An Open Letter To Nigerian Politicians

Dear Beloved Politicians,

I called you beloved but bluntly speaking I do not love you. For you have plundered and impoverished us beyond reason. This plundering and impoverishment you have perpetuated on us for decades through your fabulous salaries which earns you the name of the best paid politicians in the world.

I hate you because you deliberately killed our educational system. The reason you did this is in order to keep the South East as perpetual okada riders and the fortunate ones traders, the South West as welders and tailors and a pocket of them in the civil service while the North are to become shoemakers, truck pushers or water fetchers. You plotted and executed this coup against us because if you establish a well funded and equipped tertiary institutions, we may no longer depend on singing ‘Hallelujah’ for you in order to survive. We will not be available to snatch ballot boxes for you so that you will win and remain in office forever for the benefit of you and your family members. This explains why about two million Nigerian children are out of school but you shamelessly drive your Prado or Land Cruiser Jeeps of #60m around in a gail of euphoria, feeling nothing about it.

Your grand plan is that once you deny us quality education and keep us down, you can plunder, squander and rob us through your fat salaries and allowances without anyone batting an eye. You believe that you cannot get everyone educated or else, who will be roadside auto mechanics, akara fryer, barrow pusher, shoe shiners, well diggers, etc. That is why you have closed your eyes to the deplorable state of schools in the country sides of the country.

I hate you because in this same Nigeria, some academic once manufactured Missiles which went 13 miles and hit their targets. They made Yellow Fever and Cholera Vaccines, a mini-airport was once made to fly in and out of the Eastern Region during the civil war. The brain behind all these were in the Nigerian universities. Now, see what you have done to our dear nation. We do not have any product we make in Nigeria.

Is it vegetable oil, cell phone, clothing fabrics, radio sets, children’s toys or what does Nigeria make? Yet, you travel abroad on people’s taxes and enjoy all the good things of life without shame while your naturally endowed country lies waste in restless ecstasy.

Nigerian politicians, people die in large numbers everyday in Nigeria because you, having seen that the poor you rule over need no protection, have appropriated all the security agencies for yourselves and for your protection. Little wonder, one of you, a governor was once reported to be having a two hundred policemen squad for his protection. If that report was true, then by law of quantum, mass and weight, the presidency could be having one million policemen, the SSS (which you have arrogantly changed to DSS against the construction), the Civil Defence and the Army all inclusive. Then, the ordinary man is left to wallow unprotected all by himself. But, he is brainwashed by you to go and fight for your ballot boxes during elections.

You have made us cheap, expendable and purchasable. That is why during elections, you give us peanuts during and look the other way after the elections and because you have pauperised us to the point where we care only for our stomach, we look on and ignore your stealing demeanour because we are preoccupied with servicing our hunger beaten stomachs.

I hate you because you see that seat in your office as you birthright. That is why you must make it back to that seat even when you know you have failed us.

I hate you because you think we are all senseless. Your banks can pay us 3% or 4% interest when we deposit our meagre income there, but for us to borrow and do business as it is done all over the world, you take 23% or 24% interest from us.

I hate you for these reasons and so many other reasons. You get paid for doing just a bit of what you promised us you will do, and then you go on holidays to the most alluring cities in the world, do burials, do birthday parties of your wives, send your children to schools abroad on our commonwealth. Then, behind red bottles or costly wines, Champaign you laugh at us horrendously mocking our fate. But when we want to remind you that we understand your games, you send soldiers to kill us.

I hate you because you travel abroad to treat headaches, ear ailments and so on but our hospitals are filthy lurkers and death homes. Many Nigerians who are patients in hospitals are stranded for medical fees of about #20,000. Some of their illnesses are degenerating due to lack of medical attention.

I hate you because you have failed in everything other nations have done for their citizens. You have made us generate our own electricity, we transport ourselves as there is no functional government transportation system (although we know it is not for free). Many children will grow, not to know what is called government facility. Little wonder some 30y/o in Nigeria do not know what pipe borne water looks like. Even ordinary cable TV, you collected money and free airtime from the service providers and made us to have parallel connection instead of Pay As You Go. In fact, Nigerian leaders have sold us two pence even to the outsiders. I could see one of you laughing copiously in your white, starched agbada, and telling Multichoice that if we could pay for the electricity we did not use via ‘Estimated Billing System’ that we could pay for the cable TV subscription monthly whether we have the electricity to use it or not.

I hate you because your legal system has become a laughing stock of the whole world. Even when your apex court, the Supreme Court passes a final judgement, it is not even as effective as the fart let out by a dog beside a fireplace.

My hate for you springs from your hypocrisy. You tell me one thing and do another. You said you are fighting corruption but you are the corruption. In fact, you are the ‘Ambassadors of Poverty’ according to Shola Owonubi and I wonder how ambassadors can fight the country they represent.

In fact, I hate you because statistics shows that in 1985, only 20% of Nigerians were extremely poor. But today, it is vice versa. Thus, 80% of Nigerians are in extreme poverty, courtesy of your squad a maniac culture.

In case you think you can buoy in this eldorado niche you have carved for yourselves while we remain in the quagmire of of grim and gloomy austere forever, it will happen soon and the whole place will be shaken. We shall soon shake it off and upturn that able you have set on us and on which you are standing on. Then, if it does not affect your precious ones you have hidden abroad, at least it will affect the vault you have been stealing from. Then, we shall all come to the base.

Yours sincerely,
Jideofor Onah
A disappointed Nigerian.