This is the first time, in sixteen years, that two major political parties almost of equal size will fiercely compete for presidency of the nation. This is good for democracy. But the electorate must choose wisely at the polls.  This time, the choice you make at the polls will either set our nation on rapid progression or send it into irreversible regression and doom.
Full text of the letter:
Fellow Nigerians,
For a quick introduction: I’m president of Africa Monitor USA, a non-profit organization working to facilitate democracy, civic responsibility, good governance and rule of law in Africa.  Previously, I was founding national secretary for the ruling party – Peoples Democratic Party of Nigeria (PDP) in the United States (PDP-USA) – a position I occupied when Chief Barnabas Gemade and Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo were chairman and national secretary of the party respectively, and ended when Chief Audu Ogbe and Chief Ogbulafor became chairman and national secretary of the party. I had led several delegations to Abuja and Chief Ogbulafor also had visited us in the US a few times to conduct party business.   In view of my background, therefore, it is not happenstance that I’m interested in the socio-political and democratic activities in Nigeria. 
I write you this open letter because of our common interest, our great country – Nigeria.  Nigeria is a country with immense population, young and educated labor force, and vast natural resources than many countries around the world, but has never realized her great potentials because of lack of selfless leadership. It is disheartening that Nigeria has not fulfilled the aspirations of her citizens after sixteen years of democratic government and a promising economy. In a few days, you will go to the polls to pick the man who will become president of Nigeria for the next four years. A great many Nigerians have expressed measured optimism on the outcome of the elections. Although, I share their skepticism, but I’m also hopeful, they would vote to break from the past and present – for the future of our beloved homeland. This hopefulness formed my decision to communicate with you through this medium. I therefore, implore you to read this letter in its entirety and open your minds to my plea to cast your vote where it would make a significant difference in the lives of common Nigerians who have suffered untold penury for the longest time and also for next generations to come.  
I cannot overemphasize the importance of this presidential election. This is the first time, in sixteen years, that two major political parties almost of equal size will fiercely compete for presidency of the nation. This is good for democracy. But the electorate must choose wisely at the polls.  This time, the choice you make at the polls will either set our nation on rapid progression or send it into irreversible regression and doom. Unlike past elections, this is a make or break for the nation – a choice between status-quo and steps forward in the right direction.  For all I know, voting status-quo will not produce any better results than we have had in the last sixteen years.  In fact, it will worsen the unprecedented moral and economic decadence that have long pervaded the country. 
Nigeria needs a clean break from her past and present. But breaking away from status-quo does not require just one decision made at one particular poll. It requires using effectively and very often the tools of democracy, such as freedom of speech, dissemination of democratic ideas and values, civil disobedience to seek social-political changes, and active participation in free and fair elections to elect good leaders and sack bad ones at each opportune election cycle. This is how democracy is irreversibly rooted in a society.  This is what is expected of the electorate in Nigeria.
As citizens in a democracy, you are responsible for the kind of governance you get through elections.  If you elect good leaders, you get good governance, and if you do otherwise, you get the resulting governance as well. Thus, you should vote politicians in and out of office based on their performances without any hesitation or remorse. In the United States, the electorates hire and fire politicians every two-year period – usually in mid-term elections – they don’t even wait for the presidential election that comes every four years.  This is an effective use of political franchise. Nigerians should emulate this democratic attitude by becoming active in democratic enterprise in order to secure an egalitarian society, build strong institutions and foster the rule of laws for all. 
Regrettably, Nigeria has enabled corruption into our lives for far too long. But there is something wrong with the larger society when government perpetuates the culture of corruption, and citizens look the other way, showing no consternation – glorifying corruption and ignoring its effect on development of the country. And for this, there are enough blames to go around – for leadership and followership in equal proportions. The leadership problem facing the country is not insurmountable if Nigerians would change their perspectives on corruption and begin to fight it whenever and wherever it raises its ugly head in society – whether in public or private sector.
Nigerians should begin to shun politicians who get into politics for the sake of stealing public funds – for there must be punitive consequence for stealing public funds. It is not enough to continually deride government and blame politicians for all that goes wrong in the country; but more importantly, it is inexcusable for citizens in a democratic society to neglect their sacred responsibility and civil liberties to check and balance the government they elect.  Nigerians must be fully engaged in their civic responsibility to change the society for the better.  Please, stand up and let your voices be heard – disturb the public order and protest peacefully when necessary to right a wrong – even if you are complacent and do not wish to perfect democracy – do it for posterity.  Today, Americans enjoy the freedoms for which their forbearers fought and died some two hundred years ago.  It is not too late for Nigerians to begin to build a legacy for next generations to come. 
Nigeria needs transformation from the economic abyss, social malaise, and utter corruption to a nation full of opportunities for her citizens. There are many things at stake in these elections, such as creating jobs for our youth, reforming deteriorated education system, devising health care and housing scheme for the masses, stabilizing power generation for household use and industrial operations to grow the economy, and fighting the ubiquitous corruption in both private and public sectors.  You, the electorates must vote for the leader who would realize these lofty goals. I therefore, implore you to vote for change in the next presidential election. If for anything, Change is good.  Change is your friend – Change is necessary – Change is a promise of good things yet to come.   
Fellow Nigerians, after careful analysis of the socio-economic situation and the need to lay solid foundation for Nigeria’s development, on behalf of Africa Monitor USA, I humbly endorse the candidacy of General Muhammadu Buhari for the office of executive president of Nigeria. General Buhari is a decent, honest and disciplined leader, whose love for Nigeria is immeasurable. He would immediately lift the country out of doldrums, unleash its great potentials and create prosperity for all citizens and posterity as well.   
As military head of state, Buhari shunned corruption in all forms and never amassed wealth at expense of the poor.  He is the only former head of government who never assigned blocks of oil to himself while in office – when other leaders even assigned blocks of oil to their concubines. It is not news to you that most past and current politicians operate foreign bank accounts to hoard stolen public funds – some of which are used to purchase aircrafts and expensive mansions in Abuja and across the globe.  But General Buhari has never operated foreign bank accounts; neither does he have an aircraft nor mansions in Abuja and across the globe. He detests inordinate ostentation and lives a humble life. These are the virtues that endear this great man to many Nigerians – including myself – who are clamoring for his victory at the next polls.   I plead that the electorates make his victory a reality. 
Finally, I beseech you to cast your votes for Muhammadu Buhari to become the next president of our great nation.  I have no doubt that Buhari’s leadership will bring immediate succor to the poor who are disenchanted with their government.  This is our last opportunity to change Nigeria for good. Please join us to make it happen in our lifetime.   And Nigeria would ultimately occupy her rightful position in the assemblage of great nations.   Please vote and guide your votes, it is a matter of your civic and sacred responsibility.
May God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.       
Sincerely,
Nicholas Adelani Owoyemi, CFA
President, Africa Monitor USA, INC.

[myad]

A William Adams quote has recently gone viral. It reminds that: ‘There’s a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people’.

The evidence of how true this is can be seen from the show of military strength the morning after the announcement of the postponement of the 2015 elections. They went on exercise demonstrations which I witnessed on the streets of Lagos as I am told was the case in many cities around the country. The troops needed in the North East to wipe out BokoHaram in Six weeks, after five years of unsuccessful effort were somehow available to ‘to intimidate bloody civilians’, in the view of some people.

The truth was, I enjoyed watching the street exercise. From childhood one of my favourite spectacles has been watching soldiers in drills. If it was possible for me to join the Army, two magic moments could have been the lure; watching Gen. Ike Nwachukwu, then a younger officer, at the 1970 Independence Day Parade, and the late Gen. Joseph Nanvern Garba as a young Brigade of guards Commander were for me greater than watching a pop star. The purpose may have been to alert any potential protesters, after the postponement, that a mighty force lurks to respond, but for me, it was a nice pleasant throw back to an excitable childhood and early teens when a civil war raged and I saw soldiers both at the war front and in the rear, at Ibadan, after I resumed schooling there. This was as the soldiers were put to Rapid Result Truck Driving lessons at the Ibadan Garrison Organisation which I remembered more for its nice band, than with thoughts of War.

But talk about the street spectacles the day after the postponement of the elections got me thinking about how dutiful citizens unwittingly became so called enemies of the state. Having looked up at guns pointed at me, several times in the course of my life, by agents of the state, it seemed appropriate to reflect on how the state in search of real and imagined enemies, manages to make nation building more challenging.

First time a gun was pointed at me, execution style, was in a time of war. Had the trigger been pulled it would have qualified for war crimes, but no such trial could have taken place. Those who shot many in cold blood got away with it, a year earlier. It was at Asaba in 1968. Thousands of men had been lined up already and executed as they chanted ONE NIGERIA, a few months before. On this occasion, as a bunch of 12 to 15 year olds were being separated from the women and lined up, an officer showed up, and as the drama goes, slapped the NCO who was lining us up and ordered us moved to the refugee camp, from where a friend of my father, who was the Battalion Commander, ensured that I headed to Lagos where my father was and then to school in Ibadan where we actually were rather oblivious of a civil war taking place two hundred miles away.

Next time I looked at a gun threatening me, was as leading executive of a multinational company. I had joined a group of professionals to protest the annulment of the results of the 1993 Presidential elections.

If we excused that experience as an excess of military rule, the third time could not be so excused. That one followed the removal of so called petroleum subsidy in 2012. I thought something was wrong with pretending that petrol cost was all about subsidy. I had on several occasions challenged friends in downstream petroleum marketing that it was peculiar that in a margin-thin business that forced strategic thinking in which industry orthodoxy now recognised that to make money you take advantage of the traffic driven by the need for petrol to sell Groceries, hence Mobil’s Minimart, Total’s Bonjour, etc; that people assume that being a petrol retailer was presumed to be the installation of a money mint. I had a moral burden to make the point that what was called petrol subsidy was significantly a combination of corruption and inefficiency costs. I did not hesitate to answer the call of some young professionals to come out and demonstrate. Then the
civilian government sent in troops armed to the teeth to stop a group of unarmed, as some say, Champagne drinking middle and Upper Middle Class people at ‘Occupy Falomo’ who just wanted their voices heard on how their country was being run, a group that at a point included some high court judges, retired and serving. For the third time in my life uniformed agents of the state pointed a gun at my face and looked quite determined to pull the trigger. The people had become the enemies of the state, in the William Adams context.

My hope and my prayer is let the people not be the enemy again. The cost of the people as the enemy for Nigeria has always been high. And this is beyond financial costs. If the nation building goal and the Common Good are kept in view it must be obvious that all being able to put hands on deck, in a cooperative way, will advance good, more quickly.

Lyndon Baines Johnson, President of the United States in the 1960’s put it in a way only a Texan could: It is better for all to be inside the house, pissing out, than outside the house pissing in. This mantra was picked up by the Malaysians as their Prime Minister back in the late 1980’s, Mahathir Mohammed, chased a vision 2020. The visioning process in Malaysia was about consensus forging to get most into the house so the pissing is majority outbound. The limited skill of Nigerian politicians for pulling towards consensus seems for some reason to be poor. The quarrels became personal, rather than on issues and competing prisms through which reality is filtered.

If leadership is to show sagacity in Nigeria, job no 1 has to be diffusing the time bomb of division. So far the moment has given us the most divided Nigeria has ever been in my opinion, on ethnic, religious, ideological, regional and partisan lines. Conversation does not seem civil anymore. Examples of how Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe would go campaigning for his Party and Chief H O Davies will be doing same on the opposing side and, in the evening, one will drive to the other’s home, and pick them up to go and have a game of Tennis and a drink after. How did we lose that ethic? I still recall stories by Alhaji Maitama Sule about being scolded as a young MP and Minister, for not going across the Aisle to ‘greet’ more like pay homage, to the opposition leader, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, an older person deserving of his respect as a result.

We owe it to both the promise of Nigeria and the future of our children to stop inventing enemies of the state and to provide a climate for culture of building bridges that grace the path to the Nigerian melting pot. There may be competing models of a modus Vivendi in Nigeria; from those who take federalism so far it is almost a Bhantustanisation of Nigeria, to those who want a restoration of the federalism of the 1960’s on the one hand; to those who prefer a strong centre, on the other hand; no matter the shade bridges matter. It is these bridges that should be the focus, and not making enemies of the many citizens whose main desire is to see a state they can be cheerleaders for.

Thank God INEC had the wisdom to pick Valentine’s Day for the original date of the Presidential election. Perhaps we can reflect on the true meaning of love for to lead is to love and love a people is to be willing to sacrifice self for the good of all. To make the people the enemy is not to love them.

 –Pat Utomi, Political Economist and Professor of Entrepreneurship is founder of the Centre for Values in Leadership

[myad]