by Samuel Akinnuga

Dear Mr President,

I would be very sincere and straight to the point in this very short letter to you I have finally found the guts to write to you. I hope it affords me the opportunity to draw your attention to many issues of immense of relevance to the ordinary man on the street. For the upwards of 2 years since you became the man in charge of our corporate and collective destinies, you have had to fight battles, cross hurdles and come under fire for efforts made in your quest to fulfilling the promises you made to Nigerians – or at least the 95% majority as many assert you untactfully claimed earlier in your presidency. The criticisms and the praises that come along the way are all concomitants of the public life you have chosen but nonetheless, you would agree that the job has to be done.

Mr President, you have never failed for once, at every chance you get to draw our attention to the biggest factors for our present economic woes – the fall in the price of oil and our failure to save in the past years for the rainy days. I can tell you for sure that Nigerians understand this but we what we would not accept is a consistent dwelling on these issues. We have to move forward. Nigerians have endured the journey to where we are. The ordinary man is always the one to make sacrifices.

Nigerians have for so long paid the ultimate price for the inefficiencies and failures of the system and the leadership. We are tired of being told that our pulse is being felt but when in reality we don’t see that to be true. We don’t see a genuine concern in the manner many people in the top echelons of government go about dispensing their duties. We don’t see that to true in the culture of profligacy many in government have adopted. We don’t see that to be true in the way institutions and infrastructure are allowed to assume a deplorable state before something is thought to be done about them. They commission hospitals they would never get treated in and schools their wards would never attend. What we see is a constant betrayal of the trust Nigerians have reposed in the government. What we see is the government’s failure to fulfil its part of the social contract. What we see is the constant undermining of the people and their relevance until it is time for elections. What we see is a log of broken and unfulfilled promises. On the increase, monies voted for the advancement of the welfare of the people ‘mysteriously’ find their way into the pockets of a few people for the advancement of their selfish and secure tenure.

At the moment, the many strikes are really striking Nigerians very hard. I appreciate that from time, you claim to understand the sufferings of masses of the people. While your assertions may be true (I want to believe they are), many Nigerians would find it hard to believe. This is because you are ensconced in an exalted office that keeps you impregnable and insulated from the economic buffetings ordinary Nigerians have to deal with on a daily basis. Going by the failures of the system, all Nigerians deserve to be on strike from being Nigerians until Nigeria is what it should be – a place where an abundant life is guaranteed for all citizens. Young people (undergraduate students) cannot go to school, who would they be taught by? Our sick cannot go to the hospital, who would treat them?

For too long, we got too easily enamoured by the old-truth that we are the ‘Giant of Africa’. It has become firmly established (in view of present realities) that we are not even giants of ourselves. Nigerians do not live the ‘giant life’ in their own country. Around the country, the tension is palpable.  The tension is on the rise every day. The issues are as serious up North as they are down South.

I cannot bare it all in this letter. I do not expect a direct response from you, Mr. President, neither am I naïve to expect an overnight miracle, but the truth must be said – we are at our lowest but that is not all gloom and doom for you. We got here by our mistakes of the yesterday and can only move forward by the ingenious efforts and hard-to-make decisions of today. I am confident that this is a position shared by very many Nigerians. We look up to God and we look up to you. I want to know – Mr. President, where do we go from here?

Yours Sincerely,

Samuel

Op–ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija

Samuel writes in from Lagos

Op-ed Editor