Dahiru Maishanu  

Your Excellency, 

I’m writing this letter to you, a few days after, through a Presidential action, you and  the members of the  National Assembly decided to give  me a rebirth from my resting place of decades. The last time I checked, I have been dead for over two decades and have been restfully resting in the Great Beyond.

I thought no mortal could waste their time making me to be born-again by fiat or default, including the President of the most populous black nation  on planet earth. 

To begin with Sir, what did I do to you to warrant such an unsolicited and unwarranted re-birth?

In a country like Nigeria, nobody would want to come back again after experiencing  such a life that was almost worth nothing.  Death,  they say, comes only once but you decided to be audacious and play God by giving me another birth, without any prompt or consultation. You know the mirror doesn’t lie Sir!

At an auspicious time like this, when you and the National Assembly members are supposed to be taking  stock of  your achievements having clocked one year in office, you have chosen to embark on such a wild goose chase by insulting the sensibilities of Nigerians by re-awaken a dead Poem that nobody cared to adhere to, even when 'she' was alive. 

Nigerians have been the most resilient people in the world by swallowing all the hooks that their leaders have choked down their throats. As simple as you as you think my reawakening  is, Nigerians have concluded that you have taken the joke  too far.  After beating them to stupor,  the leaders are now giving them  a Barbie to play with while licking their wounds from the Bulala!

Sir, I implore you and Nigerians  to give a post-mortem analysis   of  my verses before and after my first death and conclude whether or not I really deserve to be given another birth. 

I put it to you that not a single verse of the whole poem that I’m made of, have   come to pass in Nigeria. Sir, Why are you  whipping a dead horse?

One verse says 'Arise o compatriots, Nigeria’s call obey'. Sir, in all honesty, whose call have been obeyed in Nigeria? The ones I know are those of avarice, ethnicity, corruption, nepotism  and lately, banditry and kidnappings, among others. 

Another verse says ‘to serve our father land, with love, strength and faith'. 'The labour of our heroes past shall never be in vain’.

Your Excellency, I thought this was noble and patriotic but with the hunger and want in the country, who remembers the father land? The only love  in the land is the love of money, not that of its father.  This has become contagious and perpetual. 

Mr President, the labour of our heroes past have been callously let loose  by  capricious leaders and left in vain as soon as the Biafra war was poised on all of us.

Subsequent military adventures further disjointed the fabrics of the country, rather than uniting them. 

Then came 1999, with all its paraphernalia of an imagined 'democracy' that crashed no sooner than it landed. You have remained a recurring active 'decimal' in Nigeria’s Democratic rag-tag experience ever since then. 

You pocketed Lagos and now that it is you chance (Emilokan), you have taken the ride on the bigger turf, Nigeria. The poor man remains at the receiving end of this democratic experience in all ramifications. 

Mr president, for any National Anthem to be meaningful, the first analgesic that you pumped in to Nigerians in the name of fuel subsidy removal must be reversed. If governance is for the benefit the citizens,  then unending pain and sufferings must not be the  antidote. 

The lingering power crises, health and education deficits  must be tackled before  Nigerians will  recite and memorise any Anthem again. 

Nigeria’s call will not be obeyed if the land is full of hunger, Nigerians’ farms and houses are daily been ransacked, burnt and their loved ones kidnapped, raped and ‘sold’ back to them by semi naked marauders openly challenging government to dare them. 

Finally Sir, allow me the chance to be re-buried again and compose another National Anthem for Nigerians. God bless Nigeria,  my Country. Best Regards, Mr President. 

*Maishanu  writes from Sokoto

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.