AN URGENT LETTER TO PRESIDENT MUHAMMADU BUHARI BY ITUNU AKOREDE

The State House
The Executive President Mohammadu Buhari
President, Federal Republic of Nigeria
Saturday 9th April, 2016,

Sir ,
CALLING YOUR ATTENTION YOUR EXCELLENCY

My name will not sound familiar to you as I am not one of the children of a Nigerian wealthy family or neither am I a child of a politician, but I am one of your subjects whom God has ordained and elected you to be the president unto. I am Itunu the son of Akorede. Don’t let me continue this short message without saying that a large percentage of the entire population of our beloved country is happy with and your choice of presidency. A lot of us were and are still suspicious of your body and the company around you, but a great percentage still hold you in very high esteem as a man of your word and having the capacity and capability of piloting the affairs of the nation that once seemed subject to grave impunity.

Sir, in a bid not to take your very expensive time reading a long introduction let me hit the ground and state my very main reasons for having the courage to write this letter to such an exalted person like you. Nigeria is a very complex society with multiple issues to reorganize ranging from the economy to people. I am sure that these issues are receiving necessary attention from your office. Every sane mind knows that Rome was not built in a day and it’s not a day’s task to make a country like ours recover from the ills and wickedness of successive administrations. I am too bold to say you are the only person to have been elected as the President of the federal republic of Nigeria with a set preparation to be the PRESIDENT, others have been “Children of Circumstances” or “Products of Fate” as I have chosen to refer to them.

The executive President Sir, I am most bothered about some aspects of our national life which has made me gathered some courage and put my expression up here. Sir just like I said earlier, the entire population of about 180 million Nigerians and another 3million foreign nationals in Nigeria are ever waking up everyday to ask a pertinent question, “WILL NIGERIA BE GREAT AGAIN?” A question I know encouraged your candidature for the presidential election. A lot of wrecks have been done to the body and image of the country; I assume God is using you to rebuild this. This Buhari led administration has exposed so much of corrupt dealings perpetuated under the past administration which also involved some of the present regime’s very top functionaries, please keep up this fight but sir it shouldn’t be business as usual where we only hear about allegations and there are nobody punished for such satanic acts. The EFCC have been able to arrest a lot of young and old fraudsters who have no political base, a lot of young criminals have been sentenced to life imprisonment for stealing a governor’s phone, sentenced to death for stealing goats, jailed without trial for walking at night to mention a few that you are familiar with, yet very high profile criminal cases of political office holders have remained long drawn legal tussles in our nation’s courtrooms.

Nigerians have suffered a lot in the hands of our past and present leaders, a lot of us are in other nations of the world working as slaves in foreign land yet with the level of our national wealth. Nigerians are not asking for too much, sir let them have somewhere to go in the morning and come back home in the afternoon with an assurance that at the end of the month their will the bank alert on the phone indicating that they have been paid. Jobs are so hard to get nowadays, money so difficult to come across. Sir imagine Executive Governors of states in the country still owing about six and seven months of workers’ salaries, yet they live like emperors in castles running very heavy generating sets while those who elected them die in abject poverty. Many people have died as a result of the families’ inability to afford medical bills. Not to bother you so much on this, just reminding of the things you readily know.

About job creations and employment by the various parrastatals and departments of the government, it’s a lot easier task or venture to walk from Kano to heaven than getting a 40thousand naira job in the country without have someone who can “press some buttons” for you. This is endemic to national security. Many people resorted to internet scam because they can’t be kept busy doing something productive to enhance the economy and raise the image of Nigeria. Out of every ten taxi drivers in Lagos, Ibadan, Abuja, or Port Harcort you will not want to disagree with me that 5 of them are either first Degree holders or with Higher National Diploma(HND) holders. Now the question arises when shall we graduates have the means of practicing what we have studied and learnt in the universities. A lot of our nationals were recently repatriated from United Kingdom, Dubai and Malaysia; they may become national woes if the necessary steps are not taking to resettle them into the system, sir they have to work. I know I do not have to remind you about the number of Nigerians who have been executed for drug related offences in the Asia and Middle East. God will lead you right sir.

Employment opportunities abound in Nigeria, we only hear of recruitment into the Air force, Navy, Civil Defense, Army and Police. Sir can you please order these various security apparatus to give a breakdown of those who got recruited purchasing forms which a sane mind will interpret to be a scam. I only know of Nigeria in the entire world selling forms to people willing to serve and protect the pride of the nation. I see it as buying forms to go and die. Let them give an account of those who got recruited without having a godfather. Again sir, may I tell you that there are more than twenty other departments of the federal government that nobody is talking about today, and yet these are parrastatals that have the capacity of employing at least 100,000 people every year and each generating an average of 6billion naira every fiscal year for the country. Let me call your attention towards the NIPOST, RAILWAY COOPERATION, FIRE BRIGADE SERVICE,WATER COOPERATION, NITEL, all these seem not to be in existence in Nigeria and these are angles which the corrupt people hide and steal the wealth of the nation by submitting names of people not in existence and take the salaries. NIPOST alone is capable of employing thereby reducing the venom and stings of unemployment. All the government needs to do is to declare a state of emergency in these units and rebrand them.

Sir, so much is wrong, look into the various disobedience of court orders by the security operatives, it alarming and embarrassing when these agents go into shops and market places to make arrest, they even disobey natural national constitutional respect by arresting in the vicinity of the Court, yet there are more dangerous criminals known to them walking freely on the streets, politicians stealing and encouraging thugry , yet we do “rankadede” to them. A stitch in time from you will save the nine to come. On the Agatu killing which the source has been identified to be the marauding Fulani herdsmen, it’s more of an unbelievable atmosphere that there seem to be nothing coming from the federal authority on this. We have read comments indicating that these killers flew an helicopter to execute this heinous, odious and loathsome act, yet the DSS hasn’t been able to identify the source and owner(s) of the helicopter used. Is this a sign of cooperation?

Sir, I can continue writing but let me bring a pause here. I shall continue to write you and pray for the success of your administration so that a lot of us can return to our homeland with great hope and enthusiasm.

Akorede Itunulevi

itunuemma@yahoo.co.in

Dallas, Texas

04-09-2016 

00:15am

Note: Opinions expressed are the solely the author's.