Thursday, November 20, 2014
Dear Chief John Odigie Oyegun,
I read a report floated by The Punch today about comments
you are said to have made at a rally in Abuja, wherein you blamed the
re-election bid of President Jonathan for the rising insurgency in Nigeria.
I do not have a copy of the full text of your speech; nor do
I have a video clipping of your address during the rally. My comments therefore
are based on the assumption that the report by JOHN AMEH in the Punch of
November 20 is factual, down to the last period.
When you implied that the National Assembly might support
the President in a move that could deliberately disenfranchise Nigerians in
Adamawa, Borno, and Yobe, did you do so in the full knowledge that the National
Assembly comprises representatives from those states in both chambers? Or are
you implying that those states will have legislative and gubernatorial elections
but not presidential elections? Or that no elections will hold in those states
but that members of the National Assembly from those states will get automatic
tickets for another 4 years in exchange for their support for the
disenfranchisement of the five million people (according to you) they were
elected (or selected) to represent?
You are said to have “blasted the administration” for
declaring austerity measures after mismanaging the economy. You forgot to tell
us how the mismanagement of the economy by this administration has led to
global falling oil prices. You forgot to itemize what an APC government will
specifically do differently to shore
up our economy. You forgot to tell us why exactly austerity measures are not
the way to follow and to state in the same sentence what exactly would be your
alternative path.
I agreed with Governor Amaechi’s statement that “stomach
infrastructure” politics is an insult to the generality of Nigerians. Unreservedly.
But he forgot to tell us what alternative “infrastructure” roadmap the APC has
that will assure the social security of the 80-year-old woman in the remote
hills of Northern Cross River, that will ensure that the local blacksmith in
the slums of Bida will be able to send his 2 sons and 4 daughters to school, at
least up to SSCE level, and still be entitled to comprehensive and effective
medical treatment in a hospital in his locality, were he to fall ill. In short, the governor forgot to give us an alternative that would compel the ordinary Nigerian –
who is actually capable of thinking when the circumstances are right – to see
the “stomach infrastructure” jingle for the ridicule that it actually is.
I find it hard to agree with General Buhari’s argument at
that rally that the PDP-led administration had shown itself since 1999 to be
inept, corrupt, and undisciplined, except he is also willing to admit that he
has no scruples collaborating with inept, corrupt, and undisciplined people in
order to achieve his presidential ambition. Most of the people around him today
have flown the PDP flag at least once – some more than once – since 1999. That
makes his comrades believers in ineptitude, corruption, and indiscipline. And
if he is ready to collude with them because he wants to be president, I can
only wonder how far down this same road - of ineptitude, corruption, and indiscipline - four years of his presidency will take
us. But I also hope that I will only have to wonder, and not actually have to experience it.
In summary sir, you and everyone else were eloquent enough
about the failings of this government and of the leadership failure of the PDP.
Your silence on what you would do differently and how you intend to do those
things differently – that silence was deafening.
It is an insult to all of us Nigerians to expect us not to
want to know what alternatives you are bringing to the table; it is an insult
to ask us to blindly approve an APC presidency and then experience the difference.
Manifestoes detail a political party’s thinking about the
direction in which the country should go. Your manifesto should be a dictionary
of ways in which you can make things right, not a catalog of ways in which the PDP
has made things wrong. It is an insult to your leadership, sir, if your minions
simply choose whether to support or reject a policy based on the political
party affiliation of the person initiating or implementing it.
Best regards.
Hugo Naijaman
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