Mr. President, with sense of humility, I owe you this responsibility as one Nigerian who never voted for you in 2023 to be the president of the Giant of Africa based on my in-depth knowledge of your leadership style as Governor of Lagos State where you performed far below expectation.
But, as you were declared in 2023 as victorious through divine intervention, one is left with the option of wishing you luck as you pilot the affairs of Nigeria while critically observing your probably changed style of governance in transforming the country within your tenure.
I have no business with the path you followed for the Supreme Court awarded victory in the February 25, 2023 presidential election or the scheming applied to defeat your opponents at your party’s primary against the wish of certain party leaders as you know better.
My part is to let you know that as commoners in the Nigeria Project, we had a bitter experience at the hands of your predecessor, who smiled at our sufferings and cries. He projected himself to where he never belonged. He rated majority of Nigerians as criminals for no trust. Ironically, he appointed those now having running battles with anti-corruption agencies for their dishonesty while in his government of change.
We are watching Godwin Emefiele and his co-travelers in the Central Bank, Sadiyya Umar Farouk and her group in the Humanitarian and Disaster Management Ministry, Sabi’u Yusufu Tunde and his co-travelers in the villa, Bello Magaji and his like minds in the National Lottery Trust Fund (NLTF), Habiba Muda Lawal formerly in the Ecological Fund Office (EFO) and her chain of contractors and accomplices waiting for possible invitation, Boss Megida Mustapha as SGF and the $6million foreign election observers scandal, Abubakar Malami and his alleged N112billion scam, itchy-fingered AbdulRashid Bawa formerly in the Efcc, Mele Kyari and his gang bastardizing the NNPCL yet to be exposed, Goni Alkali and his contractors in the Northeast Development Commission (NEDC) butchering resources with style and several other rogues that perfected corrupt practices under his watch with some, sadly reappointed in your government.
Your Excellency, you started your administration without a clear blueprint for Nigeria. Your focus was on the tricks to win the election not how to govern a complex country like Nigeria if victorious.
Today, you are a fulfilled politician having wobbled your way to the hot seat courtesy of the Supreme Court, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and a cross section of security agencies excluding the electorates.
After that, Nigerians waited patiently to scrutinize the list of your working team. When it surfaced, majority were disappointed by the calibre of nominees hurriedly confirmed by the Senate being your rubber stamp.
We saw our undertakers the likes of Betta Edu Halima Shehu, Femi Gbajabiamila, George Akume, Tunji-Ojo, Ya’u Shehu Darazo, and in the Senate, Godswill Akpabio with lingering corruption cases and several others dining and winning with you as your team players.
Based on his sincerity rating of your administrative style, as a senior stakeholder in the Greater Nigeria Project, Bauchi State Governor, Sen. Bala Muhammed, had reason to caution you to do the needful and save your administration from unforeseen catastrophe. What was wrong with that piece of advice from a through bred politician and technocrat to his president for those spurious attacks advanced by some of your most aides? Was the governor wrong to have advised you as his president to look inward and effect corrections to safety? Mind you, the safety of your administration is the safety of the Nigerian nation.
There are Judases dinning and winning with you if you can look inward as suggested by a fellow leader for the good of the system. All those shouting and pretending to be in defence of your administration are insincere and your, near future betrayers.
Your Excellency, we have carefully observed your style of fighting corruption and we are getting convinced that you mean to fight the cankerworm. But, you have to revisit the list including those enjoying appointments under your watch. There are several known and hidden crooks on the corridor of power pretending to be born again.
Mr. President, let me quickly draw your attention to a hidden time bomb that may explode if adequate measures are not put-in-place. The 2023 election cases were carefully and professionally settled by the Supreme Court and their negative implications on unity and peace considered in the spirit of Ibi Jus Ibu Remedium (where there is wrong, there is remedy). Â There may be some wrongs, but the sleeping dogs were allowed to lie.
Nigeria needs peace at all cost and by all means. For the sake of satisfying the wishes of any one or group, we are presently nose diving into another crisis caused by poor economic management. We have enough of crisis to contend!
Your team players in both the executive and the legislature should be rescreened and the system thoroughly overhauled to have the most credible on board.
As an activist who had a brief memorable interactions with you then as member of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), I want to draw your attention on how small nations were transformed into economic giants by their leaders and their productive youths- entrepreneurs not with periodic palliatives and lopsided appointments. The case of the Asian Tigers is still fresh in our memory.
The four Asian Tigers or four Asian Dragons is a term used in reference to the highly free-market and developed economies of Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan turned around overnight by young men and women playing in highly free market and level playing field, creating economic prosperity for themselves and for their nations. By the 21st century, all the four nations had developed and metamorphosed into advanced and high-income economies specializing in areas of competitive advantage. For example, Hong Kong and Singapore have become world-leading international financial centers, whereas South Korea and Taiwan are world leaders in manufacturing information technology and automobiles.
Their economic success stories served as role models to many developing countries on how young men and women with good intentions and through quality education and leadership turned deserts to arable lands for economic growth.
The question here is what led those economies to success? The reason behind their astonishing growth is that they have functional educational system and good leadership with focus and found their comparative advantage using education, individual talents and energy/entrepreneurship –personal resources of their productive young men and women with strong entrepreneurial capabilities to transform their economies. All of these nations, in one way or another, are now some of the leading exporters to the United States and other world powers, and they definitely export more than they import.
The key growth factor is that their youth entrepreneurs created true value, had their people at heart, and created entrepreneurial activities in a sincere way with level playing fields provided by the government. These are true entrepreneurs that don’t lean on the octopus leader or government to jump up the queue of success, taking undue advantage to the misery of their people.
Mr. President, you are now on the saddle of power. You inherited a corruption-ridden system with public servants in collaboration with the political class leading in corrupt practices that retards development, creates security challenges, unemployment and poverty.
The appointment of Jim Obazee as special investigator for Emefiele managed CBN, was a step forward to start the fight against corrupt practices.
Mr. President, the same Jim Obazee should be assigned to investigate all the Federal Ministries and their subsidiaries as well as all agencies. There are several hidden scandals swept under the carpet needing exposure in those federal establishments. Nigeria cannot and should not continue to go borrowing to fund its blueprint for development while same obtained loans and other donated foreign aids are brazenly stolen by self-made crooks in public offices.
Mr. President, there are several unearthed scandals in all the federal agencies begging for exposure and, subsequent action. Several efforts were made by those thieves that butchered the agencies along with their collaborators in the private sector and in the national assembly to cover the scandals including scuttling the efforts of the probe of the House of Representatives Committee on Environment under the chairmanship of Isma’ila Haruna Dabo.
Those who stole public funds under different guises within ministries, departments and agencies are now restless, sleepless and hypertensive, and so desperate to bury their crimes against Nigerians.
The fight and defeat of corruption is an easy task to accomplish but may be hard for encouragement even if authorized, by those who may be targets in government for fear of exposure, arrest and subsequent prosecution.
You started your administration with sincerity of purpose so it seemed and for the good of Nigeria, but to sustain the style, tempo and introduce other mechanisms to fight corruption may be your albatross because of the presence of certain rogues surrounding you and within your government.
Refer to the days of your predecessors ( Goodluck Jonathan and Buhari) as a guide to your efforts to if you are determined for the fight. The duo supposedly came to power with good intentions and sincerity of purpose for the good of Nigeria. Unfortunately, an error was committed from the onset by appointing some wrong persons as aides. Kleptomaniacs and unrepentant crooks were appointed to key positions of authority. Remember the scandal of your ‘friend’ Babacir David Lawal (sacked SGF)? You can recall how Diezani Alli-son Madueke, Bello Adoke, Sambo Dasuki, Gen. Azubuike Iherijika, other service chiefs and several other crooks that misused and abused their privileged positions in government to steal Nigeria through the trust they enjoyed from the former presidents.
Mr. President, the present set of crooks in various government ministries, departments and agencies are so desperate to overtake and control government affairs tailored to their selfish interest. You may not be aware of certain ongoing scandals in the various ministries, departments and agencies until you appoint a high-powered committee of honest and sincere Nigerians to investigate majority of federal ministries, departments and agencies to position your administration on the right pedestal for the fight against corruption.
In an ideal and honest setting, how can a civil servant earning a monthly salary own even a N2million and above residence in Abuja or in any part of the country even on free land? Â Today, we have even junior civil servants owning mansions and castles in choice cities in Nigeria. How comes? We have civil servants that own fleet of exotic limousines and other properties. How comes? We have to start somewhere and reach our dream destination.
If one may suggest, your administration should reintroduce the Federal Tenders Board under sincere management with additional responsibilities to handle all federal government award of contracts, including all supplies. The present system aids and abates sharp corrupt practices where ministries, departments and agencies award contracts on paper not for execution but for payment.
Most contracts awarded were not executed to specification if at all they were executed. A visit to most of the claimed projects awarded and claimed to have been executed by the Ecological Fund Office under Habiba Muda Lawal are mere imaginations. Most of the projects only exist in the imagination of those who facilitated the awards and the collaborating contractors who claimed to have executed the contracts.
Constituency Projects in various federal constituencies are mostly not executed but paid as well. A visit to assess most constituency projects captured in budgets may cause you hypertension.
Another cesspool of corruption is the River Basin Authorities under the Federal Ministry for Water Resources. Corruption is the norm in the river basins. Conventional and honest system of governance, are missing in the river basins. Their procurement sections are the most corrupt. A thorough investigation shall reveal the truth. The health sector is another corruption breeding ground. How the Ministry of Health handled the Covid-19 and Ebola disasters need to be investigated. Ministry for Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management was butchered beyond comprehension under Sadiyya Umar Farouk with a continuation under Dr Betta Edu and Halima Shehu.
Mr. President, there is no federal ministry, department or agency including the judiciary and security agencies that abhors corruption. In some of them, it has been unofficially institutionalized as a policy.
For you to succeed and print your name in gold, you have to apply certain mechanisms to save the credibility of your administration. There is a dire need for total overhaul of the system.
Lastly, what stops Mr. President from copying the Chinese policy of dealing with abusers of office? To fight corruption to standstill, Nigeria needs to introduce death sentence penalty in our legal system. Honestly, some of those that stole and still stealing our commonwealth deserve to be with their ancestors where, so ever they are. Their continuous stay in circulation is corrupting the society the more because they are fast becoming role models to frustrated citizens that erroneously believe stealing of public funds is not corruption.
Regards and Best Wishes to Your Excellency as we wait for another bout in 2027
Muhammad is a commentator on national issues. Â
