MR PRESIDENT, PLEASE RETURN HOME Smolette Adetoyese By Shittu-Alamu,

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    The people he has ruled for nearly 24 months, are called Nigerians. They know he is in France, at least that was where the men and women around him told us he was going to, some two weeks ago when he left our shores. We had no cause to disbelieve them because since he came on board as President and announced extemporaneously on 29th of May 2023 that “fuel subsidy is gone”, that is where we have always known and been told he spends his leave or rest period. He has been a regular visitor to Emmanuel Macron’s land long before he became known as PBAT.

    But he is not on leave now! They never told us so. Nor did his many spokesmen tell us he has gone for medical check-up. These ones don’t tell much when it comes to profiling their boss.Unlike the man before him who was here and there for 8 laborious years and whose two aids always told us the leader was on medical tourism in then Queen’s and now King Charlie’s land, these many ‘informants’ now in Aso Villa love to tell their 200, million fellow country men not the real reason the man, PBAT their boss has gone out for. They don’t because at 73 that we are told he is, they still want us to believe he is a Super Man who never falls ill and perhaps cannot fall ill. They make us believe that PBAT is ever as strong as a fidle. But there is always a mischief in that because there is none the Creator created so strongly that he/she never falls ill. In the language of PBAT’s forefathers which he speaks with the Lagosian accent or bent, it is said that “ko si eni ti kii re”. It goes on to expand that further thus: “A waye ma lo kan ko si.” This means there is none who comes to this world and fails to go back to the Creator in the end.

    On the 2nd of this month of April 2025, the presidency announced to the country that Mr President would depart for France on a short working visit. Bayo Onanuga’s Press Release informed Nigerians so. The press realese was later expanded by Otega Ogra the President’s man on New Media in a TV interview. Ogra had said the visit was a personal retreat to enable the president review his administration’s report card and to plan also for the next half of the 4 years period his administration will last . Oh what an explanation! If that is all about the reason for PBAT’s visit, to France which is the seventh or so in the 2 years the Tinubu administration has been around, it translates that he goes to France every four months on the average of three times in a year. For a 73 years old man and very workaholic president we have, that is a good period to see one’s doctors for regular medical check-ups. But then, why can’t the President’s handlers tell us this fact that even the grapevine knows it is the truth? And what is this truth? That PBAT goes outside the country often to take care of himself.

    Sincerely speaking, if that is all about the trip and that it had no medical tourism attachment to it, couldn’t it have been done here at home say at Obudu Cattle Ranch in Cross River State or Yankari Games Village in Bauchi State? In fact, if the president wants to be nearer Lagos, then MicCom Golf & Country Club here in Ada, Osun State could welcome him to the lush greens and rural setting for that personal retreat he is currently undergoing. This would have saved the country so much in US dollars of the tax payer’s money. It would also have given the president the opportunity to know and learn more about his dear country especially as he has not done a state by state visit or tour of the country.

    It is common knowledge that since his departure two weeks ago so much has happened to put the country in the news very negatively. The Benue Through has been in series of trouble. The assailants kill and maim yet move about freely. Residents of the nation’s food basket state have constantly fleed from fresh attacks. A former Military Governor of that state has had to say that the federal government is fighting insecurity with very kid gloves. Why and how? Well, in Borno State Boko Haram has intensified their grip on Maiduguri – Damboa road, and other such places. Activities there have resulted in a cross of verbal words between the Governor of the state and a federal minister. On the nation’s famous Plateau the killing’s have been in leaps and bounds. They have been glory and glory sights all over and almost on daily basis. Why do we do this to ourselves?

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    The State Governor has had to apologise for his administration’s in ability to defend the people. What a pity!Yet President Bola Ahmed Tinubu continues to hold the”personal retreat” he is under going in France. Can’t he see or find all these as the reason to return home? Must he spend the entire scheduled period of 2 weeks of personal meditation abroad in France while the Plateau and other areas burn and get too hot for comfort? Does Mr President actually feel the pain the people feel as he often assures us ? Nigerians today live in fear, the fear of the now and that of tomorrow. The herdsmen, cattle rearer, assailants and terrorists who attack and destroy continue to use that weapon of fear against the people. It emboldens them as attackers to continue to overwhelm the poor villagers who are helplessly overwhelmed. All those hot spots of violence have continued to become “conquered lands” because the presence of state power to really confront the every day attackers is practically absent. We ask: Has state power failed the people and allowed the bandits to rule and reign? Evidence on ground appears so. The reason for this is that the nation’s security architecture has become very much predictable. Our security combat efforts appear more responsive and reactive rather than proactive. The terrorists as we have seen them in their brutality have never felt guilty for the wrongs, infact, the crimes they commit in their expansionist drive. This should be the time that Mr President’s presence in those places or even here at home in Nigeria could have inspired the victimised people in those burning flash points and calm their nerves. Residents of the communities that have been brutalised up country may not understand the lyrics in the Yoruba song “ta lo so pe a o ni ba ba, kai a ni baba’. If they did, they would have been able to translate such inspiring wordings in their native or local vocabulary and so give themselves a little more hope that all will still be well.

    Now that all those communities have lost almost every hope of being defended because they appear to be on their own, can we imply that Nigeria has left them to their owns?

    Those bandits or terrorists (whatever they are) have shown that they have so much confidence in the AK47 guns,the daggers, spears and knives they wield in threatening the poor farmers who have nothing to protect them. Nigerians generally and the people in the hot spot zones of the country in particular must take consolation in the fact that if help is not forth coming from the expected realms, they no longer must wait for any help but only trust in God’s ability to make them be that help itself by themselves. As Governor Caleb Manasseh Muftwang of Plateau State has suggested to them, in his emotional broadcast, the people on the Plateau should trust God in their ability to defend themselves in some way. Since the heavens always do help themselves, the heavens will help us in our cries. God will take it over. Before that time comes we call on Mr President to please return home immediately because there is too much mayhem in the land.

     

    Smolette Adetoyese Shittu-Alamu, Osogbo

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