Former Presidential candidate and
publisher of Ovation magazine, Chief Dele Momodu, has cautioned President
Muhammadu Buhari against taking Nigeria back to the days of oppression and
suppression.
According to him, President
Buhari’s alleged attempt to use of security operatives and some senators of the
All Progressives Congress, APC, to sack the Senate President, Bukola Saraki,
and other heavyweight politicians for dumping the party was a fight that would
prove too costly for him and the country.
In an open letter to the
President titled: ‘Dear President, let your people go’ which was released on
Sunday, Momodu reminded Buhari that his victory at the 2015 election was
through the combined efforts of his most loyal supporters and those from the
defectors including the Senate President.
He urged President Buhari to let
the defectors be, saying “those who have decamped from APC have only exercised
their fundamental rights. Whether they are morally right is neither here nor
there and is ultimately a verdict for the electorate to ponder and unravel when
elections, which loom large, finally arrive.”
Read the letter in full below:
“Your Excellency, it is with
every sense of love and patriotism that I have decided to write you again
despite the frustration of knowing that you may not hearken to my sincere
advice to you, as I have written to plead with you on several occasions, but my
entreaties have been to no avail. I pray this letter meets you well in the
beautiful city of London where I expect you to be resting and relaxing by now
whilst waiting to undergo your mandatory physical check-up. Sir, though this
piece amounts to unsolicited advice from a self-appointed Special Adviser, I
wish to reassure you that you should stop banking on professional politicians who
are merely using you to feather their own nests. I demand and require no
gratification whatsoever other than to put it permanently and indelibly on
record that someone told you the truth while the unrepentant liars took over
your space and led you astray.
“Before I go on, please, permit
me, Sir, to take you down memory lane, from the First Republic to the present.
Practically all our leaders failed, or fell, usually not because of only what
they did wrong but ostensibly because of what they did not do right. Let me
also establish one fact. Most of our leaders have been catapulted to power, not
by their superlative might, but by divine intervention. One day, I will
chronicle how providence has been responsible for the exalted position all our
leaders found themselves. Sadly, practically almost all of them forgot how they
reached their lofty heights and sought to personally perpetuate themselves in
power, but the celestial manner of their enthronement also saw to their
humiliating, sometimes tragic, downfall. Consequently, virtually all, except
may be General Abdulsalami Abubakar, were disgraced, removed or retired
ignominiously or controversially.
“President Obasanjo who was
easily the most efficient, efficacious and effervescent leader, after the
brilliant and youthful General Yakubu Gowon, ended his tenure in 2007 with the
reverberating hoopla surrounding his third term bid. Whether he was interested
in it, or his acolytes forced him into it, all his good works would always
attract that cloudy addendum. It is noteworthy, for emphasis, that no leader in
Nigerian history has ever succeeded in enslaving Nigerians. We can stretch this
further, by stating categorically, that no leader in the world has ever
achieved absolute authority permanently. Indeed, that is a preserve meant only
for God. If only humans reminded themselves constantly of this fact and their
mortality!
“This is the reason I wish to
appeal to you once again to resist the temptation of wanting to take Nigeria
back to those days of oppression and suppression. In case you need to be
reminded of how much God loves you, I shall gladly oblige. When your military
regime was toppled in 1985, your enemies danced on the streets. You were
compared to the worst dictators on earth and many would have thought it was
finished and over for you. But the ways of the Almighty are not the ways of
man. 30 years later, the same Nigerians who rejoiced over the collapse of your
military junta, in their collective wisdom or stupidity or amnesia, gave you a
resounding victory at the polls against a powerful government and incumbent
President. This was after you had tried for a record third time and had
virtually given up any chance or hope of winning a Presidential election again.
You had actually wept for Nigeria and yourself on that third inauspicious
occasion. This time around, in 2015, everything seemed stacked against you,
including old age and diminishing health. Yet Nigerians at home and abroad
placed their abundant faith in you. What you have done with their faith since
then is debatable.
“What more could anyone ever ask
for again in this life? Credit for that victory must go to everyone, including
saints and sinners, in case such nomenclatures exist on planet earth. Please,
let no one rewrite the history of that epic battle to dislodge the PDP
behemoth. It was thus a gross miscalculation to get power by such default and
try to change the narrative by saying you belonged to everyone and to no one,
or whichever way it was crafted by your speechwriters. Truth is you belonged to
the party that embraced you, warts and all, and all the foot-soldiers who made
it possible for you to attain power once again. Not just that, you instantly
became the father of the nation on that fateful May 29, 2015, and could no
longer discriminate against anyone for that matter. If you wanted to govern in
peace and make an appreciable impact, you should have treaded softly and walked
gingerly towards your ultimate destination.
“The war of attrition that broke
out as soon as you took power was totally unnecessary and uncalled for. Except
for your most loyal supporters, not many ever trusted the many fisticuffs were
to the benefits of Nigeria, but only for the pecuniary gains of the privileged
ones in power.
“If you fight a war for over
three years and you are unable to defeat your enemies, you should realise that
it is either they are stronger than you or your strategy is abysmally faulty
and failing. I love the Yoruba adage: “ta a ba leni, ta a ba bani, iwon la a
bani sota mo…” (If we pursue an adversary and cannot catch up with him, it is
better to retreat, than continue to make enemies of such a person). It is not
an act of cowardice to retreat or even surrender. The fight you are pursuing
right now would eventually prove too costly for you and for Nigeria, even if
you manage to win it, which I seriously doubt. By the time you reach the end of
it, you will discover the meaning of anti-climax. The victory will be a pyrrhic
one or if otherwise, a cataclysmic defeat. Therefore, I’m shocked that you’re
allowing some reckless and vengeful politicians to goad you on and mislead you
into victimising those who have left your party and are now opposing you. The
same people you met and laughed with recently, before our very eyes, have
suddenly become enemies who must be destroyed by all means. Sir, this act is
totally unfortunate. Only God can give power and only HE can take it back. You
did not use force to take power in 2015, why do you then think you need to
retain that power by use of force and fire?
“I’m not sure if you are familiar
with world history, my dear President. You may need to ask your aides to print
out some dark moments in human history for your perusal. What often happens is
that you will, inadvertently, turn those you’re harassing now into superstars.
What you are playing with is a game of David and Goliath. It is one of the most
fascinating scenes in the Christian Bible. Goliath was so confident of his
awesome strength and stamina and so looked down on pitiable and diminutive
David. The Holy Bible recalls their fight was a classic example of a mismatch.
But Goliath suffered a crushing defeat in the hands of David. That battle is
still celebrated worldwide till today, and it is a story almost every child
knows and is taught to learn from. The didactic lesson from it is that not
every battle should be fought and not every arsenal should be deployed. Better
to keep some things till they are absolutely needed. This cat and mouse game of
using State apparatus to witch-hunt deserters is becoming predictable, boring
and nauseating.
“Those who have decamped from APC
have only exercised their fundamental rights. Whether they are morally right is
neither here nor there and is ultimately a verdict for the electorate to ponder
and unravel when elections, which loom large, finally arrive. Similarly,
whether they are legally justified in their defection is a matter which your
party may seek to take up in the courts, and I am certain that the Courts will
do justice to the case as they have been doing despite terrorisation, bullying
and coercion from some over-exuberant agencies of your government. I pause to
observe that some of these guys were hailed by us when they joined our side the
last time. At that time, we justified their defection to us as being part of
the democratic process. If they have now decided to go because they believe
they are not wanted by some influential gladiators in the ruling party, my dear
President, please let them go. Your party’s point that they have done so for
less than altruistic reasons will be considered and digested by our people who
are quite politically savvy and discerning. They will make up their minds as to
the rights and wrongs of it all.
“Your Excellency, I want you to
remember that you will not be in power forever. You have your family and
friends to consider. Those who have been locked up in prison today and those
being hounded could never have envisaged a day like this would ever come when
there would be a reversal of power and fortune. It is too cheap for a Governor
to decamp today, and then he and his operatives are being terrorised tomorrow.
Power should never be abused in this manner. Who knows what would happen when
tomorrow comes again?
“One of the reasons former
President Jonathan is respected today and enjoys some peace is because he gave
you great respect though both of you fought tooth and nail over power. He
tolerated many of us who supported you and did not make the occupation of Aso
Rock a matter of life and death. Sir, why can’t you reciprocate this wonderful
gesture? It is to his eternal credit that, in the midst of our attacks on him,
I got invited to the wedding of his daughter, and was treated with decorum.
Politics should never be a matter of brutish animosity. That is why I always
have tremendous regard for lawyers. They may fight like savage adversaries in
Court but, whilst they are there, they still show themselves some honour and
respect. It is their attitude once they step outside the courtroom that is even
more remarkable. Then they shed the toga of adversaries and become noble and
learned friends. I wish all of us could imbibe this kind of camaraderie in the
practice of our political beliefs.
“Furthermore, I have copious
examples that show that what you sow is what you reap. I wish to plead with you
to cool temper, Sir. I know how it feels to be abandoned in the lurch by your
own friends and supporters. But that is life. Everything can’t be smooth all
the time. When you go to the FIFA World Cup, you do so knowing only one team
can grab the much-coveted trophy. You should try to play a good and clean game
and leave the rest to Allah. You have played your part to the best of your
abilities and should be happy once your conscience is clear that there was no
better way to do things.
“Even if you decide to keep all
your opponents in the gulag, it still does not guarantee that you will win the
next election in 2019. But if you do it in God’s way by embracing decency and
fairness, your rating will go higher. You will attract natural admiration. The
love of the people cannot be forced. You’ve been drawing sympathies to the
decampees because of the high-handedness and intolerance of some of your
agents. As I started this mail, what kept coming back to me was a very popular
autobiography I read as a youth, LET MY PEOPLE GO, written by Albert John
Luthuli, the very first Black African man to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
Luthuli led the African National Congress in South Africa in the apartheid
years for 15 agonising years and coordinated mass resistance and non-violent
crusade against the White supremacists. Though he did not live long enough to
see the end of apartheid, others carried on the task and Nelson Mandela, who
spent 27 years in prison, came back alive to become the first President of an
independent and free South Africa.
Mr President, there is a
moralistic lesson to learn from the life and trajectory of the great Madiba
Nelson Mandela. He became a world Statesman for his uncommon magnanimity and
spirit of forgiveness. He had the power to exterminate his former tormentors
and jailers but instead he decided to set up a Truth and Reconciliation
Committee that tried to integrate the whites into a new black-dominated
government. Nigeria needs urgent reconciliation, healing and unification, which
has led to a strident clamouring for restructuring. We should be tired of
fighting for power for personal aggrandisement after groping in darkness for 58
ugly years. There are no prizes for war but there are beautiful garlands for
peace.
“Sir, I’m begging you in the name
of God, please, let your people go, in peace.”
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This is a very beautiful letter from a learned gentleman.I wish PMB will heed to this wisdom filled advice.In life there is no permanent enemy.Vangance belong to God.There is no point trying to surround yourself with enemies.PMB should beware of those pushing him to do otherwise.
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