Good morning, Mr President. Let me observe from the start that the nation’s presently is beneath your watch. Issues are fairly arduous for Nigerians to the extent that we’re witnessing suicide by hanging of residents. Just a few days in the past, the United Nations warned in regards to the looming demise of about 2.6 million kids in our nation as a result of Extreme Acute Malnutrition (SAM). As a pal and citizen, I’m duty-bound to warn you. The core of my augury is that you’re being railroaded into autocracy by these you selected as your workforce.
The assertion from the Comptroller-Normal of the Nigeria Immigration Service, Kemi Nandap, who spoke at a information convention convened by the Chief of Defence Employees, Gen. Christopher Musa on the Defence Headquarters involving heads of safety companies and Service Chiefs, is most alarming. It quantities to putting Nigerians within the diaspora on the watch checklist for alleged sponsorship of the #Endbadgovernance protest who could be arrested upon arrival within the nation. Nandap said unambiguously, “Now we have recognized some diaspora sponsors; they’re on our watch checklist. We might be notified of any try they make to enter the nation, and they are going to be picked up and handed to the suitable authority”.
I hope the Abacha years aren’t right here with us. The above effusion from the safety apparatchiks is an affront to the democratic rights of Nigerians to protest in opposition to insurance policies they purpose are in opposition to their normal curiosity. It is a throwback to the navy years after we all whirled beneath their jackboot. Mr President, you have been additionally a sufferer. I doubt in case you are a part of this design. Possibly some components within the safety institution need to show their loyalty to justify safety expenditure. Don’t be deceived as their actions would solely alienate you from the ruled. Mr President, you’re obliged to serve and obey the overall will, not the sinister counsels of your sycophantic servants.
Because of the final protest, over 2000 individuals are reportedly behind bars. This quantity has augmented these of the #EndSars who’ve been languishing in detention centres throughout the nation since 2021. What’s extra, the reported raid on the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) and the vandalisation of Iva Valley Books, a not-for-profit bookshop opened in 2017 to offer assets for the schooling of commerce unionists is alarming. When a authorities and its safety goons start to assault books, it’s a descent right into a dictatorship of the fascistic hue.
In response to the NLC incident, a press release by Socialist Labour notes that “The latest clampdown on the #Endbadgovernance protests is a transparent signal of a authorities that fears accountability and is determined to take care of management by way of pressure and intimidation. The regime is making political prisoners of anybody courageous sufficient to talk out. We didn’t battle in opposition to the navy solely to see our democratic rights eroded by those that as soon as claimed to be companions in that battle. The ability of democracy lies in collective motion; now’s the time for all progressive forces to unite”. This isn’t good for the picture of the nation.
The safety forces weren’t happy with the raid on NLC in Abuja, additionally they raided the Workplace of the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR) on August 9, ostensibly to cease a Symposium that was being organised by Training Rights Marketing campaign warranting the condemnation of the management which known as “on the Inspector-Normal of Police and the Lagos State Police Commissioner to name these individuals to order from stopping a lawful and peaceable meeting.” In line with its assertion, the stoppage would quantity “to gross violation of rights to peaceable meeting and freedom of speech”.
Mr. President, you may not know however that earlier than your inauguration and the intrigues of thwarting the method, it was on the CDHR’s workplace that the Suppose-tank for Democracy, led By Professor Fortunate Akaruese and myself amongst others, held a press convention to defend your mandate.
President, please don’t enable your self to descend into an authoritarian shell; keep away from each authoritarian temptation like a plague. Bear in mind, safety all the time provides strategy to conspiracy. Additionally, don’t forget the transient nature of energy. Eight years is simply too brief to be carried away by the attract of energy. My humble recommendation to you, sir, is to order the discharge of all Nigerians detained during the last protest and people held for the #EndSars protest of 2020.
Recall that Comrade Shehu Sani had urged you over the past Democracy Day dinner on the Villa that you need to launch these detained and made mild of the matter by making the purpose that they learnt the act of protest from you. It is among the methods you possibly can endear your self to these whose affairs you superintend.
Let me finish with excerpts from the everlasting phrases of Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 –1822,) an English Poet who mused on the vainness of energy in his poem, Ozymandias, ‘My title is Ozymandias,/king of kings:/Look on my works,/ ye Mighty,/ and despair!’/Nothing beside stays. / Around the decay/Of that colossal wreck, / boundless and naked/The lone and degree sands stretch distant.”
Odion Akhaine is Professor of Political Science, Lagos State College, Ojo Campus.
