Letter to President Muhammadu Buhari (IV)

RingTrue with Yemi Adebowale; yemi.adebowale@thisdaylive.com; 07013940521 (text only).

My dear President Buhari, I welcome you back from your medicals in the United Kingdom and sincerely hope that you are as fit as a fiddle as we have been made to understand. This idea of working from home, following the alleged mutilation of your office by rats, leaves me bemused. Nevertheless, I was glad when you said you were monitoring developments in Nigeria throughout your 103 days abroad. As a result, I thought you would have deeply reflected on the challenges at home and swiftly effect changes in many areas in order to pull back our great nation from the precipice. Eight days after your arrival, I am yet to see any signal in this direction. When you departed for your medicals, this country was experiencing an unprecedented division. Our fault lines were wide open. You stoked these fault lines with your lopsided appointments and “why should I treat them equally’ statement.

By the time you returned, things had assumed a frightening dimension, with some misguided youths even threatening Igbos in the North with a ludicrous quit notice. The truth that must be told is that this country has never been this divided. My dear President, you must take practical steps to patch this division. You have to concretely show that you are father to all in order to halt this slide and entice everyone to you. This, you have not done in the last eight days. As a first step, I would like to see a fair representation of every part of this country in the top hierarchy of federal departments and agencies to assuage marginalised sections of the country. Please, let’s start seeing eggheads from the South East heading strategic federal departments and agencies.

Mr. President, it is pertinent to reiterate that the changes you promised in many areas are yet to manifest. One of such is the faltering war against Boko Haram. I am sure that you monitored stories on the killing of 69 oil explorers and soldiers in Borno State few weeks back. You must have also monitored how the terrorists boldly showed the video of 14 women abducted in Dalwa village on June 20. Boko Haram has spent the better part of this month attacking Konduga and Madagali, with dozens of people killed. The continuous voter registration in the entire Madagali Local Government has been suspended due to the attacks. Many are worried by the spate of suicide bombings in Borno State and the failure of government to curtail the terrorists. The University of Maiduguri has also been repeatedly attacked. In the last seven months, these terrorists have attacked the university nine times, killing innocent people, including a professor of veterinary medicine, Aliyu Usman Mani. Never in the history of this institution has this much pain been inflicted on its staff and students. Tales from other towns and villages in Borno State are not palatable. The terrorists are everywhere. This is why millions of IDPs in many camps across Borno State can’t return to their homes. These towns and villages are still not safe.

Mr. President, clearly, the situation in the North East is not getting better. Under your watch, thousands of innocent Nigerians have been killed in the last two years by Boko Haram. It is pertinent to rejig the military leadership in charge of this war. They have to make way for others with fresh ideas. It is also germane to make the welfare of soldiers on the war front a priority. They are at present getting a poor deal from their commanders. Still on welfare of our soldiers, Mr. President, you need to call for the files of the 38 soldiers illegally dismissed by the military authorities last year. There is a deliberate delay in transmitting the appeals of these innocent officers to you.

Fulani herdsmen, kidnappers, ritual killers and armed robbers are still ravaging the nation. There is hardly any state immune to any of these evils. Nigerians are living in fear. We are daily assaulted by well-coordinated gangs of kidnappers, armed robbers and herdsmen. Mr. President, I am sure that you monitored the story of those hapless Lagos pupils that spent over two months in the den of kidnappers. Parents and relatives had to pay N30 million to secure their release. On Tuesday, former minister of Labour, Hussaini Akwanga was abducted in his farm in Nasarawa State. So many other Nigerians without “big names” are abducted daily across our country and forced to pay ransom. Some are even killed in the process. Our security agencies have been lethargic in their response to these challenges. Whether it is the menace of kidnapping, armed robbery or rampaging herdsmen, the truth is that our security agents can no longer adequately protect lives and property, not only because they are ill-equipped, but also because of the high level of ineptitude in these organisations. The police and the DSS require total overhaul, if we genuinely need appropriate response to these security challenges.

Mr. President, there is a legion of sycophants around you who are persistently telling you that you are doing well. Don’t be deceived. These people are just out to protect their meal tickets. Infrastructures across the nation are in shreds. The economy is still very much in tatters, with frightening unemployment figures, dwindling industrial capacity utilisation and inflation hovering around 17 per cent. Hunger, disease, poverty, unemployment and malnutrition are ravaging our land. Hundreds of Nigerians are losing jobs daily, no thanks to the recession in our nation. This week, the National Bureau of Statistics confirmed how no fewer than 8,663 banks’ employees lost their jobs in the first half of 2017. A large army of unemployed youths is a time bomb. It is gradually exploding in form of rising crime rate.

On your war against corruption, Mr. President, I am not sorry to say that you have been struggling to build Ibrahim Magu, instead of building an institution truly committed to the war against corruption. The EFCC regularly bungle a number of high profile cases due to the faintness of this organisation. If you don’t carry out an urgent surgery in the entire institution, this war will largely remain rhetoric and a battle against opposition. This institution called EFCC has to be truly independent for it to actualise its mandate. For now, it remains an appendage of the Executive.

On the flip side, I am horrified by your persistent medical trip abroad. Since you clearly stated that taxpayers’ money would not be used to pay for foreign medicals of public servants, I hope this will be your last medicals abroad. As a reminder, you announced in April 2016 that your administration would no longer provide allowances for medical trips by government officials, unless the case can’t be handled in Nigeria. You stated this at the opening ceremony of the 56th Annual General Conference of the Nigeria Medical Association in Sokoto State. Health Minister, Isaac Adewole, who represented you said: “The government will not encourage medical tourism with the nation’s resources. While this administration will not deny anyone of his or her fundamental human rights, we will certainly not encourage expending Nigerian hard-earned resources on any government official seeking medical care abroad, when such can be handled in Nigeria.” We have not been told what your current health challenge is, but with focused investment in equipment and manpower by you, I doubt if there is any health challenge that can’t be handled in this country. Mr. President, please, reflect on the recent statement of the Nigeria Medical Association, advising you to upgrade medical facilities in our dear nation to the standards obtainable in the United Kingdom instead of persistently going there for treatment.

Please, don’t take upbraids in this letter personal. I am out to challenge you to raise your game in the interest of the country. I simply want you to rise above ethnic and religious sentiment and act as the father of the entire nation, to move Nigeria forward.

The Fallacy about Police Permit to Protest in London

Some members of the Buhari band have been creating an erroneous impression on the social media that the protest against Buhari in London last week would not have taken place without the approval of the London police. One even remarked that “those saying police approval is not required to protest in Nigeria need to know that even in developed societies, an approval is required to protest.” This is a fallacy. The police approval is not the source of the right to protest in the United kingdom and other developed societies. The source of the right to protest in these countries is the constitution and it is a fundamental right. Refusal of the police to grant the request to protest (which is rarely done) would not mean that a protest would not go on. In these sane societies, police approval is usually sought for protection, particularly to manage disruption by counter-protesters.

Even when it is obvious that a protest would likely be violent, approval to protest would still be granted by police in developed societies and preemptive security arrangement put in place. A good example is the protest against capitalism at the G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland in July 2005. Scottish police granted approval and took proactive steps to avert violence. Nevertheless, the protesters damaged business premises, attacked policemen and caused chaos on the transport network in Central Scotland. Vehicles, banks and a Burger King restaurant on the Springkerse retail park in Stirling were attacked. Scottish police decently battled them without killing anybody and restored order.

Article 11 of the UK Human Rights Act passed in 1998 affirms that the right to peaceful assembly cannot be interfered with merely because there is disagreement with the views of the protesters or because it is likely to be inconvenient and cause a nuisance or there might be tension and heated exchange between opposing groups. It states further that there is a positive obligation on the State to take reasonable steps to facilitate the right to freedom of assembly, and to protect participants in peaceful demonstrations from disruption by others.

In Nigeria, the fundamental right to protest without any police approval has been affirmed (courtesy of Buhari) by our courts and should be respected by all. Recall that Buhari was harassed by the Police on September 22, 2003 while holding a protest (without police approval) against alleged rigging of the 2003 general election. Police justified the disruption with a claim that Buhari did not obtain a permit from them. Displeased with this, Buhari and the ANPP instructed Femi Falana to sue the Police to justify the legal validity of requesting police permit to protest against the government.

This resulted in a suit challenging the constitutionality of the provisions of the Public Order Act relating to police permit. In the ruling, the judge held that Police permit was inconsistent with Sections 39 and 40 of the Constitution and Article 11 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights Act (Cap A9) Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004. The appeal against the judgment at the Court of Appeal by the Police was dismissed by Justice Olufunmilayo Adekeye. Sequel to the judgment, the National Assembly amended the Electoral Act to facilitate the enjoyment of the fundamental right to freedom of assembly and expression. Thus, Section 94 (4) of the Electoral Amendment Act, 2015 stipulates that “notwithstanding any provision in the Police Act, the Public Order and any regulation made thereunder or any other law to the contrary, the role of the Nigeria Police Force in political rallies, processions and meetings shall be limited to the provision of adequate security as provided in subsection 1 of this section.” Clearly, those still talking about police permit for protest are the biggest enemies of Nigeria.