AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT MUHAMMADU BUHARI

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Africans see what the hard work of Nigerians has fetched for them in their own country. Xenophobia arouses our of jealousy; jealousy arouses out of inability to get; inability to get is evidence of non-commitment to hard work of all the Nigerians in this respect, the youth are the one at the top. In the midst of unemployment, lack, and insufficiency, they remained resolute in their determination to succeed in their various fields of endeavor. They are keen to make progress day in day out. They disregard all the difficulties of the day and rely solely on the hope of a better tomorrow. They are constantly patriotic and loyal in spite of the fact that they are the ones at the receiving end of all forms of bad leadership. If actions fail to see to the needs of the youth, words of comfort and encouragement should be in place at all times. You wrongly assessed the performance of the Nigerian youth when you made that insulting statement about them. The insult is not narrowed to the youth alone but it is extended to the dignity of Nigeria, Nigerians living in the country, and those living in the diaspora. The implication of that shallow assessment is that Nigeria is now a country with unproductive youth. What an embarrassment! Foreign companies operating in Nigeria are now encouraged not to employ Nigerian because they are not productive. Nigerian artisans in various fields would now begin to compete unfavourably with those from other countries in their quest to secure contracts from individuals, firms and from the government at all levels. That is darkness at dawn! Nigerian youth in the diaspora now have so much being added to their strife in dealing with racism and the dissimilating perception of possessing criminal minds. What shame! While the popular believe is that your economic policies brought untold hardship and unabated hunger in the country, you went and told the whole world that you ebullient, exuberant, enterprising youth are not productive. The adverse effect of your statement on you is that you are the president of a country whose youth are unproductive due to the leadership. It is cherishing and commendable that importance is added to the historical mistake of June 12, 1993 and its widespread significance is recognized in the history of democracy in Nigeria. This invaluable recognition would serve as stamina in our quest to attaining the level of internationally acclaimed democratic practice in Nigeria. By it, priority is shifted from the day the military magnanimously handed over power to a democratically elected president – May 29 th , 1999 – to the day a new face of democracy was born. Honouring M.K.O Abiola and other democracy activities is not just enough. Naming roads and other monuments after their names is not enough either. What is important is the legacy they left and what they stood for; how to incorporate those legacies and the belief systems into politics to ensure a strong democracy in Nigeria. My experience did not capture mental pictures of the activities that occurred at that time. But the little information gathered from reliable sources suggests it was a day of great significance. Acknowledging it as such by your administration is a good thing in all definitions. I would have had a share of in-depth knowledge of all that happen but I do not because history is not taught in secondary schools in Nigeria. I am part of a generation that is constantly robbed of the knowledge of their history. I feel hurt, ill-equipped. The importance of history in life is as to the body. Once one part is not there, the other part becomes unfit for every use. When one is not equipped with the knowledge of one’s history, one is being made to merely exist not live. It is only the knowledge of history that puts one in the position
to know the past and think of how the present can be adjusted as part of planning for the future. One gets to know the errors of the past and strive to avoid them in the present and future. Without it, one’s plan for the future would be based on speculations rather than facts. Most visions become realistic. A sense of history has underlying importance in one’s life. By not introducing the teaching of history in schools and making it one of the compulsory subjects in secondary schools, I think a huge mistake is being made. A deep suspicion would reveal that these crop of past leaders do that deliberately for their selfish reasons. They know that the future of the nation hangs on the younger generations but never want them to know their history. They profess love and concern for the future and always declare the younger generations as future leaders, but in the background, the feeling is not the same. They want to captivate the entire citizenry in the darkness of ignorance so they would have their way smoothly on every matter. To every historical fact, a lot of conflicting stories are told about it so as to hinder the younger generations’ access to knowing the true content of the event. A conventional history book has two pages; a page dedicated to good deeds and the other dedicated to bad deeds. The knowledge of all the deeds is of equal importance. One with such knowledge would build on the good deeds in order to avoid the re-occurrence of the bad deeds. But today, the Nigerian history book has an additional third page; a page dedicated to falsehood. So, the existence of this third page and its falsehood content is another major obstacle standing in our way to practicing true democracy and attaining genuine nationhood. And I must add that even as the clamour for the participation of women youth in leadership positions keeps rising with raging flames, the spirit of pessimism might as well arise--- for the effect of the third page offers no mercy to age or gender; that is, the difficulties of the task of leadership remained, not erased by any age. As a matter of everlasting importance, I plead with you that you direct the Honourable Ministry of Education to introduce history as a compulsory subject in all secondary schools across the country. We this generation need to know our past. We need to the taught formally the events that triggered the Nigerian civil war. We need to know the real reason behind the annulment of the June 12 th , 1993 presidential election. We need to know where we come from and how far we have gone in the historical journey towards attaining true unity. We need to know about the current federal structure and why restructuring is necessary. We need to know why our democracy is called “pseudo democracy.” We need to know why with the huge national resources that goes to the legislatures for law-making, the laws they make do not enjoy any form of supremacy over everybody. We need to know all the past form of leadership that had taken place in Nigeria and in Africa and the shapes these forms of leadership caused in the country and the continent. We need to know who are the real heroes and heroines. We need to know whose character trait we should canonize and whose own we should abhor. We need to know all the past mistakes. We need to know who took what decision that cause their own death so as to make their body meal for termites and who took what decision that caused their own death so as to consecrate the land. We need to know why our ancestors were called “slaves” in the past. We need to know what gave the colonial powers the impression that Africa needed them. We need to know why the Negroes are treated unfairly in the dealings with the rest of the world. We need to know why Africa relies on the West for the achievement of many of her goals and objectives. We need to know why African countries are third
Page 1 and 2: AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT MUHAMMA
Page 3 and 4: witnessed all the military interven
Page 5 and 6: few weeks to eradicate it totally.
Page 7: conditions, with that share the sam

AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT MUHAMMADU BUHARI

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?