Open letter to President Muhammadu Buhari

BY SANUSI MAISASHI

Let me start by welcoming you, Mr. President, back to the country after a busy round of economic diplomacy trips that took you and top government officials to Saudi Arabia, France, Scotland and South Africa. One must note with happiness that the trips have both national and personal benefits. These trips have helped you, Mr. President, to canvass international support for the economic revival of the country.

They have also helped to sensitise potential investors to the advantages which the policies and programmes of the administration have tended to open for those who wish to manufacture goods and provide services in the country. I am sure Your Excellency have also reassured the investors that there is so much benefits they can derive from an economy that has over 200 million consumers and with so many natural resources that can be explored to satisfy the needs of the huge population and the international market. These trips are also good for bolstering the international image of the President and further familiarising yourself with other world leaders.

However, Mr. President, as you return home, you must shift your focus on domestic political issues which have implications for the stability of the administration, the country and your legacy as leader of the most populous black nation in the world.

I am particularly referring to how the issue of succession is already making some members of the administration or leaders of the ALL Progressives Congress (APC) to undermine the success of your administration. Mr. President, you have to be eagle-eyed and watch closely to see that some key persons in your administration and top leaders of the ruling party are already mounting campaigns of calumny against your person and your administration. And in doing this, these in-house elements will become more dangerous, threatening and vociferous than the opposition parties as we move closer to the 2023 elections.

Mr. President, watch out very carefully, you will notice that these people who are supposed to be your allies, acolytes and comrades have commenced a systematic campaign to distance themselves from your administration and it’s widely perceived failures. They will continue to strategically give speeches, issue press statements and make public posturing which shows that the administration’s inability to tackle the security, economic, infrastructure and corruption challenges confronting the nation have nothing to do with them or that their efforts to positively contribute have been frustrated.

There will be calculated but biting criticism of the administration’s policies, programmes and projects by people who had hitherto supported and encouraged their initiation. President Buhari, many newspaper editorials and general commentaries have started coming out that are unfriendly to you and your administration. More of such adversarial opinion articles will follow.

Many individuals who seek to succeed you will start grand standing and making public posturing that show that they are distancing themselves from you and do not want to be blamed for whatever your failure as a leader or that of your administration is. There will be orchestrated campaign on the social media against you and your administration. The means they employed in praising you and bringing down your supposed opponents will now be deployed ferociously against you.

Mr. President, let me cite an instance, of this campaign of calumny and betrayal which are already being unleashed against you. Do you think the leakage of the report of the Judicial Panel of Enquiry which probed the #EndSARS protest in Lagos the same day Justice Doris Okuwobi and her colleagues submitted the report was a mere coincidence? The answer is capital No. The report was leaked for a purpose.

The report and its scathing indictment of your administration’s human rights record exposed you and the government to ridicule, contempt and hatred from both the local and the international community. Not after your government has vehemently denied that no killing or police brutality took place that night of October 20, 2020 and went for the jugular of international media organisation like the CNN will such a terrible report now be released to put a lie to every statement, claim or stand made by the administration on the issue. Covertly and smartly, your former friends and allies have thrown you and the administration under the bus.

Mr. President must also have been made aware of how a very top official of your administration took the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to the cleaners over monetary and fiscal policies. These are clear dissociation of such officials from the economic policies which are believed to have inflicted hardship on the people. It is becoming Clare that those who say ‘hail Buhari’ yesterday are about to sing ‘crucify Buhari’. The signals are now very clear.

What you are witnessing is a grand betrayal by the West. Many more of these open and subterranean attacks will come. From now on, many of these elements will prove to you that you have become a lame-duck President or leader. They have calculated that it is the reason why you have chosen to thread the international path by embarking on a tour of the globe to keep yourself busy.

While you are busy with that, they believe they must intensify their plan to seize power in 2023 with or without your support. The architects of these campaign will not relent. They will do more. The lesson here, Mr. President, is that they are giving you a foretaste of what will happen when you leave office. Their Thursday is only showing how the Friday will be.

I just think as a patriotic citizen I should alert you and share my observation, understanding and perception with you. I have also publicly shared my perspective on the political events so that all Nigerians who read this letter can also be on the look out. Thank you, Mr. President for reading this ‘short’ letter.

Sir, accept the assurances of my highest regards. Long live Nigeria !

Maisashi lives in Kawo, Kaduna