Is Jonathan the Messiah

Eromo Egbejule


Mr. President,

I remember that sometime in August last year as I sweated out yet another night of power outage, I promised myself I would vote for you when you eventually decided to run for the office of president. You had just launched the roadmap for the power sector and I had, typical Nigerian that I am, begun to hope afresh.

At the time, there were declarations of interest and rumours of declarations of interest and singled you as the best of the available candidates.

I reasoned that you could probably be the one to miraculously nurse your infected party, the People Democratic Party (PDP), back to sanity; that you would be the Messiah we seek.

More than four months later, one more birthday for me, and I am now doubtful of that. Of course, I will vote; that is after all my right. Voting for you is however one action whose possibility continues to diminish. Every new day gives me reason to agree with most of my contemporaries that you are not the long-awaited saviour.

The actions and inactions of your government make me sympathise briefly with those who have chosen to take the cowardly step of fleeing this country to ironically go and help make their resident countries work.

Poverty has remained our neighbour and as the rapper MI (you do know him sire?) says:Hunger hold man for neck like say na bowtie. There is no day Nigerians do not wake up to read or hear about something negative in the news that could have been averted but for inaction and passive governance, or something that could have been positive and benefited the masses but for the actions of government.

A few days ago, I read online that Okey Ndibe, the Okey Ndibe, had been arrested. Pardon my sentimental attachment to the name; it is same for the man himself who I first met in 2008 at a literary meet to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the release of elder statesman Chinua Achebe's uber-classic, Things Fall Apart.

We did not chat for long but our little discussion remains evergreen for me. It was an expectedly great moment for me because I had been reading his pieces in The Sun and had googled him more at the time, than any other Nigerian writer, save Niyi Osundare.

So, sir, I was shocked that in an age where freedom of speech and of the press continue to make a statement in the enthronement of justice and protection of justice, a patriotic citizen such as Mr. Ndibe who continues to play his part in national development from faraway America could be detained. In civilized places, men of his ilk are given a hero's welcome.

I want to assume that you are not behind the dehumanising ordeal of Mr. Ndibe and that it was just the belligerence of overzealous security agents seeking instant gratification. It is, apart from being morally, socially and democratically wrong, politically dumb, so to speak, to arrest a critic or anyone whatsoever at this critical period when you are pursuing your re-election.

This, sir, is 2011, probably the most significant year in Nigerian political history after 1960 and 1993. So, you may want to listen less to those who call themselves your advisers.

It is you who will face the consequences of acting on their half-baked advice and if your name is rubbed in the mud, they will find new employers. You, sir, will retire to a quiet life in your village and be content to come out twice a year to give lectures to small audiences.

I am also assuming that you are a gentleman and that like all gentlemen and leaders, you will not shy away from admitting that detaining the man was wrong. At least a simple public apology will do. It will not turn back the hands of time but it will definitely show sincerity of purpose to the people you govern. No one is infallible, sir and there is no need to keep up a show of being so.