the terrorists,
scores of innocent civilians were killed by Boko Haram in Borno state and a
whole community was burnt to the ground.
Again on Sunday 27th of December Maiduguri , the capital of Borno state, came
under heavy attack from the terrorists. So much for having ''won the war
against Boko Haram'', whether ''technically'' or otherwise.
Instead of conceding that you had told the Nigerian people a pernicious lie, curiously the next thing that you did was to tell them that you would ''persuade Boko Haram to drop their arms''. One is compelled to ask: why would you have to persuade them to drop their arms if you had already defeated them and won the war against them?
In any case this would be the first time in the history of modern
warfare that a sitting President has sought to destroy and defeat a vicious and
relentless terrorist organization and win the war against terror simply with
the awesome and devastating weapon of persuasion.
Perhaps you should recommend that same tactic to the Americans and
the rest of the international community as an effective and credible weapon to
adopt in their war against ISIL, Al Qaeda, Al Shabab, Hamas and all the other
jihadist groups that plague the world.
Whilst you are at it perhaps you could also persuade Boko Haram to
free the Chibok girls. It is disturbing to note that despite all your campaign
promises and assurances that once you are elected President the girls would be
rescued or returned, nothing has been done or heard about any of them ever since
you were sworn in.
Worst still the Bring Back
Our Girls Group, which was essentially an appendage of your election
organization, together with its distinguished leaders and conveners, appear to
have gone very quiet. I guess they are busy trying to persuade Boko Haram to
drop their arms too.
The truth is that it is time for you to free yourself from your monumental delusions and to get real. Sadly you appear to be detached from reality.
Instead of fighting the war against terror you are making it worse
by slaughtering one thousand Shia Muslims in Zaria on December 12th, locking up their
leader Sheik Ibrahim El Zakzaky and opening yet another war front in our
country.
The last thing that we need is for Hezbollah or the Iranian
Republican Guard to rise to the occasion, take up the challenge, jump into the
fray and decide to protect and avenge their Shia Muslim brothers and sisters in
northern Nigeria .
Yet despite the reprehensible and indefensible actions of your
military commanders in Zaria
you have refused to show any remorse for what was undoubtedly a war crime
against fellow Nigerians and you have not prosecuted the officers and military
personnel that were involved in the butchery.
Instead the homes of the victims and those that share their Shia
faith have been burnt to the ground in Zaria
and their graves and burial sites have been dug up and desecrated.
Instead of fighting Boko Haram you are fighting and killing your
own people. Worse still you have refused to defend our country. I say this
because a few days ago the Cameroonian military invaded our country, violated
our territorial integrity and savagely murdered over 70 innocent Nigerians in
their village before burning it down.
Your government refused to acknowledge that this event even took place, despite the media reports. You did not console or express condolences to the families of the victims or retaliate against the Cameroonians.
You did not even warn them or demand an apology or reparations
from them. This is heartless and shameful. It could not have happened under
Jonathan, Obasanjo, Babangida, Shagari, Abacha, Abubakar, Shonekan, Mohammed,
Balewa or indeed any other former Nigerian President or Head of State.
If any of them had been in power and the Cameroonians cultivated
the effrontery to do such a thing there would have been consequences.
Yet you did nothing to avenge this affront or to defend our honor.
What happened to the gallant and brave General Buhari that courageously led our
troops into victory in Chad
in the early 1980's?
What happened to the honest and forthright man that we all admired
and looked up to because of his military exploits in Chad ?
What happened to the war hero that gave the Chadians a ''bloody
nose'' for daring to attack a Nigerian village and that almost took Ndjamena , the Chadian
capital?
What happened to the man that proved to the Libyans and their
Chadian proxies that Nigerians knew how to fight? It appears that you have
changed and that you are no longer the man that you used to be.
Instead of being honest with our people you have insisted on selling them a dummy and telling them a lie. You refuse to tell the world that our military is terribly demoralized, our soldiers are suffering heavy casualties and are not being paid their salaries regularly and, worse of all, that you have failed to procure a single bullet or weapon for them to use in the last seven months since you came to power.
Instead of deploying all the power of the state against Boko Haram
you have spent all your energy and resources trying to teach the former
National Security Advisor, Colonel Sambo Dasuki, and all your other perceived
enemies the lesson of their lives by misrepresenting them before the world,
subjecting them to state-sponsored tyranny and the most insidious form of
persecution, violating their human rights and lying to the world that they
stole and shared money that was meant for the purchase of arms.
You have also misled and misinformed the Nigerian people about the
rules and conventions that are applied when it comes to the administration of
security funds and about the fact that it is the National Assembly alone that
has the right to probe the use of such funds as part of their oversight
functions.
To cap it all you have claimed you did not receive any benefit
from the NSA 's office whilst Jonathan was in power. This is an assertion which
we all know is, at best, questionable.
You must be mindful of the fact that God hates liars and He
despises those that abuse power. You must remember that the more you scorn
God's counsel and mock His admonitions the more your errors will be made
manifest and the more your people will suffer.
You must understand that any leader or government that is
motivated by bitterness, fear, hate, vengeance and malice will eventually hit
the rocks and crash like a pack of cards. You must appreciate the fact that God
is watching and that He sees and knows all.
May the Lord have mercy on you and may He forgive you for your
many sins and wicked ways. God bless Nigeria.
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