Written by Tolu Ogunlesi
Dear Mr. President,
I am constrained to write this open letter to you before this season of letters comes to a close.
I will go straight to the issues at
stake. Let’s start with the level of toxic-ness in the air, sustained to
a large extent by the attitude of your array of spokespersons, who
today do little more than insult and dismiss everyone deemed to be an
“enemy” of the President. Just as you have a point when you said that
the easiest way to be deemed “progressive” is to abuse Jonathan, it has
also become that criticising the President quickly earns one all sorts
of unprintable labels from the your camp.
Everyone in your camp seems obsessed with
the fact that the world is against you. One adviser recently accused
everyone criticising you of lacking home training. Another, who made his
name writing brilliant articles that skewered the governments of the
day, recently lamented — without any sense of irony — that all Nigerian
media is in the hands of the opposition.
There’s a siege mentality at work, us
versus them. I can assure you that that is
not at all a helpful attitude
to adopt. Let’s get one thing clear – if the Nigerian media seems to be
against you, it is because it has always been that way; always tending
to be deeply critical of the abuse and misuse of power. At the next
Council of State meeting, you might want to ask your predecessors about
their experiences with the media and the “opposition”.
If the media was unusually “nice” to or
tolerant of the self-styled Evil Genius, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, why did
he spend so much time proscribing media houses? If it was nice to Gen.
Sani Abacha, why was his government obsessed with hounding journalists?
If it was nice to President Olusegun Obasanjo, why did he once boast
that he never read newspapers? The late President Umaru Yar’Adua earned
himself a reputation as “Baba Go-Slow”. Remember the joke that
circulated widely a few years ago, about going into a restaurant to
order amala, shaki and ‘Yar’Adua’ (where Yar’Adua stood for ‘snail’).
My point is: I doubt that Nigerians and
their news media are singling you out for ill-treatment. It’s not about
you being a Southern President, or a Christian, or an Ijaw man, it’s far
more likely to be about the action and inaction of your government. Mr. President, step out of the trenches.
Your battle is not against the media, or ordinary Nigerians wont to
express their frustrations and disappointments. I suspect that your
battle is instead with many of those characters who surround you,
claiming to be friends and loyalists, but who imprison you within a
dangerous Bubble and delight in misleading you for their own selfish
ends.
I have slowly come to realise how the
condition of power easily sets up the wielders of that power for
incarceration within a Bubble. It’s prison without the uniform and
without the realisation that you’re in prison.
In that Bubble, you’re cut off from
reality, and people come up to you and say all sorts of things. They
give you lists of your “friends” and “enemies”, they concoct
allegations, they worship you, they call you their Alpha and Omega, the
best thing to happen to Nigeria since 1914; they endlessly whisper
rumours and rumours of rumours. They will tell you that everyone hates
you because you’re from a minority ethnic group. They will tell you to
ignore what “all those yeye newspapers and critics” are saying.
It’s time, perhaps, for you to fight to
step out of that Bubble. Your own long walk to freedom ought to commence
now, considering that it’s almost too late. We all know that governance is largely a
series of perception games. Thus far, your government has, like many of
the governments that preceded you, has played those games badly. When
people perceive your government as corrupt, it is because they see no
evidence otherwise. We all saw fuel subsidy payments rise four-fold
during your first year in power. No one took responsibility, no one was
punished.
When the Ikeja Police College incident
happened, it was an angry you who said the revelations were the work of
your enemies. It was, and is still, puzzling – did the opposition
somehow corner all the funds allocated to the College(s), making it
impossible for the police bosses to spend their funds responsibly? Then,
there was the aviation industry scandal – and I’ve reliably heard that
it is only a tip of the iceberg. The “Oga At The Top” is still sitting
pretty, invoking the “Law of No-Shaking”.
Meanwhile, that same government wastes no
time pushing Prof. Bart Nnaji out for “conflict of interest’; and
hounding the Central Bank of Nigeria Governor, Sanusi Lamido, on the
unproven ground that he “leaked” a letter to the President. Perhaps, you
will be able to explain to us how a Sanusi has managed to embarrass
your government to a greater extent than a Stella Oduah.
With scenarios like this, you shouldn’t be surprised that Nigerians are angry and confused.
If you stood where Nigerians stand, and
gave the affairs of your government a proper consideration, you’d
probably – hopefully – come to the same conclusion. That something is
just not right somewhere.
The tragedy is that someday, maybe in
2015, or 2019, you will step down from the Bubble. Your eyes will
“clear”, and like Obasanjo, you will become an advocate of good
governance. Perhaps, you will even write longwinded letters (or emails)
to your successor complaining about corruption and about how the
international community is deeply worried about Nigeria.
And we will be forced to remind you of
your own time in office, and wonder aloud what it is about the water in
Aso Rock that turns occupants into this strange species of Homo Sapiens.
Perhaps, you would like to backtrack a
little, to the beginnings of your Presidency. To the circumstances in
which you, an underdog of underdogs, came to power. When you were at the
mercy of the “cabal” that ran Nigeria in the absence of a then ailing
President Yar’Adua.
I, like millions of other Nigerians, was
angered by the antics of that cabal, at how you, the sitting
Vice-President, was treated. You were kept out of the loop, humiliated. I
recall joining protest marches in Lagos and Abuja, calling for an end
to the shameful state of affairs that kept you away from taking charge
of Nigeria. We didn’t do it because you were an Ijaw man, or because
your loyalists “mobilised” us to march for you. We did it because it was
the right, sensible and decent thing to do.
Recall the promise and potential with
which you came to power. A Nigerian President who came from outside the
hegemonic contraptions that have run Nigeria since independence. No one
doubts that your victory in 2011 was legitimate; those elections, while
not perfect, were the most credible we had seen in almost two decades. I
recall describing your appearance on the social media in 2010 as a
“breath of fresh air” – a mantra that eventually became one of your
campaign themes.
The question to ask yourself is: What
happened? How did we get here, where the name “Jonathan” has become a
byword for goofs and gaffes, for complete helplessness in the face of
oil theft and corruption?
In trying to answer that question (and
maybe, there are some answers above), the least we expect is that you
will try to make amends. Because that is all that will really matter, in
the long run. You will probably need to sacrifice some of those
Untouchables in your cabinet. There’s news of an impending cabinet
reshuffle. Go ahead and do it. Surprise us.
You will also need to do something about
your communications set-up. Your achievements – and they do exist (these
might form the basis of another letter) – deserve to do better than get
lost amidst the din of mindless propaganda and abusive language flowing
from your spokespersons and aides.
You would need to come and meet Nigerians
where they are – sadly trapped beneath layers angry cynicism – to
directly tell them what you’ve been doing, what you’re currently doing,
and what you plan to do in 2014. A handful of Presidential Media Chats
per year will no longer cut it; not in these dire times.
You will have to face up to the difficult
questions that Nigerians are asking, and answer them yourself. Go on
TV, get on radio, get out there on the social media. You can no longer
continue to depend solely on a battery of spokespersons speaking
dangerously off-the-cuff, hyper-excited by the sounds of their own
intemperate voices.
The siege mentality has to go. You’re not
the first, and will not be the last, Nigerian President to feel
beleaguered. It is the nature of the task. And, considering what they
receive in compensation and benefits for the job of ruling or misruling
Nigeria, our politicians should generally learn to take all the heat, or
leave the kitchen.
I have written this letter in genuine
concern. I am not currently a member of any political party, and I do
not have anything personal at stake in this brouhaha – no bids for a
marginal field or NIPP power plant or import licence that might possibly
be affected by the way things play out. I do not hate you.
I am simply an ordinary Nigerian,
concerned about the direction in which our country is headed; concerned
about seeing that Nigeria gets the highest quality of governance that is
reasonably possible, considering our very complicated circumstances.
Thank you.
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