Malam Jatau’s Letter to Mr. President

Also published in DAILY TRUST

Dear Mr. President, I hardly understand English, hence couldn’t comprehend your address to the nation on January 7, 2012. However, I followed its translated version in some local media, hence and despite my limited exposure in politics and statecraft I observe some interesting points to comment on. I hope you would bear with my “naivety” and wouldn’t wonder how I write you in English anyway, for it could be a spontaneous miracle.

Mr. President, my voice represents the voices of the majority of unprivileged Nigerians out there, who are hardly listened to, let alone consider their views in any policy making process. Yet we are determined to continue exercising patience hopefully you would eventually bring us a good luck and prosperity.

Mr. President, it was obvious from your speech that you wanted to console people like me, who wallow in such a frustrating deprivation, giving the impression that the further hardship as a result of the removal of oil subsidy, which by the way has already begun to bite, is simply an inevitable transition into a better life.

Mr. President, it is very kind of you to acknowledge that -as you put it- “these are not easy times” but I believe I am in a better position to realize how really hard it is, for I have been enduring it for long, whereas the criteria you adopt to assess the situation are largely based on some information and largely unrealistic indices concocted and presented to you, which consequently don’t represent the real reality. Anyway you continue to emphasize that, “tough choices have to be made to safeguard the economy and our collective survival as a nation”.

Moreover, you express your sympathy with us by maintaining that “Let me seize this opportunity to assure all Nigerians that I feel the pain that you all feel. I personally feel pained to see the sharp increase in transport fares and the prices of goods and services. I share the anguish of all persons who had travelled out of their stations, who had to pay more on the return leg of their journeys.”

However, certainly I would have loved to behold your body language while reading this particular part of your address, for it would have interested me a lot in my assessment of your speech. In any case, how I wish you used what I hear the educated call “past tense form” on the verb “feel”, which you used in order to indicate how painful you also find it, supposedly just like the rest of us, because obviously it would have conveyed a more vivid picture of the actual reality i.e. when you were too poor to afford a pair a shoes to go to school for instance, as you once narrated to us.

Anyway, Mr. President, generally speaking, the arguments contained in your speech to justify the removal of oil subsidy are not different from the ones I have heard from the previous governments hence my doubt in their validity, as I have seen how the proceeds realized in the past ended up, leaving me as disappointed as ever.

Nevertheless, you go ahead to further maintain that “If I were not here to lead the process of national renewal, if I were in your shoes at this moment, I probably would have reacted in the same manner as some of our compatriots, or hold the same critical views about government.”

Mr. President, it is already well known that, switching sides has always been the habit of Nigerian ruling elite; once they are in the system they keep quiet and even argue passionately in favour of any government policy, only to metamorphose into critics and “activists” once they are out of the system.

However, what I find particularly interesting is how you still go ahead to allude that by virtue of your exalted position, you access the reality on the ground hence act accordingly, as you put it; “I need to use this opportunity as your President to address Nigerians on the realities on the ground, and why we chose to act as we did”

Mr. President, since you obviously rely on the information reaching you through networks of people who have vested interests to serve, I really doubt if they are giving you the right information about the reality on the ground, otherwise you wouldn’t have acted the way you did. 

I am sure that you can hardly if at all imagine how hard and frustrating it is on the ground, even though you had also endured it in the past, yet you must have now forgotten it having been in the comfort of power ever since the country’s return to what we call democracy in the late 90s.

You also continue to assert that “the truth is that we are all faced with two basic choices with regard to the management of the downstream petroleum sector: either we deregulate and survive economically, or we continue with a subsidy regime that will continue to undermine our economy and potential for growth, and face serious consequences”

Mr. President, even though Nigerian ruling elite have always capitalized on the perceived gullibility of the people like, I am particularly not that gullible in reality anymore, so also are millions of other ordinary Nigerians. After all, the fraud perpetrated by Nigerian ruling elite against me and my compatriots is too primitive in nature that it does not require any special skill to unravel.

Accordingly, I humbly doubt that Nigeria has only that option to survive; on the contrary Nigeria has much more effective yet untapped options; the most obvious of course are; (1) to confront corruption with no- nonsense attitude, and (2) to facilitate the formulation of necessary legal framework to compel all the notorious corrupt past and present corrupt officials to justify their accumulated wealth, otherwise impound it, return it to the national treasury and prosecute them appropriately.

Mr. President, the expected proceeds from these measures if matched with appropriate investments will transform Nigeria from its present obsolete condition into a functional, modern and competitive country. Thereafter even if the removal of oil subsidy is still inevitable then it could be removed as its repercussion will not be such a big deal.

Mr. President, the cost cutting measures you mentioned including the 25% cut from the basic salaries of political office holders in the executive arm of government are too insignificant to make any difference. After all, I don’t think there is any political office holder in all the three tiers of government who lives within his legitimate income, in fact should they be offered to work without any official remuneration, they would definitely agree, for obvious reasons of course.

Mr. President, I am actually a hypothetical character and I can also understand how too busy you are to respond to all the letters and criticisms addressed to you particularly these days, more so my letter, yet I expect you to look beyond the walls of the Aso Rock to behold how we really suffer out there and let the feelings it will evoke in you then guide your decisions accordingly.