Mr President, I love you, and I pray for you to succeed, hence I chose to tell you these inconvenient truths. I know you will be reading this opinion or somehow you will get to be told about what I have written here. Don’t think you have lost me as a friend and supporter but count on me as someone with the renewed hope that you still can make a better president.
You have good intentions no doubt, but there are times when good intentions are not just enough. Actions speak better than intentions. I recall when this democracy was still nascent and you were elected the executive governor of Lagos State on January 9, 1999, a position you held up to 2007. On these two elections I campaigned for you and I voted for you.
More fascinating was that I listened through your inaugural speech on May 29, 1999 where you laid the foundation for a new Lagos. Also, in that well-crafted speech you paid glowing tributes to the heroes of the struggle for democracy, especially the men and women of the press whom you admitted suffered arbitrary detention, harassment and death so that we can have this democracy.
I was a witness to the transformation of Lagos from the dream of one man to reality. I followed how you chose successors from among your disciples and how each of them from Fashola to Sanwo Olu kept faith with the vision. For 24 years, you plotted your way to the top and it finally paid off when you were sworn in as President on May 29, 2023
But the inconvenient truth is that as president, you are now a sharp contrast from the Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu that I admired as the governor of Lagos State. Maybe it is age that has changed you or some flip-flop in policy ideas, but it is inexcusable that under your watch as President free speech which is essential in democracy is fast fading. You may have forgotten, so quickly, that threats and intimidation are not tools of democracy.
These days, journalists are either harassed, threatened with treason or made to disappear. Despotic governors are learning this game from you. Nigerians shouldn’t be speaking in fear and muffled tones about their suffering. The inconvenient truth is that if the government continues to muscle free speech and dismiss public opinions at some point, the people’s anger might explode in a way that the falcon will no longer listen to the falconer. Take the advice of the patriots on constitutional review seriously. You lose nothing allowing the conversation to commence now. It is still better to jaw-jaw than to war -war!
People are hungry and suffering due to your monumental failed policies, and palliative is no longer the answer. Nigerians who voted for you are disappointed in your government. I personally feel very ashamed when people compare you with former President Buhari and conclude they were better off under President Buhari who by all indication was an unmitigated disaster. Buhari did set Nigeria back by over 60 years and I refuse the temptation to regret his exit. Asiwaju, I pray that Buhari must never be better than you and you must do all within your power to change that trajectory.
Due to hunger and bad governance, some youth went to the street in protest. In your younger days and if you are not the president, you would have been the leader of that protest because you are a man of the people. Those young men and women who came out to protest had no intention of overthrowing your government but to be heard so that you will take actions against some vested interests holding the country down. Those kids were the examples of the young men and women you praised to high heavens in the speech you delivered on the 29th of May 1999. The highhandedness of security agencies who murdered about 40 protesters and now proffering charges of treason on those arrested is unjustifiable and inconsistent with your persona as democratic activist. Do something different if you wish. Invite those young men and women from detention to breakfast or dinner, have a conversation with them and let them go. Discontinue with the needless trial because convicting any of them and sentencing the person to death on a trumped-up charge of treason will dent you and put you in the infamous class of African dictators.
If there are people Nigerians want dead, it is the politicians looting Nigerians in billions of naira and dollars. It is the cabals stealing our oil, gold and diamond. It is those fat cows that have become bigger than our constitution. The people we want dead are those that are now thrilled about banditry visiting peasant villagers with horror and violence. People have not forgotten how your predecessor responded to this raw violence with partisanship.
In Zamfara, for instance, the chief of the bandits Mr. Turgi and his well-armed militia determine your life. They make tiktok videos of their rape, torture and execution of their victims. The horror of their operations is now blunted by numbers too large to comprehend, actions repeated until their meaning wore thin.
In many instances, they invade villages and ordered people out from their homes, and began beating them, and some became permanently disabled. They ordered some young men to dug their graves, lined them up and began shooting them. They take women who they rape and keep as hostages. There was this story of two young girls who were pregnant, having been raped by bandits who invaded their village previously. This time the bandits shot and killed them. Then they pressed the bayonets into their rounded bellies and cut the girls open to expose the foetuses still moving in their stomachs. Those were young Christian girls. They did nothing besides being Nigerians under your administration. The killing, persecution and displacement of Christians in Nigeria is unrelenting and a time bomb that may explode during your presidency.
We should be ashamed that we have a country where Christians are deliberately targeted, as well as their communities, their livelihood, faith leaders and places of worship. It is a shame that under you, Christians are reportedly becoming endangered species in Nigeria. When the gunmen attack and slaughter people, they could be heard shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ (Allah is the greatest). It is inexcusable that foreign militias have infiltrated our country and killing our people and you offer no protection to our own citizens.
For heaven’s sake, Mr. President, you are the Commander-in-Chief and you have all the power to put a full final stop to this whole nonsense. To every reasonable mind, you and the present political class have failed our people and abused the true meaning of democracy as government of the people, by the people for the people.
While most Nigerians cannot afford a loaf of bread, you have the president’s men living in opulence. You have the president jetting around in a high-class private jet. Amidst poor economic conditions, food shortages and limited access to health care, your recent purchase of Airbus A330 presidential jet at N150 billion does not justify that the nation is broke. It rather shows how insensitive you are to the plight of Nigerians. What you have done is like fleecing the people.
How do you rationalise the recent order by Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission issuing one-month ultimatum to traders to crash commodity prices and on the other hand NNPCL which is under you as Minister of Petroleum hiked fuel price to nearly N1000 per litre? Transportation is a major component in determining food prices because the farmers need to transport their products to the market. The increase in fuel price increases the cost of transportation which invariable increases food prices. This is economics of common sense. Why are you doing this to yourself and to us? I cannot believe that you used 24 years to plot to become president and now this? Mr. President, failure will not be your portion.