Letter to my President

Source: Daily Post

By Msonter Anzaa

“When the judges did not judge the truth or protect the interests of the oppressed, when the judges connived with tyrants to frustrate the rule of law, the question that arose was clear: who would judge the judges? The quick answer was – the people.” Major Adewale Ademoyega; Why we Struck: The Story of the first Nigerian Coup.

Your Excellency, I hope you are doing well. You are my president first of all because you have taken the oath of office as President of Nigeria and I am a Nigerian. Secondly, I happen to be one of those millions who queued in the 2015 general elections to vote you into office. I exercised that duty voluntarily because I believed that you had the capacity and willingness to give our nation that push she desperately needs to break out of the grip of the tyrants of evil.

It may interest you to know that I am of the Tiv ethnic group from Benue. I do not feel particularly comfortable emphasizing my ethnic origin when I address national issues. This is probably because my childhood was spent in a serene village in the countryside where one’s ethnic group did not confer any advantages or disadvantages, and life was built on trust and cooperation. Those were the days of innocence when I was insulated altogether from the raving ethno-religious dog-eat-dog national ethic that is choking life out of our beloved nation today. Those were the days when my primary school teachers taught us to recite the National Anthem and take the National Pledge as a mark of honour to our nation. We were taught to pause whatever we were doing whenever we heard the anthem being played; to stand at attention in honour of the fallen heroes of our national struggle.

When I went to the boarding house in one of the unity colleges, my classmates and roommates were drawn from all over Nigeria. We so blended in that community that most times we did not even know which states our classmates came from or what dialects they spoke. It did not seem to matter. In that setting, we did not have to try to unite; unity flowed naturally. The divisions were not between Hausa and Igbo or Christian and Moslem; they were between senior students and junior students, between evil and good.  My friends and I would sit down and talk about Nigeria, itching to make a difference. The love of our nation flowed in our veins. We had a strong desire to do something for Nigeria, to uphold the honour and glory of the black man, just as Marcus Garvey, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Obafemi Awolowo, Herbert Macaulay and others did. But again, those were the days of innocence.

I have struggled since I left secondary school to uphold my national identity above my ethnic identity, and to pursue a national vision rather than a sectional vision. This struggle has been made difficult by those agents of evil who ab initio have sought to tear down our nation along ethno-religious lines. However, even some of our patriotic countrymen who tried to uphold a national identity met nothing other than betrayal and frustration, and have now found solace in their ethnic identities. Their testimony about the hopelessness of Nigerian nationhood is difficult to dismiss. Notwithstanding their testimony, I still nurse in the corner of my heart a burning hope and faith that Nigeria will pull through. This faith underlies my determination to be a contributor rather than a spectator; to identify with the national project and not seek solace in another corner of the world.

Your Excellency, I thought that your leadership was going to provide that strength of character and resolve that will rekindle the flame of faith which I and other members of my generation have in this nation. So far, it has not happened. Your response to the ethnic cleansing going on in the Middle Belt has raised huge doubts in me about your commitment to Nigerian nationhood. You and your officials appear rather reluctant and on the defensive each time this issue is mentioned. You say the killings predate your government. You say the murderers are not herdsmen, yet Miyetti Allah claims responsibility. You say the killers are Libyan armed groups, but at the same time you urge the people of Benue to accommodate their “countrymen,” and your government tries to establish cattle colonies for them. You say you have your way of getting information on these things, yet your Inspector-General of Police defied your orders to relocate to Benue and you claimed that for more than a month you never knew.

Mr President, there are two frightening possibilities arising from this behaviour of yours. One is that you may be complicit in the ongoing massacre of your citizens. Two, if you are not complicit, then you are thoroughly under-estimating what is happening in the Middle Belt. I appeal to you to search your heart. The situation in the country calls for genuine leadership. It challenges you and your officials to purge yourselves of every element of ethno-religious and political brinkmanship, and exert your constitutional powers to save Nigeria.

The blood of the victims is crying, the pen of history is writing and the eyes of God are watching. May history never record that when Nigeria squirmed in the pool of her blood, wounded by agents of evil – when the last flickers of her hope of nationhood were being blown out – it was the actions or inactions of your presidency that nailed her coffin. Remember, according to the late Dele Giwa, “An evil done by man to man will never go unpunished; if not now, then later, and if not by man then by God. For the triumph of evil over good is but temporary.”