Fellow compatriots!
These are desperate times. These are avoidable trying moments caused by the wickedness of a few. More than ever, Nigeria is at crossroads.
At one time, it was the resources from Northern Nigeria that sustained the colony and protectorates of Northern and Southern Nigeria as well as the resourcefulness of the Igbo man and the Yoruba man that sustained and nurtured the entire nation. The evidence is still there till this day in the deep gashes into the bellies of the earth to extract minerals for export in Northern Nigeria over many years before independence and long before oil was discovered in Oloibiri in 1968. Until this very present second, not a dime has been paid to Northern Nigeria by way of compensation for loss of farm and animal grazing lands and other economic activities neither is any form of derivation funds given to that part of the country in spite of the fact that till this very second, mineral exploration is still going on in the Northern states for export and local construction work which contribute to national revenue.
We are living witnesses of so many atrocities perpetrated against innocent Nigerians across the land. We have seen greedy men who had sold their lives to Satan and embraced alcoholism and the marrying of wives and sale of their brethren into slavery for mere pittance in exchange for jewelry, gold and petty ephemeral things for a living.While the going was good, they did not develop their lands, neither did they care. They impoverished their brethren and they migrated to many parts in Nigeria along riverine areas and persistently formented trouble with their benevolent hosts. Our recent history is replete with so much of the crises and blood shed they have brought to our land from time immemorial and yet they did not develop their lands. From the colonial period to this day, they have had eminent persons in government and so much money has been given to them through various forms of formulars over time, so much more than to any other part of the country, but their leaders feast on the monies and failed to develop their lands. They did not build hospitals or schools neither did they provide even pipe borne water for their people. Many in the riverine communities died of curable diseases that were believed to be curses from the gods as they believe so much in puerile gods and excessibe witchcraft who have brought them no progress but foolishness. All they needed were drugs and simple surgical operations which their leaders failed to provide for them.
Erudite and well respected Nigerians from their land including the late Ken Saro Wiwa of blessed memory took up their plight amd fought it in civilized way. They began to score modest successes until the fight over sharing of financial largese doled out generously to them by oil concerns and the federal government tore them apart and led them to slaughter one another and there was a lot of back stabbing and betrayal of a legitimate cause as can be seen in the antecedents of their leaders in times past and even very recently. This led eventually to the illegal execution of their genuine freedom fighters who had been set up by their kith and kin who provided substantial evidence against them by the military government of Gen. Sani Abacha.
Then the real betrayers of the cause from the inner creeks, men whom did absolutely nothing for a living but ran the business of killing, kidnapping and bombing of critical infrastructure and all forms of economic sabotage including oil bunkering took over. For many years, they killed and maimed and raped. They worked hand-in-gloves with their traditional rulers and governors not to do the needful to provide essential infrastructure but to share the monies from political patronage, the death enterprise including bombing, from oil companies Community Social Responsibility efforts, kidnapping and illegal oil bunkering. In addition, they had also infiltrated military formations to procure weapons of mass destruction illegally for millions of Naira. They chose to embrace crime of various sorts as a means of livelihood. Every kobo given to them for the development of their lands was hijacked and shared consistently for many years resulting in their present state of underdevelopment. The notorious arms cartel also was birthed by them.
Initially, they tore at each other's throats until criminal governors including two indicted and jailed persons united them for the purpose of the evils of kidnapping, increased economic sabotage and so much more while they pretended to negotiate with the boys for the release of hostages.
When their son, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan had the privilege by virtue of Late President Umaru Musa Yar'dua's ( of blessed memory demise) some troublesome elements who claim to speak for the North but speak for themselves -- senile men who had lost their commonsense and who had betrayed their people over the years stealing the resources also meant for the development of their lands, made so much irrelevant noise and sought to breach the provisions of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on ascendancy to the Presidency and consequently deny President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, well meaning Nigerians from the South and part of the North, including yours sincerely, lashed out at Adamu Ciroma and called him unprintable names which he deserved for his stupid and senseless statements that made it look like ascension to the presidency was the exclusive preserve of the North (not the real North of our law abiding and hard working Northern brothers and sisters but a few lunatics who had always been at the corridors of power and felt they alone had that right). We insisted that the provisions of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria were sacred and in as much as they had not been amended, the provisions must be respected and Jonathan must be sworn in as substantive president. We did this in good faith for the following reasons:
1. If the provisions of the constitution were flouted to do otherwise, it would be a bad precedence and could lead to the collapse of the republic as anyone seeking to breach it further at any other time would readily cite that instance to advance evil causes.
2. In line with the foregoing, it was done to retain some level of civilization in our discourse. Instead, what do we find? We fund a blame game like little babies in diapers amd senseless talk about killing each other.
3. We saw youthfulness in the person of Goodluck Jonathan and we felt he was well educated.
4. We did not see religion or section as criteria but it was the general opinion that other parts of the country should have a go at the presidency.
5. We also felt that this would also pacify the people of the Niger Delta and give them a sense of belonging to have had their son and our brother in power to complete the Late President's tenure as they had both run on a joint ticket.
We watched carefully to see him perform and as months went by, we saw instead the systematic plundering of the nation's resources mindlessly and we saw monumental theft of funds within the first 9 months as the man who had no shoes and his boys stole with both hands and legs systematically while Olusegun Aganga and Chukwuma Soludo and consequently Sanusi Lamido Sanusi watched. Our reserves for the rainy day were looted dry leaving barely about $400m in just 9 months. We saw no plans to truly develop insfrastructure and we saw prodigious gains from oil sales coming in everyday in trillions of Naira and yet nothing in terms of vision to move the nation forward. We gleaned from the CBN Quarterly Reports for the period and noticed the alarming rate at which we were losing money to official graft. We saw a monumental rise in internal debts and a return to external borrowing for no just investment purpose. We screamed at the top of our voices. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala also screamed. Soludo Chukwuma also screamed. Obiageli Ezekwesili also screamed but my country men chose to be deaf, believed lies and concocted figures about key economic indices and falsified figures based on false premises about growth for positive Fitch rating. We also saw an attempt to fraudulently revise our GDP benchmark figures by the Federal Office of Statistics just because Ghana did same and forgetting that thriving industries under the Obasanjo tenure were dying and all we were getting were vibrant kidnapping, bombing and robbery industries as well as the notorious merchants of death who traded in arms and bombs. The tone was indeed set for what we experience today.
We are living witnesses of all that ensued as the polity was heated up to fever pitch over irrelevant talk of mad people and many Nigerians took sides and allowed sentiments to reign and overpower commonsense. Today, we are regaled daily but sadly with sordid and blood chilling details and revelations of our pandering to sentiments above the dictates of reason and commonsense.
As at the time of the preparatiins for the 2011 Elections, this government still had no concrete plans to do anything in particular and all we heard from a serious presidential candidate who had better opportunity to show case outstanding achievements during the campaign had none but kept on telling us that he does not want to make promises but we will see what he will do after so many broken promises. We saw a president who ran away from debates with his co-contestants. Of course, we are seeing the things he said he would do everyday in the mayhem that has taken over our land.
The entire nation was rocked to its roots with the bomb blast on October 1, 2010 on Independence Day. Prior to the celebrations, we had woken up one morning to find disdainful posts that smirk of tendentious propaganda against our brothers and sisters in the North claiming they had poisoned some food stuff and another claiming they were planning to cause mayhem and to kill Nigerians from the South. Many of us saw through the lies and made posts to counter the claims of evil men who turned out to be Niger Delta militants.
We witnessed the theatre of absurdities when MEND claimed responsibility for the two blasts that killed innocent Nigerians including security agents at the scene. We saw a president who defended MEND frantically and absolved the killers of complicity. We also noticed how he and his henchmen in the security agencies quickly laid the blame at the doorsteps of his political opponents who were not present at the Eagle Square. We heard puerile lies and saw intrigues as they tried to rope in persons from the North of Nigeria culminating in the arrest of Chief Raymond Dokpesi who happened to be the Campaign Director for Gen. Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida all with a view to roping in innocent people and to ensure they could not contest in the Presidential Elections in 2011 while the president claimed he would not contest. But we began to smell trouble when a band of professional Abuja prostitutes lined the streets and began to mouth obscenities saying they would deprive their husbands and boyfriends of sex if President Jonathan did not declare. Then we also saw for the first time in the nation's history, the strangest patrons of this government, the National Association of Nigerian Witches who declared their support for their president. It was all in the dailies. It was not a surprise for some of us when the bloodshed started. We saw an unprecedented camaraderie among pastors and imams and witches for the first time ever. That is for another day.
Eventually, Mr. President and his team admitted it was MEND when the facts on the ground could have consumed him and this led to the arrest of Henry Okah and his supposed cohorts in Nigeria here one of which has died. That is also for another day.
The questions that arise are, why would an innocent president become the defender and spokesman of terrorists and absolve them of complicity? Why was Chief Raymond Dokpesi branded a terrorist by Marilyn Ogah and her team at the SSS as well as the Presidency be embraced by the President and the PDP as Deputy Campaign Director of the Jonathan-Sambo Presidential Campaign Organization and all charges were dropped against him - a man who had been implicated through some supposed call log brandished by the SSS as having direct dealings with the masterminds of the October 1, 2012 bomb blasts? What happened to the call logs? Were they not substantial evidence to arraign him in court? The fact is that the call logs were false - concocted by the SSS as an avenue to clamp down on co-contestants from the North.
Nigerians never asked salient questions. We consequently witnessed a systematic onslaught and destruction of infrastructure and trade and commerce and industry in the North since then while Niger Delta militants became boisterous like school boys whose elder brothers had just bought new shoes they never had for. We saw attempts at compromising the territorial integrity of the nation and consequently the sovereignty of the nation to illiterate active Niger Delta militant when we have the Navy empowered by the constitution to protect our territorial waters.l
We also saw a fraudulent document christened Power Road Map which was hurriedly put together as a package to win the elections. We pointed out the flaws but Nigerians clapped and shut their eyes to it all and now we are faced with the stark naked reality: trillions of Naira wasted and absolutely nothing was achieved. To present a front of doing something about it, they quickly rushed to Germany to sign contracts they intend to borrow money to finance and no one is held responsible for the monies frittered away on phony projects.
The grievances of Boko Haram were hijacked as an avenue to cause more mayhem and to attack Catholic Churches where the Igbos were in the majority. The logic is simple. The greatest threat to their achieving their goals of secession was Northern Nigeria. It would be easier and cause them less casualty to cause a crisis between the Igbos and Hausa/Fulanis of the North if they believed that the North was the mastermind of the bomb blasts and the grievances of Boko Haram provided a ready alibi. Testimonies abound including those of Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah of Christians of Southern origin who had been caught attempting to plant bombs in churches. A christian of Southern origin was also caught who had been the supplier and link to suppliers for materials used for bomb making. Explosives used for mining activities had been used illegitimately in Jos by both camps to the protracted fray over there.
Supposed masterminds had been caught including Sen. Ali Ndume supposedly implicated by a lunatic who was hurriedly jailed by a magistrate court judge on frivolous charges other than terrorist crimes as Marilyn Ogah had told the nation in a nationwide broadcast. We also saw a Senior Advocate of Nigeria manning the Office of the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice who did not know that a case of such significance should not be tried in a magistrate court but in a high court. We also saw an Attorney General of the Federation, Mohammed Adoke, who did not know how to write and file proper terrorist charges against the accused but instead filed charges for a crimes other than terrorism. Recalled that Sen. Ali Ndume had been vocal against Mr. President's plan to remove subsidy on petroleum products.
During this period, huge profits were made by the president's men and so much extra budgetary spendings and illicit loans were obtained secretly to procure cameras in breach of constitutional provisions.
Lawlessness became the order of the day and all we kept on hearing was 'We are on top of the situation' while hundreds of Nigerians are being killed in their hundreds until this day.
We went into December with high hopes things would take a different turn in 2012. Instead, the systematic killings continued. Bishops and miracle workers lost their voice and lousy prophets lost their ability to see visions and to prophesy accurately about a matter as urgent and as close to God's heart as the killing of innocent Nigerians. That again is for another day.
Even without salaries and under harsh economic conditions, many Nigerians managed to celebrate Christmas and the New Year with their loved ones praying for better things in 2012 only to be heartlessly slapped in the face by the president and his cabinet of over fattened pigs - too fattened from looting the treasury to think and to consider the plight of an already battered populace - with removal of subsidy on PMS. Many people were stranded in their villages and could not afford transportation fares back to their stations where they were employed with miserly salaries. So much state funds were expended to host town hall meetings and seminars and conferences in which we saw full grown adults who go to church and mosques lie to us witout the slightest feeling of communction. We saw Havard degree wielding professional lie from both sides of their mouth when it was obvious what they were doing amounted to fraud of monumental proportions. Nigerians filed out in their thousands to fight for their rights insisting that the government must revert back to N65 per litre against the N142 per litre they illegally imposed on us. Businesses began to crumble and banks are sacking their personnel in hundreds as a direct fall out of this mess. We saw uncultured and ill bred Informatiin Minister mouth gibberish from both sides of his mouth even worse than a military general. We saw how a genuine cause was given evil meanings by the president's men. Hard working Nigerians who had never taken any government contract but have concrete proofs of what they do for a living unlike them in government were given bad names and they pitched the security agents against the people, killing them for fighting for their just rights. Innocent Nigerians were ro be branded terrorists.
In the end, Nigerians were proved right afterall and they have since tried frantically to kill the reports that indicted government officials and their proxies in oil companies that stole over $3bn. To add insult to injury, the disgusting Adoke who also has oil interests has the temerity to tell us - Nigerians, the true Sovereign - no one will be tried for the theft of monumental proportions.
This must not stand!
Nigerians, there is a need to sink our differences and fight these monsters to a standstill.
If you choose to stand aloof in spite of evidence they consume more than half of the nation's budget in salaries and perks of office as well as their children school fees, their health bills, their cost of fueling fuel gozzling vehicles, the cost of lodging prostitutes in guest hosues, the cost of lodging economic parasites and liabilities in presidentail suites in choice hotels in large numbers and so much more, you will be the worst for it. This is not fair.
This demon of corruption must be crushed completely and ruthlessly and sent packing from our land.
Or shall we sit down and watch as the country finally grunds to a halt? If you think secession is the way, wait until you succeed and discover in the end some are only looking for smaller speheres to wield enormous powers over you and to continue business as usual.
Arise O Nigerians! Reclaim your heritage! Let us cleanse this paradise for maggots and restore our land and to put it on the path of greatenes now! If you let this mess continue, you will suffer more. God forbids but that is the true reality or have you all stashed off enough money in foreign accounts and investments even in places like Ghana like they have?
You must fight and recover what is rightfully yours and channel it appropriately for development.
Segun Edward II
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