Open letter to VP Osinbajo

BY NIYI OGUNKOYA

Professor Yemi Osinbajo (SAN)
Vice President of the Federal Republic
Aso Rock Villa, Asokoro, Asokoro, Abuja.

Dear Sir,
Lest we forget! I worried less when the likes of Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Rotimi Amechi, Yahya Bello, Peter Obi, Atiku Abubakar and their likes made their intention to be president of Nigeria public. However, waited patiently for you, knowing that like Atiku Abubakar, you also have had the opportunity this last seven years to salvage Nigeria from its downward sloop, but you choose to look the other way. I think we can forgive you but would history also forgive you?

I listened with rapt attention to your declaration of intention to become the next president of our beloved country, Nigeria. I admit unequivocally that as a Nigerian, it is within your constitutional right to vie for the highest political office of the country. I also admit that since the turn of our nascent democracy (1999 till date), you are supposedly one of the most qualified candidates to be president, after the likes of the late Umar Musa Y’Adua and Dr Goodluck Jonathan, considering your academic background and political experience over the last sixteen years, and as an astute professor of law and a very senior lawyer of international repute. Indeed, you deserve to be president.
So we can have history written straight. Let us put your seven years as the vice president of Nigeria in context, and in specific areas as it affects the people you called “ordinary Nigerians”.

In the opening line of your declaration, you started by “singing the praise” of President Mohammadu Buhari and you tried to recall all his successes, those successes that do not reflect in the everyday life of Nigerians, successes that are not felt except you are a member of APC, a political party that is powerful enough to “forgive sins” (in the words of Adams Oshiomole). I admit unequivocally that is within your right, and therefore it is perfect to express your thought about his personality and his long term service to the nation.

Albeit, I would advise, that in your subsequent public addresses, you will be mindful of how much of the praises of other people to be sung. Yes, seven years ago, some Nigerians saw in President Buhari the long-expected messiah that would salvage Nigeria from the sixteen years of misrule and corruption the country was enmeshed in, but alas!, we all were wrong(ed). Today, it is your desire to run for the political office of the president of Nigeria, I, therefore, would want us to look through your scorecard in three aspects where I think your so-called “ordinary” Nigerians should have benefited, but no, they were denied the basic things of life.

Seven years ago, when your APC led government took over Nigeria from President Jonathan, we did not expect miracles, rather we expected a decent life but seven years after, Nigeria had drifted backwards than you met it… How again do you want us to commit our lives into your hands, knowing that you are part of the system that did not work!

Education! especially tertiary education in Nigeria, Nigerians expected your impact to be felt, being one time a university lecturer and a professor at that. We expected your expertise in such a magnitude that would save education from going into oblivion but like in other sectors you kept “your cool”, you did not want to step on toes so you can succeed the president. For all that I know, the majority of the public universities in Nigeria are now on strike…Why? Because your principal decided not to look the way of public institutions, yet you (your administration) dole(s) out certificates of operation and licenses to private universities… The reason for this is not far fetched! It does not interest you to pay salaries to university lecturers nor is it a concern to you to listen to the long yearnings of the university lecturers.

On the economy… I worry when you said you want to continue with what President Buhari did! Recall, for the second time under President Buhari, Nigeria’s economy slipped into recession yet again. However when your administration took over the government, the Nigerian economy was about the largest economy in Africa, but today, Nigerians have become the subject of ridicule in the comity of African nations, such that Nigerians who travelled to Ghana, South Africa, and other parts of Africa in search of greener pasture are been sent back, some of them killed while some had their businesses destroyed (South Africa, 2019) in other cases, Nigerians in the diaspora were sent back to build their own economy. All these happen because you plunged the economy yet again into recession.

If you had done well enough for Nigeria in the last seven years, not so many Nigerians would travel to look for the proverbial “greener pasture”, but because you (all) are more interested in what you would benefit than what Nigeria(ns) would benefit… It is okay, we would forgive you, but history may not! The Nigerian government under President Buhari and yourself borrowed more money than can be repaid soon. Much of the money borrowed is for recurrent expenditures and not to build infrastructures, yet you want Nigerians, the people you called “ordinary” to follow you…promising them you would continue from where Buhari stopped, well, I think we should ask you, where did President Buhari stop?

Today (2022) the Niger Delta is the proverbial “goose that lays the golden eggs”. This administration promised a clean-up of oil spillage but the clean-up has taken an eternity to be completed yet, you want (us) the two hundred million people you called “ordinary Nigerians” to follow you. Mr Vice President! my question is, follow you to where?

Under your principal and you! The security architecture of Nigeria had gone far below the ground, the lives and property of everyday Nigerian means little to nothing. Just on March 28, 2022, gunmen detonated a bomb on a train heading to Abuja from Kaduna, the whereabouts of about 168 passengers are still unknown and some people died on the spot. Lately, Kaduna and Maiduguri had become the hotbed of kidnappers and bandits, yet you promised Nigerians that you would continue from where Buhari stopped! Sire, you can do better, I mean far better.

You promised to continue… continue with high scale insecurity, with poor economic decisions, with bad education policy, with unfulfilled political promises, with insincerity and carelessness. Nigerians deserve a better life, we can’t afford to live like this for another term. We are fed up!

Dear professor, if you still want to run for the office of the president. You have a whole lot to do; to the everyday people that can not afford three square meals under your watch, to the families of the slain Nigerian youths that were asking to live and not to be killed by the police but ended up being killed at Lekki tollgate. You have so much to do — to the everyday Nigerian, the middle class that you have wiped away with your poor economic decisions, such that the Nigeria of today is worst than the France of 1774. You need to do better than President General Buhari.

You have much more to do — to secure the future for the people you call the leaders of tomorrow, to make the schools functional and active, to create an environment where the lives of students and teachers are secured,You have much more to do.

This letter is written in good faith to bring to your notice that the line you intend to toe may not lead to your planned destination. I wrote this letter, for history; so I can have my place on the good side of history, that at a time I spoke truth to power

Yours truly,
Niyi Ogunkoya
Office of a concerned Nigerian.