Daily Independent Online.
*
Wednesday, July 07, 2004.
A note to Mr. President
Could you permit me a space through the medium of your paper to
remind our President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, of his promises to better the
lots of the Nigerian populace during one of your campaign rallies in 2003?
Of course, it was counted all joy by the people that
heard those assurances which have (since after your POWER assumption for the
2nd term) metamorphosed into whips of a scorpion. What the masses have had so
far has come in the form of vicious fist blows in their faces. The hikes in
petroleum products prices - four (4) times or thereabout in quick succession.
Our dearly beloved President, could you remember that
on your assumption of duty, those “papas” and “mamas”
you promised at the rally ground that played a contributory role in making your bid for the second term
successful at the polls expect their lots bettered; they expected their bread buttered but instead, you
consciously dragged this single hope to the stinking mud! Now, they cannot even
think of butter anymore, as you have knocked off the morsel of bread they used
to have.
Mr. President, could it be you have been tom-fooling
the Nigerian citizenry? The
average Nigerian knew who you were and what you are and what you were driving
at, at hiking the prices of petroleum products for the first time in your first
tenure in 1999/2000. In 2003, you
increased prices. It is virtually
one year or thereabout from the last increment in the products of the
down-stream sector. Is this the
only sector that requires rapid and incessant (unjustifiable) overhauling? What is so special about your
scrutinised microscopic monitoring of this sector?
If
these increments were and are for the purposes of reactivating the “once
brim-filled but now exhausted party tills”, then, here is a handwriting
on the wall for Mr President - “nene, mene, tekel urphasin”.
My dear uka-ome 1 (Talk & Do 1) President, just a word of
advice: Why would not our honourable President follow the foot-prints of his
predecessors - Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Chief Obafemi Awolowo (of great
memory) and General Abdulsalami Abukakar (rtd), etc, who once upon a time made
good indelible prints, most notably,
Abdulsalami Abubakar. Remember, he paved the way for you when he heard
the wailing cries of Nigerians to particularly release the politically detained
citizens of the Federal Republic of Nigeria which sundered your incarceration
fetters and liberated you from prison.
And now, Mr President is the Number One citizen of
his country, where he himself is presiding over political and economic
detainees crying in all nooks and
crannies of the country for their incarceration tendons (fetters/hackles) to be
severed by your much proclaimed philanthropic and humanitarian
disposition.
Could Mr
President pay attention to these throbs?
I want my venerated president to also acknowledge the fact that many
less-privileged and privileged Nigerian homes lost promising members of their
families in protest against the first hike in petroleum products prices and
subsequent occasions in clashes with security agents. The less privileged are groaning daily and crunchingly
living.
I plead with
Mr President, in the name of the Almighty creator in whom he believes to
rephrase his long-held slogan of I dey kamkpe to una dey kamkpe. This era is
not to be confused for military dispensation where those who hold office could
rule without due consideration for the well-being of the people.
Umuanuzhinime Memakagbhe,
Ahoada
