mr President,Now that you have shoes by O.D. Ayodele

Mr. President Sir,

With deep sense of concern as a citizen of Nigeria, I am writing you this letter. I have over the years struggled to catch up with recent happenings in our dear country. Many nights, sleep has eluded me while I worry about our dear country. In my own little way, I have contributed through selfless community service to the development of town.

I have been through different villages and cities, educating people and young ones like me especially. I have no doubt that Nigeria will again rise and live truly to its name, giant of Africa. But I have also discovered that the bulk of the work lies with government. For many months now, I find it difficult to see any good news in any of our dailies. For over ten (10) years now out of the twenty-four (24) that I have lived, I have made it habit to go through at least 2 national dailies for news consumption and other interesting matters.

In the last few months, the numbers of sad stories and news that grace the pages of our papers have been on exponential increase. Now it seems all that the paper reports hovers around kidnap from the South-south, robberies from South-east, bombings from North, and political struggles from the West. With keen interest, I search to look out for the good news and in recent times I rarely see.

I have given a close study to your emergence as the President of Nigeria, and I can clearly see that you are not really prepared to lead a country as big as Nigeria. It has been sheer luck that has been shining on you since you started from the office of Deputy Governor at Bayelsa State. Right from my childhood, since the days I attended Mayflower school, my humble proprietor who is now of late memory, Dr. Tai Solarin has always emphasized hard work to us and I have never for once believed in good luck, yes Goodluck! I have always opined that a man will succeed in jumping over a ditch if and only if he jumps well and not good luck will carry a man over any ditch.

Mr. President Sir, the manner at which you have responded to certain issues has further confirmed to me that truly you were not prepared to take up that leadership position. It was fate that threw you on us. The passing away of the Late President, who also was forced on us by your draconian party, had left a vacuum for you to fill.

The speeches you gave while on the campaign train on the road to 2011 general elections did show how desperate and unprepared you were. This was conspicuous in the manner at which you promise at ease.

As your campaign moved from one State to another you promised heaven on Earth and your promise is often preceded with the rhetoric, “I once had no shoes”. Mr. President Sir, I still vividly remember that in one of the popular adverts of your campaign, you recounted the story of how you had no shoes and how you gave the hope that those without shoes too can make it. To put the record straight, I was never at anytime sympathetic to your rhetoric. As a matter of fact, I have always been skeptical with any man that would promise at ease. I knew your statement was just to appeal to the sense of the majority of Nigerians. As over 50% of Nigerians live under $1 a day, mere common sense would have told anyone that a big number of Nigerians too would have grew up without  shoes and so the advert was schemed to appeal to their sense of judgment and through to it, primordial sentiment overruled their sense of reasoning  at the polling booth. It was indeed funny when some had tried to dissociate you from your party. It was not uncommon to hear some people say that the voted you and not your party and each time I hear that, I weep inside me because

I see a gullible heart that has just been fooled. In my own honest evaluation, I have concluded to term your slogan “I once had no shoes” as the biggest hoax in history of democracy in Nigeria.

As a citizen of Nigeria, I have taken it upon my humble self to charge you for better service delivery. The memories of your promises are littered all over the cities you moved through during your campaign. It is only fair that you hold yourself accountable to those words and in particular to those who have similar background with you, those without shoes. I wonder how on earth you decided to remove subsidy from petrol on the first day of a year. In the wake of the protests that followed your declaration, you had promised 370,000 jobs, you equally promised civil servants prompt pay at the end of the month and to also fool Nigerians, you deployed buses for Mass Transit. Your Excellency, if I may ask, how far have all this gone?

Where are the jobs, where is your SURE program, where are the buses? The rationale behind giving such a gift on a first day of the year to many out there who are without shoes still keeps bothering my mind. In fact as a result of my curiousness, I had met with some of my learned colleagues with good mind for research to establish the connection with walking bare footed to sense of reasoning because I am beginning to think that walking bare footed affects a way a man reasons. As it is just a mere hypothesis, it is only fair to give it a room of doubt by scientifically investigating it and even though I grew up with shoes, I have tried to avoid walking bare footed for the fact that I might fall into the same ditch you are in now.

Mr. President Sir, as a true citizen, I am compelled to write you publicly as I have no means of getting close to you or your kitchen cabinet staffs to express my grievance against some of your policies. Critically dissecting your cabinet has shown that most of your Ministers were not appointed because they have the right portfolio but instead they were appointed because they belong to your click. I believe now that you have shoes, you should be able to put policies in place targeted at the poor. You should readily identify with them.

The poor do not ask for so much, a roof over their head, cloth to cover their nakedness and food to fill their tummy is what most of them ask for, is that too much to ask? Large numbers of Nigerians belong to the informal sector and the only benefit they get from government is roads, electricity, water, and education etc.

Which of these can you conveniently come out openly to say you performed well? The last time I traveled through Benin – Ore road was like a nightmare and the Lagos – Ibadan expressway has been tagged violation of fundamental human right to Life of all those who ply the road. Now that you have shoes, you can afford to fly over these routes in your private jets and private choppers but remember those who helped you to get there, those who don’t have shoes! It is not common to hear this proverb among the elders that a river that forget its origin will soon dry off.

Half a word is enough for the wise.

Critically investigating some of the problems plaguing this country, one can conveniently say the topmost is corruption. It is unarguable that corruption has been a trend in our country for many years but the exponential dimension it took during your time is something to worry about. The result of the subsidy probe has shown that your administration lacks accountability and transparency. Any government that pays lip service to both is doomed.

The security challenges facing our country today can be traced to corruption and your allocation of huge resources to security can be likened to mere treating the symptom of a disease without finding out the real cause of such. Simple logic will tell you that if you fight corruption, invest in education and other social services, security challenges will be solved. People take arms against their government when they feel separated from such. Now that you have shoes, you need not hurriedly forget the challenges you went through while growing up.

You should fight to give an enabling environment to support the aspiration of many out there without shoes. Always remember the son of whom you are by not getting carried away with some of the ideas dumped on your table by cabinet staffs. Some of them had so many shoes while they were growing up so they don’t understand what the rural poor go through. Find ways to see that you are getting feedbacks from what people out there are saying and don’t depend on reports your aides submit to you. Many of such reports are doctored to suit you and retain their position with you. So many honest evaluations can be read on facebook, twitter and other social media sites.

Mr. President Sir, permit me to leave you with few words here. Chance is opportunity meeting preparedness and God has been kind enough to give you a chance to write your name in history. Would you allow the chance to slip by? Whenever you move about with shoes, always remember that you once had no shoes and so don’t be carried away with the luxury your shoe gives.