When General Olusegun Obasanjo’s ‘letter bomb’
to President Goodluck Jonathan became public property, there became a need to
sieve through the mindset of the Nigerian people. In no time, two schools of thought had
emerged: those urging us to hark to the message, even if the messenger is/was,
himself, of questionable character. The other is that nothing credible can come
out of the mouth of the former president. In any case, there are two facts that
cannot be denied by both arguments.
It is a positive development that Nigerians are
interested in that letter in the first place. That the public desired,
downloaded and digested “Before it is too late” has its own merits. And, of
course, it takes some guts to address such a revealing script to the President
of an African country. Ultimately, the letter indicted more people than the
present occupant of Aso Rock; it indicted the addresser and those he copied as
much as it does the addressee. This is fact Number One. Secondly, the contents
of that letter have failed to elicit from us, the reaction that is required for
our leaders to take us seriously.
It is letter-writing season and a serving
minister, a state governor, the CBN governor and this one by Obasanjo have
posted airmails. All were addressed to President Jonathan alleging varying
degrees of corruption, fraud, mismanagement, favoritism and other forms of short
practices and come from people in the know. The inner caucus. They cannot be
waved aside. As a result, one wonders why we the people are not up in arms and
demanding an enquiry. No heads are rolling; it is almost as a passing breeze.
Yet, we are the turf upon which this tsunami is waging its destruction; we are the
ones who are getting battered. How come
we act like it is not a big deal and have almost come to expect this extremely
bad behavior. We are not at all surprised but curiously seem to just accept
that this is our situation, our leaders will act irresponsibly in their best
interests even at our peril?
Entrusting our collective destiny to personae
whose interests over the last 53 years are less than altruistic have, in the
past, not done us any good. These are the same players. They haven’t changed.
Over 80 per cent of our 53 years of nationhood was spent under the leadership of
people like Obasanjo and those he copied in his letter. It most certainly
cannot be said that those years did not contribute to the bedlam we are being
warned against today. Since 1999, an exclusive clique has handpicked all
Nigerian presidents and governors, and they are friends, relatives or stooges
of those who ruled us before. I do not
know which is more pathetic: that we the masses have never truly elected our
leaders or the fact that we are not bothered by it. The latter is the only
reason why a ruling party would regard a situation with dire and direct
consequences on the people as a “family affair”. Admitting and reiterating that
we did not put them in power is the biggest indictment on us.
I am
convinced that, three years after the Arab Spring was triggered in Tunisia,
worse atrocities have been perpetrated here.
Why don’t/ wont we act, were we a conscious people, we wouldn’t need any
personal letter to debate our destiny. In fact, the addresser and addressee
would not have the luxury of exchanging phony letters had Nigerians spelt out
their own terms of engagement in clear and unambiguous manner. In a democracy,
a leader is not answerable to a dissatisfied individual or group of people; a
leader is only answerable to the people.
This is why it is called democracy.
There is no doubt that our leaders are guilty
and should be criticized, but we do nothing. Silence is not sitting on the
fence or not taking action; silence is an endorsement. We have, by keeping
silent, approved the excesses of our leaders, which they revel in. They do
nothing wrong because we do not show pain, accept the punishment and hail them
for it.
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