An Open Letter To The President-Elect Of Nigeria, Bola Ahmed Tinubu

I am moved to write this as an open letter after I had carefully read through the revolutionary action plan manifesto of APC and its presidential flag bearer. I have already published my admiration for this epic document. Today, however I’m writing on one thing that is missing in the document which could lead to what I’ll call a monumental failure of Tinubu’s government which I’ll hate to see happen. As much as I’ll be the first to point to the numerous achievements of President Muhammadu Buhari, yet I’ll also confess that in this one thing he has failed.

I, like millions of people who supported Buhari to become Nigeria’s president had hoped we were going to get the 1984 disciplinarian version of Buhari/Idiagbon government. I had thought that Buhari clearly understood that the primary source of Nigeria’s problem is in the lack of values and morals as they obviously demonstrated in their 1984 government. I’ll say this democratic version of Buhari totally demonstrates that he had completely forgotten what endeared most Nigerians to him. I assume that he has come to believe what most Nigerians hold as a sacred truth that the major problem of the country is lack of a good leader. Hence since Buhari’s supporters and Buhari himself believes he is a good leader then the major problem is solved. He was mistaken. This mistake or failure nearly led to the disintegration of the country under his watch, with the onslaughts from bandits, and secessionists taking full advantage of his weaknesses.

I too believe that in Buhari we surely have a good, humble and sincere leader. But as I’ve constantly maintained in my books and writings, a good leader isn’t enough to take Nigeria to our promised land. As a matter of fact I’m convinced that bad leadership or weak heads of states is not the primary problem of Nigeria. On the contrary, Nigeria had been blessed by many good leaders in her history. Leaders like: Obafemi Awolowo, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Ahmadu Bello, Tafawa Balewa, Yakubu Gowon, Murtala Mohammed, Shehu Shagari, Olusegun Obasanjo, these were great men with great personal virtues and character. Of course no one is perfect, but if you compare them with other world leaders you’ll have to rank them very highly.

Nevertheless, none of these men was able to bring our country to the place most Nigerians hope the country should be by now. Yet, some people are still naively thinking that all we need is a good leader to make Nigeria fulfill her potentials. No sir, it won’t happen, a good leader will not bring about the type of country we are all dreaming of. Our over sixty years of history should have thought us this lesson by now.

This brings me to what I believe is the biggest problem of Nigeria. The biggest problem of Nigeria are Nigerians, who lives without a consciously defined value system. Reading through the Manifesto of APC, (the best I’ve seen in modern Nigerian history), I could only see the big faith of Asiwaju in his economic ingenuity to turn things around for good for the country. This will end up doing a similar thing to what for the former finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala used to do by quoting all the right figures of GDP growth, micro and macro economics etc, yet without any major transformation in the country. Unfortunately this is the economic philosophy the Buhari government also adopted. For some reasons generations of Nigerian leaders have put their faith more in some supposedly genius economic formulas than in building the core moral character of the people. The fact is that no matter what brilliant economic formulas we come up with, it is ordinary citizens that must live these things out daily in their workplaces and private lives. If the moral fabric of the people is collapsed as we currently have it in Nigeria, the people will end of sabotaging even the best initiatives. The only government that had a relative success in this area to mend was the Buhari/Idiagbon regime before they were butted out of office.

Without purposefully instilling high level morals and values in the generality of our people, the same people will end up dismantling anything you build no matter how glorious it is. Just as we see some Nigerians destroying and stealing the rails from the newly constructed railway lanes. Without a coordinated system of values to be systematically imparted to the totality of Nigerians, sabotage, theft and destruction of national assets won’t stop even if we have the best military and police services in the world. A recent discovery of oil bunkering syndicates across the country is another proof that the problem of Nigeria is in Nigerians who live in their country without any understanding of values and virtues. Someone must cry out loud for all aspiring leaders of Nigeria to hear this principles of life that:

The intangible is more important than the tangible. The content of character of our people is far more important than all our natural resources that we so much eulogise endlessly.

The internal values of our people are more important than the external prosperity.

We must know that some things are more important than life itself: principles, values, character, standards. It is the people who have these qualities that go ahead to build great nations. When these things are lost we lose ourselves individually and as a nation. Those who live by values do rule the earth, because they have a superior inner morals and values.

Reading through the APC Manifesto I noticed that there was not a single policy consideration to reform our moral fabric as a nation. This to me speaks about the fact that this next group of rulers are again missing what is the major problem of our nation, which is our collapsed value system. As a matter of fact I’m not sure it was ever well formulated to the ordinary Nigerian in our history. The government of Shagari actually attempted to draw up a value system for the nation, but they were soon overthrown.

Any government that wants to rescue Nigeria must come up with a whole system of values that will effectively address the moral failure of our society. This is our greatest problem as a country. It is out of this we have all other issues including leadership failure. The point I am trying to pass across is that leadership is not the biggest problem of Nigeria. Our biggest problem is a corrupt value system. In the past few years I have personally taken it upon myself to develop a set of values for the Nigerian nation. I ended up with 20 of them. We have National orientation agency in Nigeria, we have National institute for policy and strategic studies in Nigeria, these national organisations and others must be tasked to come up with a fully developed set of value systems to give the correct orientation to every citizen of Nigeria.

National values are a set of core principles ingrained into the mental and social structures of society, which help to dictate the action and behaviour of the citizenry. These are qualities, principles and behaviours every nation holds in high esteem as it seeks to achieve its ultimate objectives.

Let’s get this straight. There is no point waiting for a miracle from the Tinubu presidency if he and his team don’t incorporate this in their programs. A miracle didn’t happen despite the best efforts of this APC government of Mohammadu Buhari, no need to wait for such miracles from Tinubu’s government if the right things are not done. Please let me prove this to you through an illustration. Any nation could be viewed as a pot from where the most active, zealous or talented representatives of this given society emerge as their leaders. If the pot therefore is corrupt, only corrupt leaders will come out of that pot. If the pot however is clean and righteous and everybody in that nation is living by righteous value systems, naturally the leaders that will be coming out of that pot will reflect the nature and the environment of the pot itself. They will be clean, they will be trustworthy and they will be righteous. This is the reason you dear reader will probably not be able to mention as little as ten heads of states presently in Europe. Because they don’t need to have super leaders, since the societies are averagely upright, so it doesn’t matter much who becomes the leader, anyone you pick will perform in accordance to the upright standards of the countries.

 If the generality of our people are corrupt in their values then this will be reflected in all areas of our society. Bad behaviour will manifest its ugly heads everywhere from bottom to the top. There will be evil and corrupt citizens everywhere. In such a situation even if the president is Jesus Christ himself yet the majorly corrupt citizens will sabotage his best efforts. As long as the masses of the citizens lack the moral virtues necessary for progress and development the best efforts of leaders will amount to nothing. As long as our leaders on every level is produced from this society whose moral values are completely broken down it means only morally broken leaders could emerge. The society will always produce leaders that reflect the state of that society. If it’s a morally and ethically healthy society then these are the type of leaders that will emerge. If the society is corrupt and the thinking of ordinary citizens is that of selfishness, egocentrism and instant gratification then these are the types of leaders who will emerge to become their rulers.

There is sometimes an exemption from this trend though. That is when a remnant leader manages to prove his or her worth to convince the people of the nation of his good intentions. In such a situation when the populace accepts such an exceptional leader, his most important duty must be to change the nature of the pot by changing the value system of the nation. Our leaders come from our societies. The leadership of any nation is only but a reflection of the prevailing value systems of that society. So if a nation is corrupt, it will only produce corrupt leaders because the citizenry in general live by corrupt values in their daily lives and endeavors. An unclean pot will keep on reproducing an unclean content. If the value systems of Nigeria and Nigerians don’t change, we will keep on recycling and reproducing only those types of leaders we are seeing so far. Miracles will not happen, leaders are neither angels nor spirits. They live and grow from among the people; their existence is given expression and influenced by happenings in the environment where they live. Expecting leaders who live in a largely corrupt and morally lax society to live above board while shying away from the urgent task to change and orientate the citizenry will only amount to putting the cart before the horse.

The greatest challenge for Nigerians who desire to see a changed society is to focus first on their value systems as a people. If the value systems of the citizens are right, they would not select corrupt or bad leaders. For example, in societies where there are good moral values, people would not elect corrupt politicians or collect money to get the wrong people into office. Even if a corrupt politician finds his way by hook or by crook into the government, since the moral values of the masses contradict the corrupt values of the politician, he would be exposed and easily dismissed.

Therefore what we need in Nigeria and Africa in general is not just a good messianic leader, but a good set of virtues and value systems in the masses that would make them abhor and reject any manifestation of corruption in their leaders and would-be leaders. Thus, we should not expect, and we will not have the kind of improvements or the leadership that we seek as a nation if we don’t work on our value system. For example, under the late Umaru Musa Yar Adua’s administration, there was a bold step made towards changing the negative perception of Nigeria both locally and internationally through the Rebranding Project. Unfortunately, this brilliant program failed to achieve its set objectives because it did not first attempt to establish and promote good national values in the citizens within the country. Rebranding is not the issue, the issue is to change the contents of character of our citizens, when we become people of virtues, we will be automatically rebranded all over the world.

The Bible makes an emphatic statement concerning the secret of national greatness in Proverbs 14:34: “Righteousness exalts a nation, But sin is a reproach to any people.”

This passage is not just an admonition to the nation of Israel but an instruction and a forewarning counsel to all nations on the earth, without distinction, and without exception. It is a universal principle. So, when the Bible says that righteousness exalts a nation, it means that righteousness brings a country into favour with God who in turn lifts up such nation. Disobedience to God and rebellion against God brings God’s curse upon a nation. God withdraws his blessings and protection from a sinful nation, and the consequences are

unimaginable. The universal testimony of history attests to the veracity of the principle that the true greatness of a nation and that which determines the progress, peace and prosperity of its future lies not in the quality of its civilized population, nor its intellectual or technological advancement, nor yet in its political sagacity and tolerance; but in the quality of its moral rectitude in all its conducts, both in its private, public and international life as dictated by national set of values of the country.

This problem of neglecting the obvious problems of our moral failure is well entrenched in our psyche as Nigerians, we will rather simply blame the leaders, while we the populace dwell in self delusion that we are fine. These sentiments are repeated over and over again by well respected Nigerians. I’ll like to also quote from one of our iconic Nigerian leaders in literature because he came up with a concept that is now widely embraced by most Nigerians.

“The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a

failure of leadership. There is nothing basically wrong

with the Nigerian character. There is nothing wrong

with the Nigerian land or climate or water or air or

anything else. The Nigerian problem is the unwillingness

or inability of its leaders to rise to the responsibility,

to the challenge of personal example which are the

hallmarks of true leadership.”

 —Chinua Achebe

This quotation is probably the most popularly known statement on the failure of leadership in Nigeria as a country. However, when it comes to this question of leadership, this is one area where I will beg to disagree with the doyen of Nigerian literature. Let’s examine his statement in details.

Chinua Achebe wrote “…there is nothing basically wrong with the Nigerian character. . . ” Really? As a patriotic citizen of Nigeria myself I can easily understand where Chinua Achebe is coming from when he says there is nothing basically wrong with the Nigerian character. When I read such a statement from him or any other Nigerian, I cannot but be sympathetic to their cause. The truth however is far from that statement. There are many things basically wrong with the Nigerian character until we consciously develop a system that’ll change them.

The things that are wrong with our national character are not just the things that are being manifested today; many things have been wrong for a long time before now. Let’s face it. We as Nigerians have issues that we must address in regards to our character and behaviors in general.

The notion that there is nothing basically wrong with the Nigerian character cannot be right by any means. Do you mean there was nothing wrong with the basics of our character when:

1. Our people were making human sacrifices before the

emergence of missionaries on our land

2. Most of our people were killing and murdering twin babies

3. Our people will bury innocent citizens with their deceased

kings

4. Our elites and aristocrats sold their fellow men into slavery

in their millions

5. The rulers owned everything and the citizens owned close

to nothing

6. Our people would marry 3, 4, 5, 20 or more wives. What does that do to the psyche of our young ladies?

7. Our people would force their daughters to go through the

rituals of circumcision

8. Tribes and people groups annihilated other groups just

because of some flimsy excuses

9. Some of our people actually practiced cannibalism

10. Our politicians easily amass to themselves the wealth of

their people while the rest of the populace live in abject

poverty

11. Students and ordinary citizens are bragging about getting

an opportunity to eat of the national cake

12. We need “long leg” and connection before we can get

matters of significance resolved

13. Our people are willing to take other people’s lives to make money rituals

14. People are more afraid of witches and wizards than the

God of heaven

15. Parents families and relatives send their children for

prostitution abroad

16. Our people are willing to traffic drugs that kill other people,

both within and outside the country, just for them to make

money

17. Parents bribe their way for their children to get admission

into higher institutions

18. Examination malpractice is so rampant among our students

19. Advanced fee fraud (419) originated from our country

20. Children are willing to sacrifice their parents and parents

ready to sacrifice their children just to have money, fame

or wealth

The list of those things that are wrong with the basic character of our people cannot be exhausted in this here. We all know most of them. I already referred to this when I highlighted the corrupt value system of our people. We need to address it, we need to face it. Every nation under the sun has its own issues. Those countries that have faced their issues and challenge themselves to change are those we now call civilized countries. We want to run to these societies because they have faced and challenged their demons. They have admitted their faults and have changed their ways; hence they were able to build progressive and prosperous societies that everyone of us would rather go and live in today. As I have said earlier, our leaders are only a reflection of who we are as a people. If the vices I mentioned above and more had not been so prevalent in our nation and character, there was no way we would have produced leaders with these evils.

Until we each pursue value re-orientation with all vigor, we will never be able

to achieve much as a nation. The task of collective national re-orientation must begin at the level of instilling the good values. we wish to project as a nation into our children and youths, through families, schools, media houses, religious organisations and government policies. More importantly, every Nigerian must resolve that social sins highlighted by men like Mahatma Ghandi must be eradicated in the country. These are: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, science without humanity, knowledge without character, politics without principle, commerce without morality and worship without sacrifice. More so, crimes and offences should be punished to serve as a deterrent to others. Hard work should be rewarded and only men and women of integrity should be elected/appointed to leadership positions.

IS NIGERIA READY TO GO FROM THE THIRD

WORLD TO THE FIRST WORLD?

A leader that Nigerians like to refer to and quote in recent times has been Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore. Nigerians like to use the example of how Singapore moved from a third world country to a first world nation in one generation. Unfortunately, these teachers and demagogues don’t usually tell us how Lee Kuan Yew managed to achieve his feat. Lee Kuan Yew, like no other man, understood the importance of altering the value system of a nation before trying to make that nation a great nation. He understood that nations and peoples

are not great by the virtue of their wealth; they are only great by the wealth of their virtues. So, as a matter of urgency, Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore embarked on a journey to aggressively enforce a godly value system in the society. He did this by instilling in the culture of the people a strict system of penalties. The penal system of Singapore is only rivaled by those of some of the Muslim nations of the Middle East. Briefly, we shall have a look at some of the penalties in the Singapore society. Incidentally, even though some of these penalties were established decades ago, they are still being adhered to by the people of Singapore today because for forty years they were enforced by Lee Kuan Yew. So, when we admire the state of Singapore – their progress, stability, wealth, prosperity and sound value systems, we should know that these things don’t just fall from  the sky they must be introduced and enforced by somebody. This therefore must be the role of a remnant leader. Lee Kuan Yew was a remnant leader who understood the importance of value systems in developing a nation.

ARE WE READY TO BECOME A SINGAPORE?

Here are some of the penalties for civil disobedience in

Singapore:

1. If you are caught chewing gum, you are penalized. You

pay a fine of $1000 or a year in prison.

2. If you cross the road in the wrong place, you are going

to be penalized because you did not act by the truth. You

pay a fine of $200.

3. If you are found littering the place by throwing bottles or

paper on the ground, you are either imprisoned or heavily

fined $800 dollars.

4. If you are caught spitting or defecating in public, you are

penalized with prison sentence or a heavy fine.

5. If you are caught throwing a cigarette butt, you would

be penalized with similar punishment. $1000 as a first

offender and $5000 for repeat offender.

6. If you are caught with illegal drugs, you are sentenced to death

7. Eating in public transportation or smoking at an outdoor

bus stop incurs fines, ranging from $500 – $1000.

8. If you are caught vandalizing, like making graffiti, you are

caned – up to 24 strokes on your bare buttocks.

9. If you use the public toilet and do not flush it after yourself,

you will be caned.

10. If you walk about undressed or nude, even in your own

house, you would be heavily penalized. If you hug in public

without permission you would be penalized.

11. If you criticize other religions, you are going to prison.

12. If you tell lies, for example, introducing a stranger as your

friend, it is considered deception and you go to jail.

13. If you log on to an Internet connection that you have not

paid for. It is considered hacking and you have to pay for

it. It attracts $5000 fine.

14. If you are caught in unlawful sexual relationship, you get

2 years imprisonment.

15. Mutiny, discharge of firearm, treason, murder are

punishable by death.

16. Robbery is punishable by caning and prison sentence.

17. Driving under the influence of alcohol is punishable by

hefty fines and prison term.

18. Piracy is punishable by a fine of $1000

19. Theft and shoplifting are punishable by heavy fines.

20. Racism attracts heavy penalties.

Now, I will like to look in the face of those people who use Singapore as an example for Nigeria. How many of them will approve of such measures as listed above? We all as a people need to learn afresh to live orderly. We must learn to live right. No matter what anyone thinks of the measures above, the results cannot be denied. All lovers of freedom and democracy all over the world criticize any country they want to, but leave Singapore alone because Singapore has more results to show than all those countries that are criticizing others for lack of freedom and democracy. We can only be great by the wealth of our virtues before we will become great by the virtue of our wealth. The question now is, is the Nigerian populace ready for the change they are clamoring for? Will the Nigerian elites tolerate a leader like Lee Kuan Yew? Will they embrace such measures as we have seen above to be implemented in Nigeria today? Won’t we use the flimsy arguments of freedom of speech and democracy to kill such an initiative, if not such remnant leader himself? What kind of leadership is APC and Tinubu bringing to Nigeria in 2023? Would Tinubu leave his marks in history like Lee Kuan Yew? Ca Nigeria become the next rising nation of the world? The answer to these and many more questions will depend on how serious the new government takes the issues of formulating and enforcing a system of values to all Nigerians in all spheres of life.

Let me underline this point by saying, every nation deserves its leader, because leaders emerge from the populace. A righteous people would choose righteous leaders, but a corrupt people would be easily compromised into choosing corrupt politicians. Everything depends on the value system of the nation.

I therefore stand to call for a revolution of virtues, morals and values in our nation and continent. I hope this my lengthy missive gets to all presidential aspirants, especially APC leadership and Bola Ahmed Tinubu, I hope our future government listens, but even more importantly I hope every conscientious Nigerian hear this cry in the wilderness.

May Nigeria Succeed And May All Her Haters Live Long To Witness It!