Mr. President, as one of your most loyal
and faithful subjects who has nothing but the utmost respect for your
person and your office I am constrained to write you this open letter.
This
is because there are a number of issues that I believe that it is
important for you to clarify and to come clean on. I say this because
some of your assertions of late are at best contradictory and at worst
patently dishonest.
Whichever side of the political divide we are on
I believe that we can all agree on one thing: that the prosecution of
the war against terror is not something that any of us should play
politics with.
This is especially so
given the fact that human lives are at stake and the very existence of
our nation is under threat. Like much of the rest of the world our
country is going through hell at the hands of the jihadists and Islamist
terrorists.There is no gainsaying that we must all come to terms with
the fact that the Islamic State in the Levant (ISIL), Al Qaeda, the
Taliban, Al Shabab, Boko Haram, Hamas and another group that the
internationally-respected Global Terror Index has described as the
”Fulani militants” (aka Fulani herdsmen) are nothing but bloodthirsty
murderers and the lowest form of life.
They
are indeed the scum of the earth, the troublers of humanity and the
vermin of hell. It is with this in mind that I urge you to take the war
against terror far more seriously than you are doing and plead with you
to stop passing the buck. Your penchant for blaming your failings in
this regard on the previous administration is simply nauseating and it
does not serve you well.
You
continuously contradict yourself when it comes to this matter and
frankly such flip flops are unworthy of the office that you presently
occupy.
We your subjects look up to
you for consistency, strength, unequivocal commitment, a firm resolve
and the ”leadership from the front” that you promised during your
presidential campaign in this war. We do not want and neither do we need
doublespeak, lame excuses and buck passing.
Permit me to point out a few examples of your contradictory assertions
and your buck passing in this short intervention. Initially you claimed
that your predecessor in office President Goodluck Jonathan never bought
any arms and that instead he squandered and stole all the money that
was appropriated for the procurement of arms.
Yet when the British Minister of Defense visited you in the
Presidential Villa the other day the story changed. You did a U-turn and
gleefully told him and the wider world that President Jonathan bought
arms with raw cash.
One wonders which
story you shall come up with next and which one you will conjure up in
the future. Kindly tell us what the position is: is it that Jonathan did
not buy arms at all and stole all the money or is it that he used cash
to buy arms? You cannot have it both ways. It is either one or the
other.
Quite apart from your glaring
doublespeak on this matter there was another issue which you ought to
have raised with your highly esteemed and respected British guest.
You
forgot to tell him that his was one of the countries that not only
refused to sell weapons to us during the course of this bitter conflict
but that also helped to impose and enforce the international arms
embargo on our country even though we are at war.
This
resulted in the unnecessary death of thousands of our people because we
found it difficult to procure the weapons to protect them.
Your
guest’s country insisted on towing the American line and doing this to
us even though we were fighting a war against a relentless,
well-motivated, well-funded and well-armed fighting force that Global
Terror Index has described as the ”deadliest terrorist organization in
the world”. One is forced to ask: with friends like this who needs
enemies?
Given the fact that the
embargo was in place one wonders how we were supposed to procure arms
unless we did so with raw cash on the black market.
The
alternative was to buy none at all, to do nothing and to allow Boko
Haram to take Abuja, Port Harcourt, Enugu and Lagos. Perhaps that is
precisely what your western friends and allies wanted but thankfully it
never came to pass.
Despite the
challenges and constraints President Jonathan faced, instead of losing
any more ground, he rose to the occasion and retook no less than 22
local government areas and virtually pushed Boko Haram out of Nigeria.
The only place that they occupied by the time the election took place
was Sambisa forest.
Jonathan achieved
all this with those arms that he bought with raw cash. This is
apparently what you are now complaining about. Permit me to remind you
that it is those same arms that Jonathan bought with raw cash that your
army is still using till today.
Yet
sadly since you were sworn in as President seven months ago you have
lost some of those same local government areas that were earlier
recovered and they are now back in the hands of the terrorists.
Despite
this you keep telling the international community and the Nigerian
people that we are ”making progress” in the war against terror.
As
a matter of fact you went as far as to say that we had ”won the war”
against Boko Haram and your Minister of Information, Mr. Lai Mohammed,
echoed that grotesque mendacity and reiterated that sentiment by adding
the words ”technically won” (whatever that may mean) to the equation.
Sadly,
two days later, on Christmas day, in what can only be described as an
eloquent response from the terrorists, scores of innocent civilians were
killed by Boko Haram in Borno state and a whole community was burnt to
the ground.
Again on Sunday 27th of
December Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, came under heavy attack
from the terrorists. Yet again on Monday 28th December, in Adamawa
state, Boko Haram launched a series of suicide bomb attacks in which at
least fifty innocent civilians were killed. So much for having ”won the
war against Boko Haram”, whether ”technically” or otherwise.
Instead
of conceding that you had told the Nigerian people a pernicious lie,
curiously the next thing that you did was to tell them that you would
”persuade Boko Haram to drop their arms”. One is compelled to ask: why
would you have to persuade them to drop their arms if you had already
defeated them and won the war against them?
In
any case this would be the first time in the history of modern warfare
that a sitting President has sought to destroy and defeat a vicious and
relentless terrorist organization and win the war against terror simply
with the awesome and devastating weapon of persuasion.
Perhaps
you should recommend that same tactic to the Americans and the rest of
the international community as an effective and credible weapon to adopt
in their war against ISIL, Al Qaeda, Al Shabab, Hamas and all the other
jihadist groups that plague the world.
Whilst
you are at it perhaps you could also persuade Boko Haram to free the
Chibok girls. It is disturbing to note that despite all your campaign
promises and assurances that once you are elected President the girls
would be rescued or returned, nothing has been done or heard about any
of them ever since you were sworn in.
Worst
still the Bring Back Our Girls Group, which was essentially an
appendage of your election organization, together with its distinguished
leaders and conveners, appear to have gone very quiet. I guess they are
busy trying to persuade Boko Haram to drop their arms too.
The
truth is that it is time for you to free yourself from your monumental
delusions and to get real. Sadly you appear to be detached from reality.
Instead
of fighting the war against terror you are making it worse by
slaughtering one thousand Shia Muslims in Zaria on December 12th,
locking up their leader Sheik Ibrahim El Zakzaky and opening yet another
war front in our country.
The last
thing that we need is for Hezbollah or the Iranian Republican Guard to
rise to the occasion, take up the challenge, jump into the fray and
decide to protect and avenge their Shia Muslim brothers and sisters in
northern Nigeria.
Yet despite the
reprehensible and indefensible actions of your military commanders in
Zaria you have refused to show any remorse for what was undoubtedly a
war crime against fellow Nigerians and you have not prosecuted the
officers and military personnel that were involved in the butchery.
Instead
the homes of the victims and those that share their Shia faith have
been burnt to the ground in Zaria and their graves and burial sites have
been dug up and desecrated.
Instead
of fighting Boko Haram you are fighting and killing your own people.
Worse still you have refused to defend our country. I say this because a
few days ago the Cameroonian military invaded our country, violated our
territorial integrity and savagely murdered over 70 innocent Nigerians
in their village before burning it down.
Your government refused to
acknowledge that this event even took place, despite the media reports.
You did not console or express condolences to the families of the
victims or retaliate against the Cameroonians.
You
did not even warn them or demand an apology or reparations from them.
This is heartless and shameful. It could not have happened under
Jonathan, Obasanjo, Babangida, Shagari, Abacha, Abubakar, Shonekan,
Mohammed, Balewa or indeed any other former Nigerian President or Head
of State.
If any of them had been in
power and the Cameroonians cultivated the effrontery to do such a thing
there would have been consequences.
Yet
you did nothing to avenge this affront or to defend our honor. What
happened to the gallant and brave General Buhari that courageously led
our troops into victory in Chad in the early 1980’s?
What happened to the honest and forthright man that we all admired and looked up to because of his military exploits in Chad?
What
happened to the war hero that gave the Chadians a ”bloody nose” for
daring to attack a Nigerian village and that almost took Ndjamena, the
Chadian capital?
What happened to the
man that proved to the Libyans and their Chadian proxies that Nigerians
knew how to fight? It appears that you have changed and that you are no
longer the man that you used to be.
Instead of being honest with
our people you have insisted on selling them a dummy and telling them a
lie. You refuse to tell the world that our military is terribly
demoralized, our soldiers are suffering heavy casualties and are not
being paid their salaries regularly and, worse of all, that you have
failed to procure a single bullet or weapon for them to use in the last
seven months since you came to power.
Instead
of deploying all the power of the state against Boko Haram you have
spent all your energy and resources trying to teach the former National
Security Advisor, Colonel Sambo Dasuki, and all your other perceived
enemies the lesson of their lives by misrepresenting them before the
world, subjecting them to state-sponsored tyranny and the most insidious
form of persecution, violating their human rights and lying to the
world that they stole and shared money that was meant for the purchase
of arms.
You have also misled and
misinformed the Nigerian people about the rules and conventions that are
applied when it comes to the administration of security funds and about
the fact that it is the National Assembly alone that has the right to
probe the use of such funds as part of their oversight functions.
To
cap it all you have claimed you did not receive any benefit from the
NSA ‘s office whilst Jonathan was in power. This is an assertion which
we all know is, at best, questionable.
You
must be mindful of the fact that God hates liars and He despises those
that abuse power. You must remember that the more you scorn God’s
counsel and mock His admonitions the more your errors will be made
manifest and the more your people will suffer.
You
must understand that any leader or government that is motivated by
bitterness, fear, hate, vengeance and malice will eventually hit the
rocks and crash like a pack of cards. You must appreciate the fact that
God is watching and that He sees and knows all.
May the Lord have mercy on you and may He forgive you for your many sins and wicked ways. God bless Nigeria.
