‘Open Letter To President Donald John Trump On Urgent Political Situation In Nigeria And What The United States Of America Can Do Now!’ By Moshood Fayemiwo.
Monday January 20, 2019
Mr. Donald J. Trump
President, United States of America
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington DC
Dear Mr. President,
I am writing on behalf of large majority of Nigerian-Americans resident in the United States of America, who are either Permanent Residents or Naturalized citizens including a large number of concerned Nigerians in the Diaspora. We operate under the aegis of -Nigerians in Diaspora Against Buhari Administration- NIDBA- for short, of whom I am the Founder and Convener. Our membership also extend to many Nigerians resident in Europe, Russia, China, Canada and, who are mostly legal residents in many of the democratic nations around the world. These hardworking and law-abiding Nigerians are responsible citizens and tax payers in their various nations of domicile and are actively contributing to the development of the various nations Providence has placed them as members of the global community.
Our main objective of writing this open letter to you Mr. President is about the deteriorating political situation in our country of origin; the Federal Republic of Nigeria under the current lackluster administration of retired General Muhammadu Buhari which came into office in May 2015. As you are well aware, Mr. President, Nigeria has gone through checkered history as a nation after our independence from Great Britain in 1960. Our history as a people has been a leap of boundless opportunities squandered by profligate leadership, irresponsible and irresponsive elite bereft of vision and aspirations. In spite of our prodigious natural and human resources, as the most populous nation in Black Africa, we are perennially diminished by sundry viviparous tendencies which fortunately other nations of our size and energy have leveraged upon to build an enduring democracy, prosperity and the pursuit of happiness for their people. The inability of our leaders to manage us as a people and utilize our abundant natural resources for development has resulted in two democratic falls, a senseless and grueling 30-month civil war-the Nigerian-Biafran War of 1967-1970-which claimed more than 3million lives, nearly quarter century of military dictatorship and political instability. After lurching from one political crisis to another for forty years; Nigeria finally got its acts together, so it seemed, in 1999 when the military disengaged and a representative government was put in place. This year 2019 will climax Nigeria’s 20 year uninterrupted democratic culture as Africa’s most populous nation. Mr. President, we are displeased and saddened to report to you that Nigeria’s current democracy is under serious assault and in grave danger under retired General Muhammadu Buhari, a former military autocrat, who once planned a coup against a democratic government in 1983 and later came to power in May 2015 as an elected president. This time around, this non-democrat is now planning a major coup d’état against the Nigerian people as evinced by events in Nigeria building up to next month’s general elections in Africa’s largest democracy.
When retired Gen. Muhammadu Buhari came into office nearly four years ago, majority of Nigerians were upbeat, because of the antecedents of the administration he was about to dislodge. Nigerians at home and abroad needed a change so that Africa’s most populous nation could occupy its rightful place in the comity of nations. But the hopes of millions of Nigerians, at home and abroad were dashed and as the next round of quadrennial general elections are around the corner, the consensus among Nigerians is that a change is direly needed at the apex of national leadership. The Buhari Administration has failed majority of Nigerians, and the chump change this former soldier and his party parroted nearly four years ago has not only pauperized majority of Nigerians, the centrifugal forces that Nigerians are afraid of have ratcheted up under Mr. Buhari which now pose existential threat to Africa’s most populous Black nation. The way out to save numerous lives in Nigeria against the backdrop of the decibel of war which is real and discernible, is for the United States, working with our allies around the world to ensure that the general elections coming up next month are not only free, fair and credible, but transparent and adjudged to be so by NGOs and other international election monitoring organizations. Retired Gen. Muhammadu Buhari and his misruling All Progressive Congress-APC-political party have demonstrated their desperate resolve to undermine Nigeria’s fledgling democracy by their current anti-democratic actions. This may lead to bloodshed and serious threat to political stability in the West African sub-region and potential cascading turmoil in the Dark Continent.
First, the threats to the rule of law and sustained efforts to undermining the judiciary are discernible signals that many important stake-holders and observers inside and outside Nigeria have noticed under the Buhari Administration to compromise next month’s general elections. We align ourselves with United States Senate Resolution 1819, 115th Congress 2nd Session submitted by Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and former Chairman and currently, Ranking Member, Senate Foreign Relations Committee “Calling for credible, transparent, and safe elections in Nigeria…”come Saturday February 16, 2019. As Sen. Menendez noted; the trampling of the rule of law and subversion of the electoral process by the Buhari Administration could clearly be seen by myriad instances of inciting and incendiary statements from party leaders to whip up ethnic sentiments, religious divides, and intimidation of political opponents and signs of electoral brigandage through illegal use of state apparatus. The recent governorship elections of July 2018 and September 2018 in Ekiti and Osun states respectively where security agencies were shamelessly used by the ruling party pose grave threats to next month’s general elections. In addition to the Senate Resolution, we want to draw the attention of Mr. President to a similar resolution introduced by Congress member Karen Bass (D-CA) in the House of Representatives urging the United States Government to send a powerful message to the Buhari Administration and the APC ruling party that there will be serious and severe consequences, if next month’s general elections aren’t “… credible, transparent, and peaceful…” and which undermine ” …the will of the (Nigerian) people and advance the consolidation of democracy and the stability of the broader region.”
Our call for vigilance by the United States and the advanced democracies of the world on next month’s general elections in Nigeria has absolutely nothing to do with “colonial mentality” but this is about ensuring free, fair and credible electoral process in the most populous nation in Black Africa. It is about sending a powerful and clear message to the Buhari Administration that the entire world is watching and the people of Nigeria deserve nothing other than a transparent, democratic and acceptable electoral process. The world needs to warn Mr. Buhari and his political troglodytes that, if they resort to using state apparatus in manipulating next month’s general elections, the individual political actors will not only pay for such electoral theft, the Buhari Administration will face grave consequences. In this connection, Mr. President, we suggest that Secretary Pompeo should be dispatched to Nigeria before Saturday February 16, 2019 Presidential Election to warn the Buhari Administration not to subvert the will of the Nigerian people and ensure a level-playing field for all candidates in next month’s general elections. The outcome of next month’s presidential election is crucial to the survival of Nigeria as a nation.
Mr. President, at your Inauguration Speech on Capitol Hill on Friday January 20, 2017, you said inter alia; “… a nation exists to serve its citizens…” and you promised that the United States of America “… will seek friendship and good will with the nations of the world…” without seeking to “…impose our way of life on anyone, but rather to let it shine as an example for other nations to follow.” Here in the United States of America, and among our allies; the Fourth Estate of the Realm is allowed to function as vital arm of democracy, citizens are not randomly detained and deprived of their freedom and liberty, because the government doesn’t like such critical views; the law is respected and the citizens are not locked up for exercising freedom of speech, religion and other inalienable rights of democratic culture and given us by the Almighty God. These rights and many more have been under intense and sustainable assaults in the past three years in Nigeria under retired Gen. Muhammadu Buhari. As a man of honor who keeps to his election promises, we at NIDBA urge you Sir to resolve to stand with the majority of the Nigerian people who have been groaning under the “civilian dictatorship” of Mr. Buhari for the past agonizing three and half years and have resolved to get rid of this brutal regime with their votes in next month’s ‘general elections.
Second, the threats of radical Islam and their co-heir misanthropic Boko Haram outlaws are nightmarish headaches the United States and all freedom-loving nations of the world are poised to defeat once and for all. We commend your administration’s success so far in exterminating this threat around the world, but we want to draw the attention of Mr. President to a new angle to this terrorism threat in the Sahel Region of Africa. In 2015 when retired Gen. Muhammadu Buhari was campaigning to become president, he promised to exterminate the dreaded Boko Haram Islamic Jihadist and restore peace and order in the North-Eastern flank of Nigeria. The United States and our allies have given billions of financial and non-financial aid and support to combat this dreaded threat in that part of the world. But the terror threat has assumed a dangerous dimension in the last three and half years under the current Nigerian government. Under Mr. Buhari, the dreaded Boko Haram terrorist organization has now metastasized into the Islamic State in West Africa Province-ISWAP-and stake-holders around the region are worried of this dangerous trend. The human rights abuses, corruption and other violations by previous administrations cited by the Pentagon in the war against terror in Nigeria have not diminished. Not only is Mr. Buhari perceived as lazy and lackadaisical in his approach to this threat, his health and age have incapacitated him considerably in mobilizing the Nigerian Armed Forces to frontally combat this worrisome menace. For nearly 18months of his administration’s 44months in office, retired Gen. Muhammadu Buhari as Nigerian president was mostly in Europe battling with health issues. There are insinuations within and outside Nigeria that the man is senile, uncoordinated, and generally out of the loop on the day-to-day running of activities of the Nigerian government. On February 15, 2017 you had a private conversation with Mr. Buhari and promised to lift the embargo of the previous administration on the sale of 12 Super Tucano war planes to the Nigerian Government in its dreary war on Boko Haram nay ISWAP valued at $600 million. If the airplanes have not been supplied-by the way the costs have been grossly inflated by the Buhari Administration- we plead for a halt to the transaction. We wish to appeal to you Mr. President to put on hold further financial and logistic aids to the Buhari Administration until after the conduct of next month’s general elections. As you rightly noted during your address to a group of African Leaders at the Latte New York Palace Hotel on September 20, 2017 after your private conversation with Mr. Buhari, no citizen in any nation-including Nigeria-can attain happiness and achieve success without the vehicle to achieve such feats, which are: a free, independent and democratic nation, the rule of law and respect for national institutions. Mr. Buhari is clearly and manifestly subverting these values in Nigeria with potential calamitous implications, not only within the West African sub-region but throughout Africa. We are sounding the alarm now that the United States, in concert with other democratic nations of the world can save Nigeria from its current perilous undemocratic threats and potential political destabilization of Nigeria nay the sub-region under retired Gen. Muhammadu Buhari and his ruling APC.
Third and finally, is the threat to world commerce, ease of doing business and prosperity in Africa nay the world endangered by the inhumane policies of the Buhari Administration in Nigeria? As you have noted in several forums, Africa has tremendous business and investment potentials and Nigeria, in particular is among the world’s ten fastest-growing economies up to 2015. But only up to 2015 and not anymore. President Muhammadu Buhari and his close associates are deceiving Nigerian citizens that their war on corruption was the antidote to Nigeria’s debilitating underdevelopment and failing state, yet Nigeria has disappeared from one of the fastest-growing economies of the world since Mr. Buhari took over the reins of power. And now Nigeria is being described by the Washington-based Brookings Institution as the nation with the largest number of extremely poor people on earth after India. The current level of poverty in Nigeria under Mr. Buhari poses dangerous threats to regional and global peace against the fearful backdrop of the nation’s population of 203 million of which majority-61%- who are under 24years old. With the population of Nigeria projected to reach 392million by 2050 making Nigeria potentially the seventh most populous nation on earth; combined with youth restiveness and lack of economic opportunities, it is to the interests of the United States and its allies to help arrest the potential descent to chaos, anarchy and lawlessness we fear in Nigeria. While visiting you, Mr. President at the White House on July 06, 2017 in company of your daughter Ivanka; Joy and Lydia, two of the lucky girls abducted by band of outlaws known as Boko Haram at Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok Nigeria and granted asylum here in America pleaded with you not only to “… keep America safe and strong…but to also keep the world safe and strong,” and the two girls asked you Mr. President that; “…if America is not safe and strong, where can people like us-driven away from our homeland by bad governments-look for hope, when there is danger.”
President Trump, the truth must be told; many of us have just returned from Nigeria and there is an imminent danger to peace and threat to democracy right now in Black Africa’s most populous nation under Mr. Muhammadu Buhari. In the last three and half years under this former military tyrant turned phony democrat, the opposition has been muzzled, the press is under severe assault, the judiciary is being ridiculed and respect for the rule of law and order has been discarded. The spate of intimidation of political opponents, harassment, arrest and even assassinations of key political opponents has never been seen since Nigeria became a democracy twenty years ago. Mr. Buhari is totally insensitive to the religious differences, tribal and ethnic plurality in Nigeria. His utterances, actions and most importantly, his policies have exacerbated the viviparous tendencies in Nigeria. The frightening prospects of Nigeria tumbling under retired General Muhammadu Buhari are real as political activities building up to next month’s general elections, which the current ruling party is planning to undermine. The international community, especially all lovers of global peace, led by the United States under the leadership of you Mr. President, and in concert with our allies can intervene now. You owe it to the over 900million souls in Nigeria, the West African sub-region, the Black Continent and to humanity in general to ensure that in next month’s presidential election, things do not go out of hand and reach a boiling point where Nigeria disintegrates. Mr. Muhammadu Buhari is a clear danger to the sustenance of democracy in Nigeria nay Africa, and this schizoid must not be allowed to go down with the Heart and Hope of Africa. The world must resolve and say that; “Never Again” must we stand by and watch another Rwanda unfold before our very eyes in Black Africa, or anywhere for that matter around the globe and our collective consciences tormented once again in a globalised and an interdependent world. A stitch in time, as the old adage goes, saves nine.
Respectfully Yours.
Moshood Ademola Fayemiwo, PhD, MA, MS, MA
Founder & Convener, Nigerians in Diaspora Against Buhari Administration-NIDABA 2019
Texas, USA.
CC
*Mr. Vladimir Putin; President, Russia.
*Mr. Xi Jimping; President, People’s Republic of China.
*Mr. Justin Trudeau; Prime Minister of Canada.
*Mrs. Theresa May, Prime Minister of Britain.
*Mrs. Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany.
*Mr. Emmanuel Macron, President of France.
*Madam Nancy Pelosi, 55nd Speaker, House of Representatives, USA.
*Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), Ranking Member, Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
*Representative Karen Bass (D-CAN, 37th Congressional District) & Chair, Black Congressional Caucus, House of Representatives, USA.
*Jim Risch (ID-R), Chairman, Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
*Ambassador Tibor P. Nagy Jr,; Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of African Affairs.
*Representative Eliot Engel (D-NY 19th Congressional District), Chairman, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, USA.
*Mr. W. Stuart Symington, United States Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Abuja FCT Nigeria.
