By S. O. K. Shillings Esq.
My Dear President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. I write this with great pains and sadness. I wrote a piece in February that a 3rd World War was imminent and we needed to prepare for it. It started a week after. Now a resilient Iran, backed by the measured silence and humming of nations of means has redefined civilisation. Both military winners and losers are counting other gains and you could see that there are forces that are still interested in the continuation of hostilities and we have not seen the end. But, Africa is completely absent.
There are going to be new alliances and redefinition of the global socio-economy. We will not be there, sadly, because we bring nothing to the table. When those meetings are concluded, major countries will weigh up and realise their shortcomings. Sadly, Africa will be victim again. Sadly, the new scramble has started as could be seen in the ‘a o mérin j’oba’ invitation and reception you got from the United Kingdom, a country responsible for half of world’s anguish and more than half of Nigeria’s. Same goes for the new found love for France, the wicked colonizers of our neighbours who once wanted to assist our football with a thousand balls.
Mr. President, we are supposed to be gainers as an oil producing country. The blockage of the Strait of Hormuz should be a leverage to make big money as alternative source with 20% of global energy supply locked up. My initial fear was that the money would be stolen under your excellency’s watch. Why?, When Mr. President removed subsidy on petroleum products, I did not mince words in my little corner that it was the best decision because we would overcome as long as the money remains in the economy and the multiplier would bring us balance in the near future. But where is the money gained from it? It has been shared through governors, fake local government autonomy and fake projects with focus on 2027. The NNPC Ltd. is enmeshed in stealing controversies: $ 210 trillion allegedly missing not denied, not investigated and no head rolled. Over $ 5 billion debt written off. Over $ 1.5 billion spent on Portharcourt refinery without result and nobody is held responsible …
But I am confronted with a bigger problem that the oil is not even available. Your response to Alhaji Aliko Dangote’s demand for oil is the greatest disaster of Nigeria, Africa and the black race this century, so far. Mr. President, where is my oil? The oil to make the money to compete in a new world order. The money, a shortcut of capital formation, to liberate ‘us’. What I know is that there is usually an OPEC quota allotted to member states to stabilise price. Outside of that quota, there are barter deals through which our oil resources have been stolen for ages. The war situation which has made the US an emergency exporter of crude oil will create increased quota and more. The quota is about export, what happens to the one for our own consumption that Dangote must import? The United Arab Emirate just indicated to quit OPEC for its survival. So, ‘all oil have been sold for years to come’ is too strange.
By now, we should not only be rich, but rich enough to subsidise the local cost of petroleum products in this war time. How can it be expected that I should accept that the huge amount of oil for the future was sold to raise money to build Lagos – Ibadan expressway and those other little things? All persons involved in that, if it is ever possible, should be shot at close range. Nothing has happened to anybody.
Mr. President, Sir! The amount involved is ⅕enormous. We can all see that so much money is escaping from our economy and we are getting poorer by the day. With sale of oil, borrowings and removal of subsidy, this economy cannot be like this. Your deposed Finance Minister blew the loudest whistle when he informed us government could not achieve more than 25% of the budget revenue expectation of N 40 Trillion. Sad, for an oil producing country! Worse still, payment to the Chargoury Group, of which you are a stakeholder, out of that austere budget is made a priority. It is disaster, especially coinciding with the new world order. Something is fishing beyond corruption. I demand for a national broadcast to explain the situation to us. The issue cannot be wished and explained away.
Mr. President, Sir. The clumsy explanation (it will definitely be clumsy) will reveal that we are being caged by external forces beyond our powers. It happened in the windfall of the arabian war of the 70s when ‘our problem was not money but how to spend it’. It happened in the mid-80s and 90s when the gulf war windfall was stolen (as incentive to the rulers) to take the money away from us and stultify our development and we are just taking back the remnants till today with gratitude. Nigeria is the key to the progress of Africa and the blackman worldwide. Henry Kissinger in his reports emphasised the potentials of the blackman and the need to keep him in check. It was a standing order. The prognosis cannot just be a product of empirical socio-economic analysis. It is one, I suspect, with spiritual connotations.
Is it just corruption that made it impossible for us to have a refinery for years until Dangote? Is it why no government has been able to revive the Ajaokuta project? Can anyone explain why the privatized enterprises, especially those so essential to our industrial development, particularly electricity supply on which we lost unaccounted $ 16 billion under one of the most astute generals, is not working? Why we have so much debt and cannot even show enough roads for justification? Why we have grown to incurring debt to pay salaries and pensions yet expanding government and parastatals? Why our continuous purchase of ammunitions is not enough to put boko haram, a supposed internal issue, to rest, as government continues to harbour enemies within? On whose advice?
This is supposed to be our moment of liberation. With that money, we could start an industrial revolution that will move us to our pristine position of the 70s with a better mentality that will bring our neighbours under our market and give them a lease from the bondage of France. The real infrastructure will be built. The economy will be buoyant, and we will be the giants again. It is too dangerous to be lost now.
Mr. President, many of us know that we are under siege. We need strong leadership. We know those who created and maintain boko haram, I.S.W.A.P, I.S.I.S et al and we know why they do so. It is funny when people discuss the atrocities of the United States of America mentioning Iraq, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Libya and others forgetting that the US killed General Murtala Mohammed and President M. K. O. Abiola (supervised by Ms Rice). When President Buhari announced a movement towards Yuan, he became sick and was admitted into a London hospital for a reset. By the way, Your Excellency has also been in London. They deployed the World Bank and I.M.F to destabilise us. One fact that I know is that all monies necessary for our development have been taken from us. I find it difficult to accept that all our leaders could stand the level of corruption in the system and are seemingly so ineffective in controlling it if there is no super force holding their hands through blackmail, threats and other means of control. Take the $ 16 billion under General Obasanjo; President Yar’ Adua, President Jonathan, President Buhari and President Tinubu know about it but none dared to raise questions. What is happening? What about Halliburton and other huge scams. It was time to tell. The cabals are not Nigerians. They only have Nigerian agents.
Mr. President, Sir. Your focus on 2027 is an illusion. It is yours to win depending on how you play your cards. Our votes will be regulated by an interplay of external forces if there is no revolution. Your victory depends on whether you can sell Nigeria or the alternatives, who are not overtly better than you, should be considered. The price is equivalent to your level of desperation and other interests. And I fear that you have sufficient desperation and avarice qto meet the price, Sir. Iwa omo nii m’omo s’okigbe! Lagos State must not be won by opposition not because of love or performance. The cankerworm must not be viewed by the uninitiated. Then, we can imagine Nigeria. I fear, Sir, that you are our version of Mobutu Sese Seko.
Mr. President Sir, the war front may soon shift, or rather, the war is in many fronts and Nigeria is one of them. President Trump warned us he was coming. This is the war I was warning us to prepare for. Mr. President, you are now in the spotlight. It was the outbreak of the Iran/US/Israel faceoff that gave a respite while Cuba is next in line. The insurgency is increasing with boko haram killing your subjects and showing it on media. The drug scandal is gradually creeping back. The muslim-muslim ticket is coming back as an issue. You have successfully tinkered with the electoral law removing certificate authentication from the law and rigging the election before campaign as if that will solve the problem. Mr. President, Your Excellency’s ‘sapiska’ will be read in the public albeit thankfully, theirs is also being read vide the Eipstein leaks. Mr. President, where is your armour from the barrage of moral missiles that are coming? They are not your missiles. They belong to us because we will bear the incidence; but you must stand as our banner.
Mr. President, Sir. I have gone into little details to assure you that you are down on the moral scale before us already and should not fear blackmail as to be forced to do what history will not forgive. You stand in a position to say ‘No!’ even though it is too difficult for your background. History beckons! History is not about those who think, say or do what others can think, say or do; it is about those who think, say and do what others cannot do. If you do not stand to say no!, you will sell Nigeria like others including those who want to correct what they did not do.
Mr. President, we saw your effort when you insisted that our minerals shall be processed here and not overseas. But things changed when Sokoto received missiles without your knowledge and the sovereignty was stolen from you(us). It was missile powered by the moral sentiment of this nation. Cowardise does not resolve it. Throw your own missiles too before the barrage comes. The capacity to win in the face of decadence is your greatest grace, use it or lose all. Your pebble could receive the grace of David. Ayatollah Khameini died in the knowledge that it would come. If you claim to have fought for President Abiola, who has all your traits, show us you are an incarnation born before his demise. At 74, give thanks to God that you did not die of common fever and even during your campaign in 2022/23. If all will fail, do us the favour of crashing this Nazarethi political system from which nothing good can come. You are the Jagaban Borgu! You are the last man standing! Act!
Leadership is a grace.
Hens die for their chicks and lionesses die for their cubs. When it gets hotter, please remember two things: 1. You are a mortal born with nothing and must be ready to lose anything including what constitute material everything to you. 2. Far beyond the efforts of your marabouts, God has given you enormous grace that you have become a god in your own rights. When it gets so hot that corns will turn to dry popcorn, remember Him and be ready to accept an end to an historic political journey with all grace to your Creator. He could still surprise you! But before all that, where is my oil and my money?
S. O. K. Shillings Esq., writes from Ikorodu
