Since you left, dear Umaru

Umaru, remember your deputy.  Yes, the man insisted on continuing your mandate (naturally), and is even planning to contest a fresh election on that basis.  I and a few others tried unsuccessfully, to dissuade him by focusing him on the larger issues of Nigeria’s fragile unity.  But Ibrahim Shema, the fine chap you supported to […]

Umaru, remember your deputy.  Yes, the man insisted on continuing your mandate (naturally), and is even planning to contest a fresh election on that basis.  I and a few others tried unsuccessfully, to dissuade him by focusing him on the larger issues of Nigeria’s fragile unity.  But Ibrahim Shema, the fine chap you supported to be governor in your home state, is now sweating hard to impress us that your deputy was eternally loyal to you.  As a citizen of heaven now, you will know best what happened, as you now have the ability to see the insides of human beings.

Dear Umaru, I was pained to no limits by the way your name was maligned in your dear country, even as you lay writhing in pains in Saudi Arabia and later on, in Nigeria. Nigerians came out ‘enmasse’, supported and protected by the Nigeria Police, and demonstrated that you should step down or be impeached because you were the problem with Nigeria.  They cursed the King of Saudi Arabia for keeping you, and some tagged your stay in Saudi as an ‘Islamisation’ of Nigeria.

I wrote an article titled, ‘If We Were All Presidents’, in which I stuck out my neck, that your absence did not create such a serious problem in Nigeria, if only we were normal people who all had the interest of the country at heart.  I encouraged all Nigerians to just do their work well and ignore whether the president was around or not.  I averred that it was the ‘big men’, who visit presidential villas daily to obtain undeserved favours, who really missed not having you around to manipulate.  I said then that those protests were sponsored and paid for.  I must have been right.

Mutawalle, I said that the King of Saudi will have concluded that Nigerians were wild animals, going by the vituperations that were hauled at him.  You need to see the amount of venom going round.  Please Umaru, don’t ever log onto the earthly internet in heaven, so that you don’t see what we Nigerians have become since you went away.  True to my predictions, the Saudi King banned Nigerians especially from coming for hajj more than once in five years.  They had to beg.  I’m sure the King reckoned that as religious as we are, we still are very mean, wicked, short-sighted people.

An event occurred recently, Dear Umaru.  33 miners were trapped underground in Chile for 69 days.  The Chilean people never gave up until they were rescued.  That is humanism.  That is love.  But in Nigeria, we are quick to ask what the constitution says about such a thing.  That is what we did in your instance.  We kept asking how many days you had a right to leave the country or be sick before you were impeached! I begged then that we consider the sanctity and irreplacability of your life.  I asked what would happen if you were buried in the rubble of an earthquake as almost happened to the Haitian president.  I wanted to know how many days we will wait before declaring our president dead or impeaching him.

They went ahead and amended the constitution, that if a president doesn’t communicate with a ‘written’ letter in TWO WEEKS or so, then he should be impeached or his position declared vacant.  I watched as Nigerians lost their humanity.  I wept as we inched closer to barbarism.  If we couldn’t hold out for our president for more than two weeks, say, how can we hold out for our miners for 69 days.  All we needed to do was to pray for you, and at worst, to allow you die honourably as president.  Indeed, you cost us very little while alive; you were not a vain money-monger.  And when you died, the ceremony was even more frugal.  Nobody has been able to point out any mansion you built while being the president, or the millions of dollars in bribe that you collected and stashed abroad.

Dear Umaru, do you know that someone bombed our 50th anniversary celebrations?  I’m sure you’re shocked. Why would anyone violate the very soul of your beloved Nigeria? Why would anyone be so bitter as to disgrace us internationally?  The government is still trying to fish out the culprits, but some guys called MEND (remember them), already claimed responsibility.  In a document they released, some of them say they’ve missed you.  Some averred that you had a sincere grasp of their problems, and that your sincerity shone through your mien, and that their silence all this while had been in your honour.

You cannot believe the rave reviews you are now getting, Dear Umaru.  ThisDay newspaper did a brief synopsis of our past leaders about two weeks ago, to coincide with the country’s 50th anniversary.  You had the best review of them all.  They talked about your ‘legendary’ approach to sorting out the Niger Delta problem, they talked about your simplicity, humility and honesty.  They commended you for sorting out the ‘thievery’ that was going on in the banking industry.  They talked about the fact that you were the FIRST and only Nigerian president to declare his assets without prompting.  I wondered why all these attributes did not count while Nigerians hounded you to death.  I wonder why the sins of a phantom ‘cabal’ was visited so harshly on you. You were indeed a man of peace and honour; Nigeria’s very last statesman!

Many people are now saying so many good things about Umaru.  Now people are regretting.  Even your kinsmen in the north of Nigeria, who also asked you to resign while you were in the throes of death, are now regretting their unholy alliance with extremist elements from the south.  Many of your kinsmen thought they were being modern and open-minded, but they now see that they were being led to the slaughter house by elements who only sought revenge against real and perceived sins of the north!   Indeed, since you died, our problems seemed to have multiplied and now, we live in perennial fear.  Honour has departed the land.  Chivalry has gone with the wind.  Unity has been set ablaze.  Now, we are left with desperation and treachery.  We are hoping to conduct a very expensive election soon.  It will cost us over 100 billion naira.  But I keep wondering, if money can buy us love.  For Love is what we need in Nigeria.

I am writing so that you chip in a prayer for your beloved country.  For it is only the prayers of saints that can save Nigeria.  We have all sinned, for losing our humanity.  I was taught as a small boy, to be wary of offending people who don’t talk back.  You never uttered a word of anger against Nigerians.  You were not holy, but you strove to atone for the sins of past leaders.  Please, pray for Nigeria, that we may avoid perdition.  And please, tell God to strengthen me for the serious work ahead, for the Black Race and the world at large.