Dear Mr. President,
I am greatly disturbed by your recent adventure into this six year single tenure debate barely three months after you were sworn in as the 14th President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Your interest in this bill at a time like this could be likened to the attitude of King Nero who fiddled while Rome burned. Mr. President, in case you have not noticed, Nigeria is burning!
In these days when the public safety in Nigeria is imminently threatened, with Boko Haram and armed robbers getting more and more audacious. With electricity supply still a distant dream, with men and women perishing daily on Nigerian roads that are now death traps due to their terrible state, with our young male graduates resorting to all manner of crimes and the girls selling their bodies for nickels and dimes as prostitutes because of joblessness. Sir, tinkering with the constitution ought to be the least of your priorities at a time like this.
Mr. President, harsh opinions are being formed of you because of your perceived interest in this bill as even your die-hard supporters are beginning to doubt the probity of your intentions. I do not share their doubts. I believe you to be upright, single-hearted in your desire to rescue the country in the hour of her utmost need without after-thought of the personal consequences to yourself.
At the moment, your sympathizers among Nigerians here in the United States are nervous and sometimes despondent. They wonder whether the order of different urgencies is rightly understood, whether there is a confusion of aim, and whether some of the advice you get are pure and not selfishly motivated. We read that you did not even find it necessary to visit Lagos after the disastrous flooding that claimed hundreds of lives a couple of weeks ago. That was a complete PR blunder.
Mr. President, it does not require a rocket scientist to pitch that the first order of business on your assumption of office should have been policies and projects that would bring immediate relief to long suffering Nigerians. It is logical that only after winning the trust and confidence of Nigerians, that you will have the driving force to accomplish long- term reforms that may involve constitutional amendments.
Your Excellency, remember how you divinely ascended to this exalted office. You have made yourself the trustee for every Nigerian regardless of tribe or creed that seek to mend the evils bestowed upon them by reasoned experiment within the framework of the existing social system. If you fail, hope and rational change will be gravely prejudiced throughout these groups, leaving orthodoxy and revolution to fight it out. But if you succeed, new and bolder methods will be tried everywhere, and we may date the first chapter of a truly new Nigeria from your accession to office. This is a sufficient reason why you cannot afford to fail.
Sir, you must lift then the weight from the heart of Nigerians. Let them breathe free once more. Extirpate the blighting curse, a living threat throughout long years past, that has smitten at last with desolation a land to which God had granted everything but wisdom and justice. Give back to the nation its hope and faith in a future of peace and undisturbed prosperity.
Mr. President, I humbly submit that you stay away from this single tenure debate for now because you will not come out of it smelling of roses.
With utmost respect
Lawrence Okezie Odoemelem
PR & Marketing Communications Consultant
Houston, TX
Email: 7stones@consultant.com