Former Aviation Minister Femi Olu-Kayode shared
the letter on his Facebook page this afternoon. Read
below
Mr. President, as one of your most loyal and
faithful subjects who has nothing but the utmost
respect for your person and your office, I am
constrained to write you this open letter. This is
because there are a number of issues that I
believe that it is important for you to clarify and
to come clean on.
I say this because some of your assertions of late are
at best contradictory and at worst patently dishonest.
Whichever side of the political divide we are on I
believe that we can all agree on one thing: that the
prosecution of the war against terror is not
something that any of us should play politics with.
This is especially so given the fact that human lives
are at stake and the very existence of our nation is
under threat. Like much of the rest of the world our
country is going through hell at the hands of the
jihadists and Islamist terrorists.
There is no gainsaying that we must all come to
terms with the fact that the Islamic State in the Levant
(ISIL), Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Al Shabab, Boko Haram,
Hamas and another group that the internationally-
respected Global Terror Index has described as the
''Fulani militants'' (aka Fulani herdsmen) are nothing
but bloodthirsty murderers and the lowest form of
life.
They are indeed the scum of the earth, the troublers
of humanity and the vermin of hell. It is with this in
mind that I urge you to take the war against terror far
more seriously than you are doing and plead with
you to stop passing the buck.
Your penchant for blaming your failings in this
regard on the previous administration is simply
nauseating and it does not serve you well.
You continuously contradict yourself when it comes
to this matter and frankly such flip flops are
unworthy of the office that you presently occupy.
We your subjects look up to you for consistency,
strength, unequivocal commitment, a firm resolve
and the ''leadership from the front'' that you
promised during your presidential campaign in this
war. We do not want and neither do we need
doublespeak, lame excuses and buck passing.
Permit me to point out a few examples of your
contradictory assertions and your buck passing in
this short intervention. Initially you claimed that your
predecessor in office President Goodluck Jonathan
never bought any arms and that instead he
squandered and stole all the money that was
appropriated for the procurement of arms.
Yet when the British Minister of Defense visited you
in the Presidential Villa the other day the story
changed. You did a U-turn and gleefully told him and
the wider world that President Jonathan bought arms
with raw cash.
One wonders which story you shall come up with
next and which one you will conjure up in the future.
Kindly tell us what the position is: is it that Jonathan
did not buy arms at all and stole all the money or is it
that he used cash to buy arms? You cannot have it
both ways. It is either one or the other.
Quite apart from your glaring doublespeak on this
matter there was another issue which you ought to
have raised with your highly esteemed and respected
British guest.
You forgot to tell him that his was one of the
countries that not only refused to sell weapons to us
during the course of this bitter conflict but that also
helped to impose and enforce the international arms
embargo on our country even though we are at war.
This resulted in the unnecessary death of thousands
of our people because we found it difficult to procure
the weapons to protect them.
Your guest’s country insisted on towing the American
line and doing this to us even though we were
fighting a war against a relentless, well-motivated,
well-funded and well-armed fighting force that Global
Terror Index has described as the ''deadliest terrorist
organization in the world''. One is forced to ask: with
friends like this who needs enemies?
Given the fact that the embargo was in place one
wonders how we were supposed to procure arms
unless we did so with raw cash on the black market.
The alternative was to buy none at all, to do nothing
and to allow Boko Haram to take Abuja, Port
Harcourt, Enugu and Lagos. Perhaps that is precisely
what your western friends and allies wanted but
thankfully it never came to pass.
Despite the challenges and constraints President
Jonathan faced, instead of losing any more ground,
he rose to the occasion and retook no less than 22
local government areas and virtually pushed Boko
Haram out of Nigeria. The only place that they
occupied by the time the election took place was
Sambisa forest.
Jonathan achieved all this with those arms that he
bought with raw cash. This is apparently what you
are now complaining about. Permit me to remind
you that it is those same arms that Jonathan bought
with raw cash that your army is still using till today.
Yet sadly since you were sworn in as President seven
months ago you have lost some of those same local
government areas that were earlier recovered and
they are now back in the hands of the terrorists.
Despite this you keep telling the international
community and the Nigerian people that we are
''making progress'' in the war against terror.
As a matter of fact you went as far as to say that we
had ''won the war'' against Boko Haram and your
Minister of Information, Mr. Lai Mohammed, echoed
that grotesque mendacity and reiterated that
sentiment by adding the words ''technically
won'' (whatever that may mean) to the equation.
Sadly, two days later, on Christmas day, in what can
only be described as an eloquent response from the
terrorists, scores of innocent civilians were killed by
Boko Haram in Borno state and a whole community
was burnt to the ground.
Again on Sunday 27th of December Maiduguri, the
capital of Borno state, came under heavy attack from
the terrorists. So much for having ''won the war
against Boko Haram'', whether ''technically'' or
otherwise.
Instead of conceding that you had told the Nigerian
people a pernicious lie, curiously the next thing that
you did was to tell them that you would ''persuade
Boko Haram to drop their arms''. One is compelled to
ask: why would you have to persuade them to drop
their arms if you had already defeated them and won
the war against them?
In any case this would be the first time in the history
of modern warfare that a sitting President has sought
to destroy and defeat a vicious and relentless
terrorist organization and win the war against terror
simply with the awesome and devastating weapon of
persuasion.
Perhaps you should recommend that same tactic to
the Americans and the rest of the international
community as an effective and credible weapon to
adopt in their war against ISIL, Al Qaeda, Al Shabab,
Hamas and all the other jihadist groups that plague
the world.
Whilst you are at it perhaps you could also persuade
Boko Haram to free the Chibok girls. It is disturbing
to note that despite all your campaign promises and
assurances that once you are elected President the
girls would be rescued or returned, nothing has been
done or heard about any of them ever since you were
sworn in.
Worst still the Bring Back Our Girls Group, which was
essentially an appendage of your election
organization, together with its distinguished leaders
and conveners, appear to have gone very quiet. I
guess they are busy trying to persuade Boko Haram
to drop their arms too.
The truth is that it is time for you to free yourself
from your monumental delusions and to get real.
Sadly you appear to be detached from reality.
Instead of fighting the war against terror you are
making it worse by slaughtering one thousand Shia
Muslims in Zaria on December 12th, locking up their
leader Sheik Ibrahim El Zakzaky and opening yet
another war front in our country.
The last thing that we need is for Hezbollah or the
Iranian Republican Guard to rise to the occasion, take
up the challenge, jump into the fray and decide to
protect and avenge their Shia Muslim brothers and
sisters in northern Nigeria.
Yet despite the reprehensible and indefensible
actions of your military commanders in Zaria you
have refused to show any remorse for what was
undoubtedly a war crime against fellow Nigerians
and you have not prosecuted the officers and military
personnel that were involved in the butchery.
Instead the homes of the victims and those that
share their Shia faith have been burnt to the ground
in Zaria and their graves and burial sites have been
dug up and desecrated.
Instead of fighting Boko Haram you are fighting and
killing your own people. Worse still you have refused
to defend our country. I say this because a few days
ago the Cameroonian military invaded our country,
violated our territorial integrity and savagely
murdered over 70 innocent Nigerians in their village
before burning it down.
Your government refused to acknowledge that this
event even took place, despite the media reports. You
did not console or express condolences to the
families of the victims or retaliate against the
Cameroonians.
You did not even warn them or demand an apology
or reparations from them. This is heartless and
shameful. It could not have happened under
Jonathan, Obasanjo, Babangida, Shagari, Abacha,
Abubakar, Shonekan, Mohammed, Balewa or indeed
any other former Nigerian President or Head of
State.
If any of them had been in power and the
Cameroonians cultivated the effrontery to do such a
thing there would have been consequences.
Yet you did nothing to avenge this affront or to
defend our honor. What happened to the gallant and
brave General Buhari that courageously led our
troops into victory in Chad in the early 1980's?
What happened to the honest and forthright man that
we all admired and looked up to because of his
military exploits in Chad?
What happened to the war hero that gave the
Chadians a ''bloody nose'' for daring to attack a
Nigerian village and that almost took Ndjamena, the
Chadian capital?
What happened to the man that proved to the
Libyans and their Chadian proxies that Nigerians
knew how to fight? It appears that you have changed
and that you are no longer the man that you used to
be.
Instead of being honest with our people you have
insisted on selling them a dummy and telling them a
lie. You refuse to tell the world that our military is
terribly demoralized, our soldiers are suffering heavy
casualties and are not being paid their salaries
regularly and, worse of all, that you have failed to
procure a single bullet or weapon for them to use in
the last seven months since you came to power.
Instead of deploying all the power of the state against
Boko Haram you have spent all your energy and
resources trying to teach the former National
Security Advisor, Colonel Sambo Dasuki, and all your
other perceived enemies the lesson of their lives by
misrepresenting them before the world, subjecting
them to state-sponsored tyranny and the most
insidious form of persecution, violating their human
rights and lying to the world that they stole and
shared money that was meant for the purchase of
arms.
You have also misled and misinformed the Nigerian
people about the rules and conventions that are
applied when it comes to the administration of
security funds and about the fact that it is the
National Assembly alone that has the right to probe
the use of such funds as part of their oversight
functions.
To cap it all you have claimed you did not receive any
benefit from the NSA 's office whilst Jonathan was in
power. This is an assertion which we all know is, at
best, questionable.
You must be mindful of the fact that God hates liars
and He despises those that abuse power. You must
remember that the more you scorn God's counsel
and mock His admonitions the more your errors will
be made manifest and the more your people will
suffer.
You must understand that any leader or government
that is motivated by bitterness, fear, hate, vengeance
and malice will eventually hit the rocks and crash like
a pack of cards. You must appreciate the fact that
God is watching and that He sees and knows all.
May the Lord have mercy on you and may He forgive
you for your many sins and wicked ways. God bless
Nigeria.
