By Godwin Etakibuebu
How would you want to be remembered?
My dear President Buhari, there are three reasons why this open letter to your most respected person becomes inevitable.
One, an elderly woman, living in Festac Town of Lagos, told me a revealing but very chilling story just four days ago. She employed one security personnel [a gatemen really for purpose of opening gate more than securing anything], a Mallam, from the North and a cook from Calabar, in the South.
It has been her habit to provide them with accommodation within her big house as all her children are not staying in Nigeria. She has a very kind heart and cares as such for all her domestic servants and because of this she secures the loyalty of everyone around her. A few days ago, she stumbled on the security man in a circumstance she told me was “too civilized”. This prompted some probing questions on the background of the man who hailed from one of the States in the North-West. To her greatest surprise, the security man showed her a “University Student Union’s Identity Card”.
Alarmed, she called some neighbours and these are people in the upper class of the society. After much probing, according to my friend, the fact was established that the young security man was actually a head of a cell [group] of one “religious body on surveillance mission”. As she was very eager bringing the police into the finding, she was reminded by her neighbours that there was not commission of crime by the security man to warrant police’s invitation. But the fact of the precarious of Nigeria’s turbulent situation was revealed by this episode, albeit proving a country set against itself.
The second reason has to do with your broadcast to Nigerians a few days ago on the glory of our 57 years anniversary as an independent Country. You spoke well Sir. There was no doubt about your determination to keep the country as one, against all odds, given the strength of what you said. By the speech, you reechoed what you fought for, as a soldier, during the Nigerian Civil War; a war fought for almost two years with millions of lives lost, that you would continue to hold that sacrosanct clarion call to unite Nigeria.
In-between your speech, you made a statement that is really worrisome, when subjected to critical analysis. You said that “we’ll no longer allow calls for secession by irresponsible groups”. The implication of that statement, my dear President, is that every call for restructuring [because some people are now believing that you are “replacing restructuring with separation or secession”] the Nigerian Federation for equity and justice would be tantamount to a call for secession in your interpretation. We shall evaluate this more seriously later but first, permit me to mention the third reason why this letter to you becomes a necessity.
Third reason: While we are celebrating our 57 years of independence on Sunday, part of Spain; a typically Spanish people going by the name Catalan [this is the Catalonia region, in northeastern Spain, rich with lively beach resorts of Costa Brava as well as the Pyrenees Mountains] headed for referendum for independence from Spain. The result of the referendum overwhelmingly gave 90% permission for independence. This result has posed a very serious political and economic problem to the Spanish government, which underestimated the determination of the Catalonia people.
Sir, there are some facts l want you to take into consideration about this referendum in Spain. Spain as a country, by 2016 population, has 46.56 million people whereas the Catalonia region consist of a little above 5 million people with only about 2.7 million [Catalan] participating in the referendum. Mr President Sir, what l am reporting to you just happened two days ago. You can call your counterpart in Spain; Mariano Rajoy Brey, to verify the fact of my narration
The first and third reasons that enforced this letter is either torn or coordinated by the second reason – which is your quote – albeit “we’ll no longer allow calls for secession by irresponsible groups”. Some people may want to posit that it is not every call for secession that is irresponsible. To those in this class of thinking, they would be ready, and quickly too, to defend why all calls for secession is not from irresponsible people. They would point out that when there is suppression, repression and oppression against genuine agitation for practice of freedom, justice and equity in a particular environment and when a people are caged like wild animals, anachronism becomes an option of negotiation. And when both are arrogantly suppressed by the machinery of the State, then rebellion becomes not only a responsibility but a clarion call to duty for the repressed. We can now go ahead talking about the issues but permit me to introduce myself first.
My name is Godwin Etakibuebu, just one of your beloved subjects, who did not actually vote for you in 2015 general election that brought you to power. I did not vote for you for two reasons, which I must mention very briefly for sake of clarity.
It is my life-vow not to vote for any military man, who, at one time or the other in the past, strangulated democracy through coup de tat. To me Sir, such a person remains an enemy of democracy, either he pronounces himself a born-again democratic now or not. You became qualified for this personality, when on the night of December 31, 1983, you and your ‘boys’ overthrew Nigerian’s democratic government. There is nothing personal on this sir, except that my penchant love for democracy would always over-ride every other interest.
The other reason being that l remain the same person [a reporter with the Punch Newspaper then] your Spymaster; Mohammed Lawal Rafindadi of blessed memory, arrested in 1984 for writing a true story about your house on Akin Adesola Street, Victoria Island, which you did not declare in your Asset Declaration Form even as you took office as Military Head of State. Again, I did not habour any personal claim of acrimony on this arrest which another top Military officer of that government helped to abort but suffice to say that it was an encounter which elongated my pathological hatred for whatever tampered with democratic institution and all its benefits.
We shall go into the next letter with more details next week but if my Editor permits, l might be presenting the second letter before next.
Be assured of my most respectful regards.
Godwin Etakibuebu, a veteran journalist, wrote from Lagos.