Dear General,
On behalf of “Mama Peace” and
myself, I would like to
congratulate you again on your
historic victory in the March 28
presidential election. Why do I call
it historic?
It’s not only because it became
the first time in our country’s
history that an opposition
candidate would defeat an
incumbent president; that’s an
unquestionably historic feat. But
there’s even more impressive
history elsewhere. There is the
fact, for example, that you finally
triumphed in a presidential
election on your fourth try. There
is also the fact that, for the first
time in our country’s history, a
political party with roots in
Nigeria’s southwest aligned with
politicians from different parts of
the northern half of our country to
win power at the center.
Your victory was also historic in
that it aborted the goal of the
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP),
Africa’s largest political party to
rule Nigeria for sixty unbroken
years. However, our consolation is
that many of our great party’s
original founders are now
members of your soon-to-be
ruling All Progressives Congress
(APC). In a sense, then, the PDP
has purchased shares in the PDP,
ensuring that our interests will
continue to be served in the
forthcoming dispensation.
As your immediate predecessor in
office, and your dubious partner in
the making of political history, I
feel duty bound to offer you these
parting notes about the lessons I
have learned as a politician,
president and commander-in-chief
of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
The most important lesson I
would like to share is the last I
learned as president. It is this:
money can buy you endorsement,
but hardly brings you votes.
As you well know, the moment
the presidential election was
postponed for six weeks, my
campaign team and I hit the road,
loaded with cash. By cash I do not
mean naira, which has become as
commonplace as tree leaves and
now serves as the currency only of
Nigerian commoners. No, by cash
I mean Nigeria’s official political
currency, the American dollar.
Before the election was
postponed, my team and I had
ensured that you and your team
had run out of money. And to be
without money whilst running a
political campaign in Nigeria is
tantamount to a car without fuel
but set on a marathon trip. That
car, like a cashless political
campaign, is supposed to get
nowhere. That’s why I was
surprised, indeed shocked, that
you somehow found the
momentum to win.
My campaign and I had done our
best to press our dollar
advantage. I visited numerous
royal fathers in all the political
zones of this country. At each
stop, I dropped bags and bags of
dollars. Trust me, it was a dollar
bonanza, a bazaar of huge cash
gifts. I netted numerous
endorsements; I knelt down
before many a traditional ruler
and received their royal blessings.
I also received a deluge of
endorsements from the men and
women who call themselves
“political chieftains” or
“stakeholders.”
Having spent dollars as if the
currency was going out of style, I
was confident that the election
was clinched, my victory
guaranteed. It never occurred to
me that most of the so-called
royal fathers I wasted dollars on
did not even have PVCs. And, even
if they had their voter’s card, that
they have only one vote.
I never reckoned too that those
who call themselves stakeholders
are widely loathed in their
communities, that they are men
and women of shady reputation
who would be tied to the stake
and executed if their people had a
say in their fate. On collecting
dollars from me, the first thing
some of these so-called
stakeholders did was to buy first
class tickets to jet off to London,
New York or Dubai before the
election.
So let me warn you: the time
when money can buy an election
in Nigeria may be over. Over, I
suspect, for good. I wish
somebody had forewarned me
before I squandered all that cash
on PVC-less obas, obis, emirs,
“chieftains” and “stakeholders.” All
that cash would have brought me
hundreds of thousands of votes—
perhaps millions, even had I spent
it on projects that improved the
lives of all Nigerians. So I learned
the hard way, when it was too
late, that the only endorsement
that REALLY counts is that of
registered voters, not that of
wretched “royal highnesses” and
fly-by-night stakeholders who
relish to reap where they do not
sow. I now know, when it was too
late, that those who arrogate to
themselves the name of
“stakeholders” are often
impostors. Every Nigerian, all 170
million of us, is an equal
stakeholder in Nigeria.
My dear General, trust me, some
of your political associates will
come to you a minute or two after
your swearing-in and begin to spell
out what you must do to win
reelection in four years. They will
advise you to start stashing away
billions of dollars for deployment
in 2019. They will tell you need
the cash to purchase media
affection and to line up
endorsements by “royal fathers”
and all manner of “chieftains.”
I implore you: pay these advisors
no heed. If mustering a huge
chest of campaign cash were an
effective strategy, I would have
blown you out in a landslide on
March 28. You know that I had
enough dollars to drown you and
all your supporters in a sea of
cash. Yet, what good did all that
money do me? Did I not still come
out more than two million votes
short? Mama Peace and I are
packing up to vacate the Villa for
your wife and you.
My counsel to you is this: Use
every dollar of Nigeria’s revenue
to work for the Nigerian people. I
know: I did not follow my own
advice. But I assure you I would
have easily secured another four-
year term if I had not listened to
those who convinced me that the
presidency would always belong to
the person with the fattest, dollar-
rest wallet. I wish now that I had
spent all that hoard of dollars
fixing Nigeria.
Another important lesson: in
making appointments, always go
for the people you trust, not the
people thrust upon you. Again, I
allowed different political interests
to decide who became a member
of my cabinet and who received
other major appointments in my
administration. The result was
that I had many appointees whose
loyalty was to the interests that
foisted them on me, not to me.
Sadly, when I figured out that
some of these appointees were
sabotaging the country and
undermining me, I was remiss to
fire them. I have paid for that
failure.
Let me forewarn you, General
Buhari, about flattery and other
forms of inflation that, if you don’t
take care, will be your doom. As a
Nigerian president, you are
condemned to living in a virtual
“virtual” reality space. You are a
stranger to the people you’re
supposed to govern and lead (or,
as we prefer to say and do, rule).
Your advisors, ministers, aides,
party “stakeholders,” prayer
warriors, and contractor-friends
work round the clock to keep you
thoroughly blinded to the harsh
reality of conditions in Nigeria.
The first thing they do is to pump
your vanity up.
Do you know that, after a while, I
came to believe what my advisors,
ministers and associates said
about me? I believed I was a
transformational leader. I
believed I was the one who made
Nigeria’s economy the largest, by
GDP, in Africa. I believed I was a
political icon and genius, an
economic wizard, and that God
had declared there was no vacancy
in Aso Rock. I believed them
when they said First Lady Patience
was the most popular woman in
African history. I believed them
when they said you were the
guiding spirit and financier of Boko
Haram, and that the best policy
was to ignore you by ignoring
Boko Haram.
In 2011, Nigerians said they hated
the PDP but loved me. Today,
they’re saying they adore you,
even though they have misgivings
about some of the crowd around
you. Start from Day One to work
for the Nigerian people, or you
may find that their fury is even
quicker than their affection. The
pastors and imams and other
lucre-seeking minions will
admonish you to relax; they will
declare you a savior of the
Nigerian people even before
you’ve lifted a hand to do one
thing. Don’t let them fool you.
There’s a lot of work to do for the
Nigerian people. Our country’s
educational system is so broken
(the reason we ship our children
abroad); there’s no healthcare
(which is why our medical tourism
dollars are enriching several
foreign countries); our power
sector continues to deteriorate,
killing off industries and forcing
Nigerians to buy more and more
generators from Japan and
elsewhere; and too many of our
citizens, including graduates, now
find jobs as armed robbers,
kidnappers or political thugs.
Unless you wake up every day
determined to roll up your sleeves
and serve the Nigerian people, be
assured they will turn against you
and your party in four years—just
as they did me.
I wish you—yes—Goodluck!
