By Sen. (Dr.) Femi Okurounmu CON, Chairman, Presidential Advisory Committee on the 2014 National Conference.
Fellow Nigerians,
Let us THINK together and PRAY together for success, in the coming elections, of the Presidential Candidate that will keep Nigeria ONE.
In THINKING together, let us ask ourselves the following questions:
1. Should we feel unconcerned that we are not safe to travel anywhere in our country today, by road or even by train, without the constant fear of attack by armed, imported bandits and kidnappers?
2. Should we feel unconcerned that even our royal fathers, religious leaders and places of worship are not safe from attacks by these same imported bandits and kidnappers?
3. Should we feel unconcerned that these bandits have taken over many communities in the Northern parts of the country turning the farmers into forced labourers, collecting taxes and administering their own brand of justice?
4. Should we feel unconcerned that the same bandits are brazenly kidnapping school children, openly negotiating and collecting huge ransoms, without any action by the authorities?
5. Should we feel unconcerned that Boko Haram die-hards are surreptitiously being integrated into our armed forces under a deceitful amnesty program?
6. Should we feel unconcerned that armed, killer-herdsmen have displaced many farmers from their villages, raping their wives and daughters, killing many of them and thus creating shortage of farm products and causing escalation of food prices?
7. Should we feel unconcerned that our forests up and down the country are now strategically occupied by armed herdsmen and bandits, killing, and kidnapping people for ransom?
8. Should we feel unconcerned about the relentless efforts of the Federal Government to establish RUGA settlements all over the country for herdsmen, and also take over all river banks nationwide for their use and occupation?
9. Should we feel unconcerned about the frequent slaughterings of fellow Nigerians, especially in Kaduna and other North-Central states, simply because of their religion?
10. Should we feel unconcerned about the increasing attempts by government to move away from religious diversity in the country and promote only one religion?
11. Should we feel unconcerned about a Muslim/Muslim presidential ticket in which the candidate is an old and infirm person, and the running mate is a notorious Boko Haram sponsor and an arch-opponent of restructuring?
12. Should we feel unconcerned that only one ethnic group controls the majority of all the top political and military positions in the country?
13. Should we feel unconcerned about the now open claim that this country belongs to the one ethnic group, and the not-so-subtle efforts by its leaders to truly appropriate it to themselves?
14. Should we feel unconcerned about the Federal Government’s stubborn refusal to accommodate any demands for National Restructuring and return to a truly federal system of government as bequeathed to us by our founding fathers?
15. Should we feel unconcerned about the increasing national drift towards separatism and the increasing multiplicity of voices demanding separate nationhoods for their ethnic groups?
16. Should we feel unconcerned about the deepening poverty in our country? ( In 2015, 43% of Nigerians lived below the poverty line as compared with 63% today).
17. Should we feel unconcerned about the astronomical increases in the prices of essential commodities since 2015? (A 50 KG bag of rice has gone from N8,000 to N46,000; that of beans from N20,000 to N40,000; 25 KG bag of onions from N5,000 to N30,000; a litre of diesel from N155 to N1,000, that of petrol from N87 to N350; cooking gas from N183 to N800 per KG while baskets of tomatoes and fresh pepper have gone from N8,000 and N11,000 to N19,000 and N25,000 respectively.)
18. Should we feel unconcerned that our petroleum refineries remain comatose after 24 years of PDP/APC Governments, forcing us to import, rather then export, refined petroleum products, especially petrol, at high international market prices which would otherwise have been beneficial to us, if we were an exporter?
But because we depend on imports, we are forced to buy our petrol at scandalously high prices, in spite of the rampant fraud of so-called fuel subsidy.
19. Should we feel unconcerned that much of our crude oil is actually being stolen, with full complicity of top government officials and top echelons of the armed forces, to enrich themselves and their families, while impoverishing Nigerians?
20. Should we feel unconcerned about the level of corruption in our country today, a vice which the current regime rode to power to cure, but which has now become so deep that people openly steal billions, even trillions of Naira without fearing any repercussions, so long as they have the right political or ethnic connections?
21. Should we feel unconcerned about the level of power supply in the nation today, and the frequency of national grid collapse, in spite of the trillions of Naira supposedly spent on power since 1999?
22. Should we feel unconcerned with the state of our educational system today, the level of unemployment, and particularly, youth unemployment?
23. Should we feel unconcerned with the state of our health system, which makes everyone with the means to have to travel to foreign countries to treat even the most common ailments?
24. Should we feel unconcerned with the state of our infrastructure, particularly roads and potable water supply upon which billions of Naira have been supposedly expended, but without tangible results?
25. Should we feel unconcerned that Nigerians today live almost totally on imported products, and that there are fewer manufacturing industries in the country today than at Independence?
26. Should we feel unconcerned that our youths now find Nigeria so inhospitable that they cannot wait to flee the country at the first opportunity, even when they have to take life-threatening risks to do so?
27. Should we feel unconcerned that our green Nigerian passport is almost a document of shame and embarrassment everywhere as it subjects the bearer to inferior human regard and degrading suspicion?
28. Should we feel unconcerned that Nigerians are now starving even when they have money in the banks, simply because the banks have no money to meet their demands and many have to resort to purchasing the Naira from unscrupulous money hawkers at ridiculous rates?
Now, as a Nigerian of Conscience, I am sure that your answer to almost all the above questions will be a resounding NO.
All the miseries outlined have been part of the horrible legacies of the PDP/APC Federal Administrations of the last 24 years, and particularly of the Buhari and Tinubu’s APC Government of the last 8 years.
Yet, Tinubu, the chief promoter and sponsor of Buhari 8 years ago, the man who led his political team to promise heaven on earth to Nigerians on behalf of Buhari if we elected him as President, and the man who has proudly paraded himself as the National Leader of APC since 2015, now seeks to distance himself from these failures, and to make us elect him to succeed Buhari. We are surely not FOOLS!
Neither the APC nor its Siamese twin, the PDP, can bring any hope to Nigerians.
*NOW, LET US PRAY.*
God, we pray thee, as we go to the polls on February 25 to elect a President for Nigeria, give us the strength and the courage to follow the dictates of our REASON.
*PETER OBI IS THE WAY FORWARD TO KEEP NIGERIA ONE, HIGHLY PRODUCTIVE, PROSPEROUS WITH WEALTH AVAILABLE FOR ALL TO SHARE TOGETHER!*
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