Open letter: Why President Tinubu should resign now to save Nigeria, by Paschal Oluchukwu NOMEH

At the peak of the political campaigns about this time last year, Nigerians, I recall yet we’re in doubt about the actual manifesto of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC Presidential candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu except flying the not-too-detailed kite of “Renewed Hope” agenda, laced with the coarse bragging right of _Emi lokan_- another yet unpopular Yoruba chant meaning; It is my turn! Attempts by some very eminent and enlightened Nigerian citizens and electorates including some very brilliant minds from Tinubu’s Yoruba ethnic nationality to cause the APC, it’s candidate and their rabid supporters to expatiate in clear terms it’s workable blueprint to lift Nigerians out of the doldrums his predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari- another reticent elderstatesman had plunged the Nigerian economy, security and other key sectors into was greeted with venomous attacks.

Many of such rapacious supporters had claimed and strongly argued that if Tinubu has been having successful Governors in Lagos State since leaving the office in 2007, why doubt his ability and capacity to fix a broken Nigeria? Even though the facts remain glaring that majority of Nigerians, who remained unconvinced about the APC candidate’s capacity and claims never indeed voted for him, Tinubu, as has been insinuated in several quarters allegedly connived with some professional election riggers and the electoral umpire, INEC to be declared and ‘imposed’ on Nigerians as President. This was not helped by the serious burden of prove heaped on the election petitioners who contested against him as opposition Party candidates as the judiciary, acting further the scripts of the conspirators against the majority of the Nigerian people stamped the usurpation of power by Tinubu and his ‘election thieving gang’.

To prove many true that he was a bad workman who always quarrels with his tools, Tinubu’s first uncharitable assignment was the inglorious removal of fuel subsidy ‘in order to hit the ground running’ during his inaugural Presidential address at the Eagle Square on May 29th, 2023. In his now undoubtedly senseless Tinubu-nomics, the spontaneous and unplanned removal of fuel subsidy by his administration will end the reign of oil theft and it’s thieving cabals, therefore, returning more more to the government coffers for the presumed ‘benefits’ of the Nigerian masses.Till this moment, while Nigerians groan over the terrible economic hardship the removal of fuel subsidy brought upon them as it now sells between N670-N800 per litre, the propaganda-driven administration of Tinubu has not told Nigerians any benefit they have gained from the fuel subsidy removal.
Just about three months after the Supreme Court upheld the sham called election in yet another very controversial circumstance, ignoring the clear provisions of the law on the issue of his obvious lack of requisite academic qualification or alleged forging of such documents to run for the highest office in the land, the reality we all warned is now telling on every Nigerian as things has gone from bad and hitting the very worst. Experts, IMF, World Bank and other local and global bodies are now warning that our economy is traveling on a fast route to Venezuela. The foreign exchange has officially hit $1 US to N1, 500 and the entire economy of Africa’s most populous nation is in total shambles

The increase in criminality and the global shame the conducts of both the Tinubu handlers and the judiciary have brought upon our nation can further explain why more educated and eminent individuals have _japa_ed_ , many foreign firms shutting down and departing us and sincerely democratic nations avoiding any dealings with Nigeria like a leprous nation. The citizens are beginning to agitate through protests from North to South about the increasing hardship the Tinubu administration has brought upon Nigeria.

Today, corruption is not only walking but also talking through the Tinubu cabals as Nigerians wake up every morning to read about the largest scale of corrupt practices, unprecedented and unimagined in it’s history since creation. From Beta Edu-gate to the shielding of some touch-nots in his kitchen cabinet to some very outlandish approval of funds all for frivolities while the masses now scramble for crumbs in dustbins, the Tinubu administration has nothing else to prove that it lacks the ideas needed to turn things around for the good of the common man. It is a government of “Come unto me, oh ye that are horribly corrupt and maniacally confused and I will give you rest”!

The security of lives and property which is the basic oath Tinubu took last year on behalf of the Nigerian nation has so fatally failed that even residents of highbrow areas in Abuja are now terribly scared of being abducted for ransom by a rampaging gang of kidnappers who have laid siege on the seat of power and governance. The rest of every other part of the country, including Tinubu’s South West region is so unsafe now that you cannot travel freely without planning on a possible ransom for kidnappers. From the recent kidnap of School children in Ekiti and killing of some monarchs to the very recent
abduction of Abuja-bound motorists in a GUO bus in Kogi State to the kidnapping, killings and payment of huge ransoms by prominent individuals in the South East, the entire security architecture in Nigeria despite huge budgetary provisions have failed woefully! The unrests and killings across Plateau, Benue, Zamfara, Katsina and other northern States are pretty scary.

Perhaps he needs to be reminded about the provisions of Section 14(2)(b) of the 1999 constitution (as amended), which states that “the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government, and the participation by the people in their government shall be ensured in accordance with the provisions of this constitution.”

In saner climes, Tinubu wouldn’t have needed even this Open letter to resign. But those still desperately cutting their own share of the national meat from the centre are selfishly goading him on and holding Nigeria hostage. Their master himself just made a second trip outside Nigeria without clearly addressing Nigerians on the raging hardships his government has brought upon the nation.
All that his administration’s handlers just like himself have been doing is to hand down some ‘Decrees’ on Forex operators, traverse every available and already compromised media space to solicit for more time, patience and more sacrifice from suffering Nigerians and then gallivant the rest of Africa and the world at large seeking one fund or favour all for their selfish aims. By it’s actions and conducts in nearly eight months in office, the Tinubu government is utterly clueless and so withdrawn from the existing realities of the common Nigerian that it has sufficiently exposed itself as a government of the thieving elitest gang, by the hypocrites and for the rapaciously greedy.

Some of us wonder the kind of bloods that run through their veins to have approved as reported in the media, a whooping N500 million out of a N1Bn requested as take off fund for a Presidential committee set up by the government to negotiate with the Nigerian Labour Congress on a new minimum wage. What crime did Nigerians commit to have their affairs managed at this most challenging time in it’s existential history by these greedy thieves?

However, the essence of this my Open letter to Mr. President is to act and resign in good fate to save himself and the nation. If Tinubu fails to do so even in the face of his glaring incompetence, I urge the Nigerian people to arise and take their nation back by using every available and lawful means to hold this evil government accountable and at whatever costs! For a gang of election robbers cannot continue to hold an entire population of over 200 million people to ransom for their own selfish gains!

– Paschal Oluchukwu Omaka nomeh, a Human Rights Advocate, sent this Open letter from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, UAE