PhD 3

Dear PhD,

Doxology.

Quick one, “Are You A Learner? …abi do I look like Awilo Longomba?”
Meehn, Olamide sure knows what’s up with his very interesting and catchy rhymes and catch phrases in his song and I am sure you do listen and must have been taking some few things from them but if you don’t listen then you should start sitting on a long thing.

Let us proceed to the issues at hand and quickly do over with it so that we can together start working to make sure you meet up with the people’s expectation and stop being a failure in all the areas where you are supposed to be a winner. I sometimes imagine why on green’s earth you will keep "falling our hands" and making even persons of questionable character call you to stand and defend your decisions.
Even when you have genuine intentions, the people’s continuous judgment will always be first to make you stand alone because they have always known that it will become one of those failed attempts at achieving nothing.

I read a news article where "Mallam" said you are incompetent and that you run a kindergarten government with drooling kids over the place making it virtually hard for us to gain a level of sanity with all the chattering and pooping and endless desire for attention; and I wonder that they are always right about you and you and your horde of incompetent termites still make a run for the spot labeled “INCOMPETENCE”.

Last week, we were counting down on those areas where I think you should work on and try to make a difference no matter how small so that after you leave office come 2015, you can return home in some peace and live the remainder of your days in some sorts of respect and dignity and although those two words seldom mean a thing to Criminally Insane Persons, I think you should strive for that. Money can buy you everything but not dignity, respect, peace, love and kindness.

What do I know? I may as far as you are concerned be talking thrash because I have not tasted the kind of money you have, but believe me, that kind of money has a limit to the very good and important things that makes up life but has unlimited access to the “good life”.
so counting down.......

5. SECURITY: Hmmm……, I can hear the very dead silent whispers of my heart saying “no security for the masses in Nigeria”. It was you who told us in a broadcast that terrorism is all over the world and that you think it is our own time to start experiencing it and hence advised that we live with it. Shocking right? It is really shocking to the world when you said it and we thought it was a slip of tongue but then when you went on to say “I don’t give a damn” and also ordered the army to combat peaceful demonstrators in January of 2012.

Since you assumed office after the untimely demise of your Predecessor, millions of Nigerians have been killed through stagnation, unemployment, Boko Haram and Militancy which we have now come to realize is an arm of your government and from happenings of late, it is a plum sector.
Many Nigerians of decent pedigree cannot boast of having quality education while those with dubious character and questionable judgment as to how their fellow humans should be treated are getting the best of both worlds instead of being behind bars languishing away paying for their heinous crimes committed against State and People.
These class of persons are paid salaries on monthly basis and when it fails to come out as expected they revolt and bring the state or community to a standstill while those of us who treaded the humble parts scamper for safety and wonder at the treatment meted us. Some are even decorated and given plum jobs and offices to manage and they are then conferred with National Honours, (Our own Noble Peace Price).

The recent happenings in the world has gone on to show that more needs to be done by all and sundry to ensure the people are not put in harm’s way. The people are the most important part of a government and they are the biggest contributors to the federation fund and are the pillars of a government be it in terms of continuity or succession.
The West Gate shooting incident in Kenya just days ago made me look more critically at the role our government plays in the security situation of the country and how she carries the people along and for laughs, I am very sure you would have preferred to travel to either UK or one of those Caribbean countries to hang out and pretend to be attending to “some important issues” like maybe a Social Media Conference or a Beauty Pageant.
You need to learn to listen to the people and have their best interest at heart and not leaving them to take care of themselves like it was never your duty to mind.

6. AGRICULTURE: There was a time when Nigeria held her own in terms of being able to export various cash crops overseas and we had Agricultural systems pioneered by right thinking individuals that worked with names like Groundnut Pyramid, Cocoa, Rubber, Palm Oil etc. and we were renowned to have taught and even gave seedlings of a particular cash crop to one country that today is known as the biggest producer of that crop.

Bros, we need food security and not to continually depend on some Oyel as we have come to of late. We are a people with abundant natural resources and whatever we make out of the much God has given us (which is much compared to what some Nation have) will go a long way to preserve the “food basket” of the Nation. Growing up was about the realest of times and people took pride to be called farmers, but today no one wants to be called a farmer because unfortunately, that name has come to be associated with poverty.

Oil (Oyel) is good and has so far been the bane of the existence of our nation and like every other “good” thing, it will and must surely come to an end and what then will we as a people have when we may have succeeded in destroying our God-given Natural Resources all in a bid to pursue nothing else but oil?
Agriculture is as old as time and our fore fathers have been known to live peaceably with themselves without Oil and during the era of Trade by Batter, they were content with the whole process and they excelled and they would have done well for us if only they were fast enough in innovation to discover Oil.

Oil was discovered on the 15th of January 1956 by Shell Darcy in Oloibiri field and the fact that it was on a Sunday should have been the reason why it should have been seen as a blessing and taken as such instead of making it the “slippery axe man” that goes on a prowl bringing everyone and everything down.
Agriculture is the mainstay of the economy and must be seen as such which should seriously get you thinking in light. Yes, thinking in light and pretending to be starry eyed instead of being seen as starry eyed yet with traits of a blind bat. We want more from the land where much has been taken from and no one can deny the fact that there is something wrong with us as a people and although it is not entirely our fault, I still blame it mostly on the persons whom we have over time called to serve, and you at this time must be responsible enough to take the blame and follow through with promises of a better Nigeria.

Make the youths love farming again and put workable processes and procedures in place to aid their quest for economic domination through this sector that has suffered serious neglect of late and learn to pick the right persons for the job and stop taking into consideration the gains you will be getting now. Be a Thomas Jefferson, a Benjamin Gate or a Nelson Mandela and providence will live ahead of you and then your name will be cast in gold on the pages of time, and please leave this “now now gratification and rewards”.

7. POVERTY ALLEVIATION: One of the promises you made on the 18th September 2011 was that and I quote you “let the word go out that my plans for a Sovereign Wealth Fund with an initial capital of $1billion will begin the journey for an economic restoration. This restoration will provide new job opportunities and alleviate poverty”.
How far Na? What happened after the speech?
Was someone pointing a gun to your head to mesmerize Nigerians with some tunes of empty promises? I will write a complete list of that speech and you can read same on my page titled 18.09.2013.

Unemployment has become a thing with us in this country and when other countries are busy fighting and making provisions to end the scourge, we as a people and nation are just gearing up and revving to explode into the heights of it and whether the people talk from now till “thy Kingdom come” the powers that be have no qualms whatsoever and they cannot be bothered to be bothered and that alone sends the wrong signal and like I have always mentioned, in a time of idleness, the heart of a man is never filled with saintly things but evil. Evil lurks at every turn and even when we are properly engaged we still get flashing images of why we should do that one stupid thing.

Wake up sir, and see from the eyes of the people whom you so gladly labeled “ordinary Nigerians”. See with eyes of a “Canoe makers” son who told the world that he went to school through the “harshest of weathers and condition but never gave up”. Look around our dear nation and not from the shiny windows of ASO Rock at how we have become strangers in our nation while some have decided to relocate overseas just to be away from the “rot” that has become Nigeria. A rot that is so widely celebrated by these leaders and making the world see us as rogues.

Poverty Alleviation will end unemployment and the people will find their pride of place in a Nation with so much potential.
Bros, please make haste while it yet shines so that the sound will not become twisted and sorrowful.
Make haste to address these issues and make provisions for the best of conditions so that the people will live as a people in health and wealth.
Make haste so that you can be counted as one from a humble beginning who never allowed the wiles of the world take over his soul and please for God’s sake, always bear in mind that whatsoever a man sows that will he reap.

8. POWER, aka NEPA, UP NEPA, PHCN, LIGHT. Anytime I travel outside the shores of Nigeria, I am mostly amazed at the fact that a nation can actually exist without having occasional power outage and yet they cannot be seen as having the kind of natural resources we have in Nigeria a la oil, natural gas et al and painfully, we have been able to somewhat live with this anomaly and have over the years provided support for the government because they have decieved us to believe in the lies that staedy power supply is a myth and we have also in our own Nigerian stride taken it upon ourselves to "help" the government because if we don't they won't and no one else will and as a fallout of the deceit, we now have names like I pass my neighbor, Marapco, Sound proof generators, Jubaili, Sumec, Tiger etc becoming brand names while we as the petty consumer that we are take our time to market these products telling which is more lasting and which can carry more load. How long will we be in this boat that we must become more accountable than the forerunners?

We need light. We need NEPA to continually be up so that our various industries which have become epileptic and gradually becoming obsolete and getting out of existence can be revived. We need to wake up not hearing stories of how a family of 4 got killed from generator flames or from explosion from a “I pass my Neighbor”. With light, entrepreneurs will have various options to choose from when thinking of the field they intend to venture into. There are more persons with skills to manufacture and produce than those with skills to write and draw or design and we must start out by tapping into the potentials available in a nation that can provide the most basic amenities.

You think light is not important? Go to China and see, live, learn and implement and just so you know, that country has more Billionaires in the world of late and that is due to the workability of the system in place.

We are tired of having to write to remind you of your constitutional responsibilities to the people and no one likes to keep doing that, you must learn to be a man that listens to himself and not others. The various ranting, chanting and venting of these termites you have surrounded yourself with will not help you keep a clear head, it will never make you stand as a man because you have somehow come to depend on their help and for someone with a sound beginning, you should know the help of a man is vain and there must always be a price tag.

Imagine the trip you made to the UN for the General Assembly and the people of your country have been over the place talking of the 600 man delegation you ferried with our monies, and the N8m per night hotel you were alleged to be lodged in. I for one do not believe you went with 600 persons, and also do not believe that you can actually spend N8m a night I mean common, you are not stupid and insensitive and most definitely do not believe you have the least delegation. I can make a case for the people that you must have the highest number of Pyscophants, Praise singers and Termites which we have come to know you for.

Finally, what is worth doing at all is worth doing well and should be done well, and first of all.......go down low and then tell your madame to exercise some sorts of restraints in the way she “handles her duties” because a woman who fails to keep her mouth within the confines of her face will have someone who will volunteer to help her place it where it should be.

Forget about 2015 for the moment and focus on becoming that man we all loved so much before 2011 elections.

Forget about the trouble you go through being in the news for all the wrong reasons when that same trouble even less will land you on the pages of legends.

We want to have a feel of that man who held us spell bound that even those of us who stopped believing in the Nigerian Dream came out to stand by you and walked with you through the period until you became victorious.

Focus on the job at hand and just as our bus conductors and drivers will be quick to tell you, “Be Serious” because "Leaders are responsible for the results of the team. Many don't seem to understand that and like you will be quick to say, "There is nothing wrong with my leadership or plan; the team just isn't executing". That is not how a leader leads, he must be ready to lay all down for Motherland and help the people sail smoothly.
Responsible leaders adjust their style and plans to fit the existing team, sometimes changing players. Responsible leaders equip, turning yesterday's losers into world-changers. Responsible leaders delegate task and authority, even when He could have done it all Himself.

Yours fellow Nigerian,

Ejemai