AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT GOODLUCK JONATHAN AS YOU MEET PRESIDENT
OBAMA IN NEW YORK
Dear
Mr. President,
I
write to you on behalf of my Party, Peoples
Democratic Movement, and on behalf of the multitude of Nigerians who do not
have a voice in how your government frames the foreign policy agenda of our
country. We believe you have the best interest of Nigeria at heart in its
relations with the world powers but we also believe your government needs help
if it is to recover the disappearing stature of Nigeria as a leading player in
world affairs and a leader in the African continent. Since you took over the
mantle of leadership in 2010, the reputation and influence of Nigeria in world
affairs has suffered an embarrassing setback. We feel it is time you stand up
to be counted as the leader of a great country and step forward to offer our
continent statesmanly leadership.
You
have a rare opportunity to do this when you meet on Monday September 23, 2013,
with President Barack Obama of United States of America in New York. It is a
meeting you have earned on the back of your July visit to Beijing, which has
served as a befitting diplomatic response to the decision of President Obama to
avoid Nigeria during his 3-nation tour of Africa in June. With the meeting
taking place on the side of the 68th General Assembly of the United Nations in
New York, not in the White House in Washington, your diplomatic gamble has
somewhat paid off. As our President you have, nonetheless, sent the signal to
Washington that Nigeria could not be ignored. You have made us proud and I
congratulate you on this modest achievement.
However,
I believe you understand that President Obama did not avoid Nigeria in June to
spite the largest African supplier of energy to the US and the second largest
economy on the continent. He visited Senegal and Tanzania, after all. These
countries are not central to the strategic interests of the United States.
Nigeria is. There must be good reasons, therefore, why President Obama has
avoided Nigeria like a plague and, let's face it, we all know what those
reasons are.
Nigeria
under you, Mr. President, has issues with the US and, I believe, you are fully
aware of this. It is, therefore, not enough for you to court and earn a meeting
with the President of the United States. It is way past time for another
photo-op. You must seize the rare opportunity provided by the New York meeting
to address those critical issues which continue to dog the medium and long term
future of Nigeria's bilateral relations with the United States. Although I'm
sure you have a list of topics to discuss in New York, I would like to suggest
four key items which should feature among them.
Rising Levels of Corruption in Nigeria
Corruption
has plagued our institutions and has embedded itself in our governance and
society as the routine, standard modus operandi for transactions amongst public
and private entities alike. Despite marginal improvement, Transparency
International’s Corruption Perceptions Index still ranked Nigeria as the 35th
most corrupt nation in the world in 2012. The Government, the Police, and the
Judiciary are perceived as the most corrupted institutions in Nigeria today.
Many
of Nigeria’s leaders have fallen victim to the ease with which unsavory
business is conducted, losing sight of the goals of democracy and communal
progress that our Founding Fathers and millions of Nigerians hoped would become
an impenetrable foundation and guiding light for Nigeria’s future. In order to
regain our vision as a country, our leaders must change their mindset of greed
and complacency that has only managed to subject the Nigerian people to rising
levels of poverty, insecurity and misfortune as these have combined to alter
the perception of Nigeria and its role, from the regional leader that it used
to be to the semi-pariah nation that it is today.
The
United States and other international allies have actively collaborated with
and offered assistance to Nigeria in its fight against corruption, especially
between 2002 and 2009. However, its
enthusiasm and that of our international allies began to wane when
business-as-usual began to creep back, culminating in your grant of pardon to
the convicted former Governor of Bayelsa State. That action has robbed you of
the moral capital you need to fight corruption in your government and in the
rest of the nation at large. Before you meet President Obama in New York, it
would do Nigeria a world of good if you would reverse that pardon and then,
when you meet him, renew the commitment of your government to a genuine fight
against corruption beyond meaningless media sound bites. For if corruption
continues to grow at the current rate, there will be no hope of confronting and
conquering insecurity, unemployment, piracy and the host of other afflictions
that obstruct the nation’s growth, prosperity and progress.
Insecurity
Last
week, about One Hundred and Fifty innocent Nigerians were massacred in the
small town of Beni Shek in Yobe State where a State of Emergency you declared
is still in force. Similarly, Ombatse, a traditional religious cult in Nasarawa
State, which has been implicated in the massacre of over One Hundred on-duty
security personnel in May, has again allegedly ransacked and burnt down a whole
community while killing scores of innocent citizens who looked up to the
Government for protection. Furthermore the uncertainty surrounding last week’s
shootings in Abuja points towards a crisis of confidence and trust. In a time
of deep-rooted and widespread insecurity it becomes far too easy for corrupted
officials and leaders to conduct operations of self-interest under the auspices
of security and counter-insurgency.
Spats
of violence, including attacks on innocent school children across the north,
the deliberate and extra-judicial murder of civilians in Baga, rampant
kidnapping, armed robbery and other instances of unspeakable violence across
the county, may have led Vision of Humanity’s Global Peace Index to rank
Nigeria at 148 out of 162 countries, using violent crime, political terror,
terrorist activity, and political instability as justification for the failing
marks. The Fund for Peace casts a shadow over Nigeria’s prospects as a
successful state, placing the country in the “high alert” category of
prospective failed states. If Nigeria continues on its current trajectory,
there may be no state remaining for you to preside over before very long. It is
in nobody’s best interest to permit this to happen.
With
all these happening under your watch, Nigeria’s insecurity ought be at the top
of the checklist of items you will be tabling in your meeting in New York.
Nigeria
needs material and technical support to create a workable and sustainable
public security framework, including the establishment of genuine
counter-insurgency measures, which will have the winning of hearts of minds as
its centrepiece, not just the deployment of brute force. The combination of
high-level corruption, the disastrous state of our infrastructure, jobless
growth and the record levels of unemployment currently at an astonishing 22%
with 38% youth unemployment, are the main drivers of insecurity and violence in
our country. We should be humble enough, given the debilitating political quagmire
in which we have found ourselves, and the lack of capacity exhibited by the
government which you lead, to seek enduring partnerships with our international
allies before they eventually write us off as too far gone to be salvaged.
Intensification of Crude Oil Theft in the
Delta
Just
last week, Chatham House, a London-based think tank, released an unflattering
report on crude oil theft in Nigeria, with estimates of up to 150,000 barrels
of oil stolen each day, costing us upwards of $6 billion in annual revenue.
This is what the respected think tank has to say:
Nigerian crude is being stolen on an
industrial scale. Some of what is stolen is exported. Proceeds are laundered
through world financial centres and used to buy assets in and outside Nigeria. In
Nigeria, politicians, military officers, militants, oil industry personnel, oil
traders and communities profit, as do organised criminal groups. The trade also
supports other transnational organised crime in the Gulf of Guinea.
The
figure of 150,000 barrels per day is the lowest that has been placed, so far,
in the public domain. Other figures coming out of the industry, including from
Shell, indicate that as much as 300,000 barrels of crude, worth almost a
billion dollars a month, is stolen everyday. It is inconceivable this
industrial scale theft of our crude oil is taking place without the active
collaboration and connivance of political leaders at the highest level as well
as other agents of the state. In the last year, incidents of piracy and fuel theft
have increased so much so that piracy in the Gulf of Guinea has surpassed that
in the waters off of Somalia.
The
United States and other international allies also suffer the consequences of
oil theft and piracy and have a keen interest in assisting Nigeria to tackle
this issue head on. Nigeria needs to ratchet up its collaboration with the
United States on anti-piracy measures, using the East African model, to
eliminate piracy in the Gulf of Guinea and help us save much-needed revenue.
The precipitate decline in Nigeria's oil receipt is unsustainable and could
spell doom for our country in our time of need.
The declining prospects for free and fair
elections
Which
brings me to the issue of free and fair elections and smooth transition to a
democratically elected government in Nigeria in 2015. There are ominous signs,
Mr. President, that desperation to stay in power by agents of your party is
already pushing our country to the edge of the precipice. Statements such as
"2015 is already in the pocket of PDP" is not helping matters in the
face of growing discontent with and desire to change the face of politics and
governance in Nigeria as we know them since 1999.
When
your party assumed power in 1999, the level of poverty in Nigeria was bad
enough at 52%. Today, about three in every four Nigerians live in abject
poverty and above one in every four is unemployed. There is fear in the land
arising from rising insecurity with about 300 Nigerians killed by violent means
in this month of September alone. All this is happening when Nigeria is
recording record numbers of private jets purchased by people with questionable
means, some of whom are fairly close to you. Poverty, unemployment, insecurity
and corruption are bad enough. It would be disastrous if we add bad elections
to this combination by denying Nigerians their right to choose leaders of their
choice in 2015.
As
you and President Obama meet in New York, I am certain your host will expect to
hear reassuring words from you about the sanctity of the ballot in the
forthcoming elections and a pledge from you that your party will not use state
resources, including security personnel, to perpetuate itself. While it was
possible to bend the rules and confer advantage on your party in the past, the
emergence of new alternative political parties has profoundly altered the
political landscape. It would be truly transformational if you will use the
platform of your meeting to reassure President Obama and the international
community in the after-meeting press briefing or Communique that Nigeria will
follow in the footsteps of Ghana, Senegal and Mali in the quality of the
election it will hold.
I
wish Mr. President a successful meeting in New York and pray you return home
safely, with renewed energy to kickstart the transformation which you promised
Nigerians two and a half years ago.
Yours
truly,
Bashir Yusuf Ibrahim
National Chairman, PDMPeoples Democratic
Movement
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