Open Letter To The President
Dear Mr. President,
Last year, when you assumed
office, the chant of “Change,” your
campaign slogan, ushered you into the Presidential Villa. Today, cries of
“hunger” could be heard across the
length and breadth of our vast country.
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| *Cardinal Okogie |
Nigerians hunger, not only for
food, but also for good leadership, for peace, security, and justice.
This letter is to appeal to you to do something fast, and, if you are already
doing something, to redouble your effort.
May it not be written on the pages
of history that Nigerians died of starvation under your watch. As
President, you are the chief servant of the nation. I, therefore, urge
you to live up to the huge expectation of millions of Nigerians. A stitch
in time saves nine.
This is the second year of your
administration.
You and your party promised to lead
the masses to the Promised Land. It is not an easy task to
lead. But by campaigning for this office, you offered to take the
enormous task of leadership upon yourself. Nigerians are waiting for you to
fulfill the promises you made during the campaign.
They voted you into office because
of those promises. The introduction of town hall meetings is a commendable
idea. But in practice, you, not just your ministers, must converse with
Nigerians. You are the President. You must be accountable to them.
The buck stops on your desk.
Even if your administration has no
magic wand at least give some words of encouragement. On this same score,
please instruct your ministers, and insist that they be sincere and polite at
those town meetings. Their sophistry will neither serve you nor
Nigerians.
Mr. President, if you want to leave
a credible legacy come 2019,
in all sincerity, please retool your
administration. Change is desirable. But it must be a change for
the better. Let this change be real. Change is not real when old
things that we ought to discard refuse to pass away.
You will need to take a critical
look at your cabinet, at the policies and programmes of your administration,
and at those who help you to formulate and execute them. You will need to
take a critical look at the manner of appointments you have been making.
It is true that commonsense
dictates that you appoint men and women you can trust. But if most of the
people you trust are from one section of the country and practice the same
religion, then you and all of us are living in insecurity. The Nigerian economy
has never been in a state as terrible as this.
You as President are like the pilot of an aircraft flying in turbulence. Turbulent times bring the best or the worst out of a pilot. We can no longer blame the turbulence on past administrations. You know quite well that some of the officials of your administration served in previous dispensations.
