President Buhari must read this

I am writing you this open letter in the hope that you will read it and act on it. Regarding me, I am just an ordinary citizen with very keen eyes, and have made some observations which I would like to bring to your notice. The reason I am writing you this letter, however, is […]

I am writing you this open letter in the hope that you will read it and act on it. Regarding me, I am just an ordinary citizen with very keen eyes, and have made some observations which I would like to bring to your notice.
The reason I am writing you this letter, however, is not about corruption (which you have already started work on) but about the state of our roads, the poor sewerage system in our cities and noise pollution by mosques and churches. Let me take these three points in turn.
The state of the roads in our towns and cities is a national disgrace. I cannot understand why there are so many roads that have not been tarmacked. Let us start with Abuja/Lagos. If, as I understand, you want foreigners to come and invest in Nigeria, then the most sensible thing to do is to build our roads very well and clean up our towns and cities to a very high standard so that the foreign investors can find living and working in our towns and cities attractive. Right now, too many of our roads are too bad, a situation which is not conducive to doing good business.
Many of the foreign investors would not find our towns and cities attractive. Have you not seen how clean and attractive European cities and other major cities in the world are?
My other point is our poor environment. Do you have a Minister of Environment? Or do you have a competent one? Our sewerage system is bad, and the state of our open-mouth gutters is also a national disgrace. I have never understood why successive presidents never devised an elaborate system to clean our gutters and probably to cover them up. All advanced cities in the world cover their gutters; their sewerage systems are underground. Why can’t we do the same in Nigeria, starting with Abuja/Lagos, and to be copied by other cities later?
The last of my three points is noise pollution by Mosques and churches springing up like mushrooms in Nigeria. Gone are the days when people only went to church or Mosque on Sundays and Fridays to have conversation with their God for about an hour or two and then returned home. These days church and Mosque services take place 24/7; some services start as early as 4:00 am, put their music and singing on loud-hailers and disturb neighbouring residents, who may still be sleeping. What is the justification for this mass madness sweeping the country?
The singing and preaching is on loud-hailers and seems to go on forever, a complete nuisance. Why can’t they keep their singing and preaching to themselves by not placing it on loud-hailers? Why can’t national assembly enact laws to force these churches and Mosques to be situated in non-residential areas and also to force them to keep their merry-making to themselves?
Mr President, if we build our roads, clean our cities (especially our gutters) and eliminate noise pollution by maniacal churches and mosques (so that foreign investors can find suitable places to reside), then we will have improved our environment significantly to a standard to attract foreign investors. You can then concentrate on changing Nigeria’s economy from a buy-and-sell one to a manufacturing one so that you can harness the energy of the unemployed youth.
The buy-and-sell economy is not serving us well, so let us move up a gear like South Korea has done. Remember, a great leader is one who is both intelligent and brave or bold.
I am hoping that you will take the advice I have outlined in this letter so that together we can move Nigeria forward. Our rate of development is too slow. There is no reason why South Korea should be ahead of Nigeria today, 55 years after our Independence.
Ahmed Omeiza Lukman, writes this piece from Kiev, Ukraine. He can be reached at [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>