Dear Mr.
President,
Governments in Nigeria either at the central or regional
level have mastered the habit of deceiving Nigerians through media onslaughts
of announcements of an intention or the beginning of a normal governance process.
Contrary to the expectations of the Nigerian public that the highly publicized
intentions will transform into actions and results that will be duly reported
by the press, the declarant soon goes to sleep and moves on to inventing other
spurious intentions. In many cases, the public never hears of the outcome of
these intentions and the press forgets to ask on our behalf. The Nigerian media, either through naiveté or
gullibility or inducements or for want of interesting reportable events
inundate their papers with mundane governance processes and declarations of
bogus intentions of political leaders and forget to report concrete results
with measurable impacts on the lives of Nigerians.
In order to induce permanent memory failure in the press and
the occasionally curious but suffering public, the government hires those that
dub themselves attack dogs, who believe that deceit, manipulation of facts and
aggressive behavior are tools of interfacing with the mainstream press and by
extension the Nigerian people. Even your party while in opposition suffered
from this memory loss. The party allowed itself to be befuddled by the maze of
endless processes announced by the past government. It contented itself with
contending with the so-called attack dogs.
The slogan “Change” by which you convinced Nigerians to vote
you into the presidency implies a paradigm shift. A departure from the undesirables
of the past and the beginning of a new era. “Change” is a solemn declaration of
your intentions to usher in this new paradigm. Your party published its
manifesto at the beginning of the election campaign which majority of those who
voted for “change” did not read. They did not read not because they are
illiterates, but because they have set their own parameters of “change” in
their minds. “Change” means measurable
results and not a barrage of news on processes that in the past led to nowhere.
“Change” means the recovery of our collective memory.
The purpose of my letter to you is to share Nigerians’
understanding of “change” and the yardsticks of their measurements.
Firstly, it has become the habit of Nigerian leaders to speak
of electricity supply in terms of megawatts. This is like a head of a family
speaking of food for his household in terms of calories. Megawatt discussions
by past Nigerian leaders have simply switched off lights in households.
Nigerians live in darkness. Generators, small and big which are supposed to
serve as exceptional back-ups have now become the main source of electricity
for Nigerians. Noise and smoke pollution, major health hazards are a way of
life in Nigeria. Your Excellency, if there are any words that Nigerians abhor,
megawatt is one of them. Avoid this word in your discourse. The measurement of
electricity supply to Nigerians should be in terms of supply to households: How
many households among total number of households in Nigeria have continuous
24/7 electricity supply? This simple measurement can also be adopted by the
federating states and the local governments. “Change” is when a large
proportion of Nigerian households have constant electricity supply. Your
administration can set the percentage figures for the next four years.
Secondly, Nigeria does not seem to know the number of its
children in school age attending schools. Unicef annually publishes such
figures (no one seems to know the source) and the government that is supposed
to provide the figures vehemently contests Unicef figures. How many children in school-going age do we
have annually? How many public and private schools do we have in Nigeria? How
many children in school-going age are in school? “Change” is when a large
proportion of Nigerian school children in school-going age are in school and
studying under universally acceptable conditions. Your administration can set
the percentage figures.
Thirdly, the Nigeria health care system is in a terrible
state of decay and neglect. You probably read the experience of Mr. Nasir El
Rufai during a night visit to one the public hospitals in Kaduna. What he
experienced in Kaduna is the way the health system is all over the country.
Performance of public health facilities is measured in body counts from
avoidable deaths and unfounded referrals. It may shock you to hear that the
first thing a Nigerian child gets to see as he is being born is the light from
a cellphone or from torchlight or from a lantern if he is unfortunate to be
born at night. There are no drugs in public health facilities and it is an
understatement to say that the health workforce is very demotivated. “Change”
is putting a permanent stop to avoidable deaths. Change is equal access for all
Nigerians to quality health care delivered by highly motivated professionals. “Change”
is accounting for any life lost.
Fourthly, the future Nigerian middle class is being
threatened. Youths have no jobs. The public and private sectors have shut their
doors to Nigerian youths. The weird logic of unemployability of Nigerian
university graduates has become an excuse for many in the private sector to deny
youths employment. For example, Nigeria, a developing country with many health
issues is one of the very few countries in the world where young graduates from
the medical school may remain unemployed for a long time or paid a pittance for
arduous exploitation in the private sector. “Change” is measurable investments
in youth employment and empowerment. “Change” is the reduction of youth unemployment
(with figures) to the barest minimum. “Change” is gainful employment and not
deceitful corporate social responsibility by the organized private sector.
“Change” is arresting brain waste.
Fifthly, the Nigerian road network has over the years been
used as an object of manipulation and deceit of the Nigerian public by the
politicians. Roads are tarred on paper; old roads in decrepit conditions are
multiply commissioned; maintenance of many happens only on papers. “Change” on
the road network should be measured in kilometers. How many kilometers of
tarred roads do we have in the country? How many new ones will be built? How
many will be repaired? And within which time-frame?
Sixthly, you spoke severally during your campaign about your
determination to rid this country of the evil of corruption. It will not be too
farfetched to state that all aspects of the Nigerian life are ridden with
corruption. Corruption has become the oxygen for survival in this country. It
is an attitude, and championing a change in attitude demands determination and
courage. Determination, you do not lack, but you may need to work on the
courage as the bad guys are everywhere and are scheming to overwhelm your
determination. But for the Nigerian populace, “Change” is how much of our
stolen commonwealth is recovered.
“Change” is the number of corruption cases brought to logical end.
Change is expunging “perpetual injunction” from the judicial vocabulary.
“Change” is jail and shame for the corrupt, big or small. “Change” means no
slap on the wrist for big thieves. “Change” is being among the 20 least corrupt
nations in the world on Transparency International scale.
Finally, Mr. President, your people have been taken hostage
by fear. Fear for their lives and their
properties. Improvement in security has been reduced to media propaganda of
processes without results or in terms of body counts or prisoners taken. “Change”
is attitudinal change of the Nigerian security forces. “Change” is justice.
“Change” is making Nigerians believe in the Nigerian project. “Change” is
invoking patriotic and civic zeals in Nigerians. “Change” is making everybody
count. “Change” is peace.
Your Excellency, I was happy to see a media picture of you
reading a Nigerian newspaper aboard your plane to South Africa. I was happy to
see another media picture of you with an I-pad. To me, these images show that
you have your ear to the ground; you want to directly feel the pulse of the
nation. Thus, I trust you will read this piece and understand what “Change”
means to your people.
Mr. President, please receive my highest and esteemed
regards.
Kindly yours,
Abimbola Lagunju
Abimbola
Lagunju is a writer and author of several books.
1 comment:
I believe most Nigerians did not hear well nor understand the slogan "Change" of Mr. President and his party APC to mean "Chain" during campaign. This government has become perpetually clueless to the solutions to the Nigerian problems and have come to make the situation even worse than they met it. Nothing tangible or meaningful has been achieved so far by this administration...
Aisha Buhari said: “The interest of the 15 million electorates who voted her husband is more important than that of her husband. It is going to two years without any tangible indices of bettering the lives of Nigerians.”....-Aisha Buhari in her interview with BBC last week. But yet, the interests of over 170Million Nigerians MUST be taken care of and not just that of the15Million gullible electorates that voted him, including me.
Nothing but worse is presently happening more than ever in the the history of this country and they keep giving excuses to Nigerians and the whole world on why they can't perform with the continuous shift in blames to the last regime.
So far, how many bills have emanated from the presidency on improving the lives and living conditions of the populace and even to witch hunt the opposition in the name of corruption as it has eventually turned out to be. Not a single bill after one and half years and what change are they expecting when bills are not passed to be put into law? Was it not a bill to improve the health conditions of the citizenry that sprouted "Obamacare" slogan in America?
So far, so bad, Nigerians are already in APC "Chain" rather than the positive "Change" envisaged.
Anyhow, whether good or bad, change is change. At least, Nigerians now understand clearly the kind of "Change" Mr. President and his APC party had on mind during their electioneering campaign....
Initially, it was complaints and a shift in blames on the past regime, now, the blames are on the citizenry with their "'Chain' Begins With You" syndrome...
I am not a pessimist in anyway but with this crop of rulership we presently have in place in this Nigerian Colony of Arewa Republic, there's no hope in sight. We do not have to deceive ourselves even if they continue to tell us lies and deceive us daily as they do...
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