THE WORLD IS WATCHING

Dear Mr President, while presenting the 2019 budget on Wednesday at the national assembly, you became somewhat nationalistic when some lawmakers accused you of lying. In the footages that circulated online, you were seen cautioning the lawmakers about their utterances and urged them to behave and went further to remind them that the world is watching. Well, it is laughable and indeed sad, that you only realized that the world was watching when lawmakers mad fun of your attempt to hoodwink them with bare-faced lies.

On the surface, there is nothing wrong with what you said Mr president – you know- your attempt to caution recalcitrant legislators for refusing to swallow whatever meal you tried to dish.

There is also nothing wrong in being booed. If you observe proceedings at the British Parliament, the prime minister always gets a full dose of disagreements in the form of jeers and booed. But Nigeria, being a country where the executive is seen as God, it becomes a crime, perhaps, punishable by death, to disagree with and boo the president.

The fact that you tried to stop lawmakers from booing you by using the “the world is watching” only goes to show that you are not ready to receive the same injection that you have been giving us.

Let me run you down memory lane and in the end, I hope that you understand that what the lawmakers did to you is a storm in a teacup to what you have been doing to us since 2015.

You see, Mr president, shortly after you got elected in 2015, some of us did not expect much from your government. At least, I can be forgiven for being a pessimist. First, you booed us by not appointing ministers until after 6 months. According to you, you said that you were trying to get the best persons to run the government with you but when you finally appointed ministers, we saw failed governors, certificate forgers, people who cut grasses with 200 million, etc, etc.

Not only did the economy tank and go into recession with over 17 million Nigerians losing their jobs afterwards, your then minister for finance told a hungry nation that recession is just a word. At the last count by Nigerian Bureau of Statistics, 20. 9 million Nigerians have lost their jobs since you came on board and I must tell you that the whole universe is watching.

Shortly after you got elected, you went to the United States of America and told your foreign audience that the region that gave you 97% should not, in all honesty, be treated as those that gave you 5%. A whole lot of people thought that you were mistaken but not only have you reflected that dichotomy in your appointments, you have also made manifest of same in your project execution. In all these, you forgot that the whole universe is watching?

Mr President, I write to you as an angry Nigerian. Angry because as a youth, my generation has suffered the most in your directionless government. We are the ones losing our jobs and the ones being insulted for losing the same jobs. As if that was not enough, you went to the UK and called us lazy without the consideration that some of us do not have the luxury of racing through the streets of Abuja in BMW power bikes. I mean, If a had a power bike that costs hundreds of millions and I am busy running through the streets with my friends and when I fall, I get taken to the best hospitals in the world, won’t I be busy?

If companies weren’t folding up following your economic policies, most of us would have been gainfully employed. You don’t seem to care, as long as your handlers continue to lie to you that all is well. But the country is bleeding under your government; people are dying from hunger and starvation, from diseases and insecurity occasioned by lack of productivity. Take it from me, that the world watched as you plunged the fastest growing economy in Africa into oblivion within a space of 3 and a half years. If I were to be you, that would bother me the most, more than being booed by lawmakers. But do you care? I don’t think so.

Dear Mr President, the world watched as you called Nigerians criminals in faraway France. You didn’t think it twice before you labelled the whole country criminals. What was that for? Did we in any way offend you? As if that was not enough, you said that you would make sure no government official travels abroad for medical treatment. You broke that promise and stayed over 3 months in a London hospital at a stretch and only came back after angry Nigerians resident in the UK protested which caused the whole country an embarrassment. Do you know that CNN was making a mockery of the country because you decided to live in a London hospital for months? The world watched in horror as you broke all your campaign promises but do you even care?

Do you also know that the world watched while you disobeyed court orders?

Under your government, the world watched as hundreds of peaceful IPOB protesters were murdered in cold blood. Their only crime was that they were agitating for their own country. Soldiers moved in and shot them at close range. Over 300 were massacred and they had no arms.

While that was happening, hundreds of Shiite members were killed by the same military and buried in a mass grave. A few weeks ago, the killings continued. While these killings occurred, the same military was pardoning members of the dreaded Boko Haram sect, a notorious terrorist group that had pledged loyalty to the Islamic state. You didn’t care if the world was watching or not.

I think what you should be worried about the most; that which should deny you sleep and of which the rest of the world is taking note is that under your administration, Nigeria became the poverty capital of the world with over 80 million living in poverty. Under you, the number of out of school children grew to over 20 million. Under you, over 800 companies folded up in 3 years. This does not include small-scale businesses that couldn’t survive your economic policies. Under you, murderous herdsmen became emboldened and murdered over 3000 persons in two years. Under you, joblessness is the order of the day while corruption has soared. Under you, Nigeria became the third most terrorised nation. Under you, nothing is working.

To all these, the world is watching.