'Under this presidency, bandits, kidnappers and all sorts of anarchic groups are roaming the streets almost unfettered, with the security agencies at their wits’ end. A numbing paralysis has overtaken the country and its government.' NGRPresident
Other than the response prompted by President Muhammadu Buhari’s social media aide, Lauretta Onochie, the scathing May 31 open letter to the president authored by Abubakar Umar, a retired colonel, has gone largely unheeded by government.
The blistering May 31 open letter was not the first time Mr Umar would take the Buhari presidency to task. It is unlikely to be the last. He has also avoided partisan politics except at the peripheral level to push certain non-populist ideals, but has demonstrated uncanny progressivism which many self-confessed flamboyant and voluble politicians find very challenging, if not shaming.
His May 31 letter to President Buhari will rank as one of the most critical and pungent he has ever written to any president. Mr Umar doesn’t need to illustrate his letter with his bona fides to remind everyone, particularly the president, that he is an objective critic with a jealously guarded history of making sound and unbiased contributions to national development. He, however, does, probably so that presidency hounds would take less umbrage.
It would be tragic if the president does not know the implications of his actions. There is, however, nothing he has said that gives an indication he understands all the nuances undergirding great leadership and presidency, a great presidency the country would remember for ages. The retired colonel probably timed his open letter to help the president and his new chief of staff, Ibrahim Gambari, find the time and courage to open up the country and banish the provincialism which the government reeks of.
The country has become very unsafe because the government lacks the initiative, objectivity and independence to deal with the problem. This was an even more galling reminder of just how parochially and short-sightedly the presidency has handled the third arm of government. Not yet done, and delving into the main point, Mr Umar warned that refusing to confirm the Acting President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Monica Dongban Mensem, would spell doom for the government and portray the president as irretrievably prejudiced.
If she is not and is bypassed in favour of the next in line who happens to be another northern Muslim, that would be truly odd. In which case, even the largest contingent of PR gurus would struggle to rebut the charges that you, Mr. President, is either unwilling or incapable of acting on your pledge to belong to everyone and to no one.
Though the government threw the corruption red herring before the public, it could never dispel the suspicion that it acted based on ethnic and religious sentiments. He will not stop, not with President Buhari no matter how truculent he is, and not with his successors no matter how benign they are. But the president can choose to ignore the advice.
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