Dear General Obbartov,
I remember with mixed feelings the audience you granted me during your last visit to France where I now fully reside. Mixed feelings because on the one hand, It was a privilege that in spite of your state engagements, you could meet with me in private just hours after you had been informed that I am a Nigerian professor of Political Economy in the leading university here in Paris. On the other hand, one was struck by the avuncular condescension with which the audience was granted and by the sheer I-know-it-all airs that permeated your views, especially those on economics, debt forgiveness, world business and the dynamics of globalisation.

These feelings notwithstanding, I deeply appreciate the candour we brought to bear on our 'talks', so to say; and our agreement to reopen them as the need to do so arises. It is in honour and furtherance of this, general, that I now write you, convinced that being a blunt man yourself, you would not be surprised - though you are free to have your ego bruised - by the issues and views here canvassed.
Before plunging into these issues, let 'me explain why your name has been somewhat changed as reflected in the way I addressed your good self above. I was recently in Moscow for ,an academic seminar on the 'theme, " Mrican Politics in a Changing World Order." As soon as my Russian hosts learnt that I am a Nigerian, they animatedly referred to me as the professor from General Stubbornovich Obbartov's (OBJ) country. Before I could ask questions, they said they admire you a lot, for you are very much an earthily profound Russian, even if not by nationality. From the many, many things they said in praise of you, it sounded as if the average, Russian, democracy or no, still loves

Czarist absolutism, high-handedness and robust obstinacy, all attributes they saw you personifying. Besides the fact that the name sounds exotic, I suspect that I have chosen to use it perhaps because I want to show, with a tinge of vanity, that I have also been much around the globe though not as much as may be . suggested by the 380 days, according to Chief Ganl Fawehlnmi, you have spent outside Nigeria in less than seven years.
Now to the issues, the only reason for this letter. A second thought about our discussion which I referred to above burdens me with a deep concern for the character of leadership you are foisting on our country. Maybe because of my French experience, whenever I think about you, I necessarily think of General Charles de Gaulle, the charismatic and intensely nationalistic World War II hero and president of France till 1969. In your different eras and paths in life, I see interesting parallels. One of thes_ is your common credential as generals who fought for the survival and oneness of their countries and who later went on to become presidents. 'The late De Gaulle was the modern monarch the French never

had. He was, in the supremacist sketches drawn of him by the perceptive Henry Kissinger, America's former secretary of state, the centre of the universe in any room or hall in which he was present. If he should as much as tilt his head one or the other di_ection, he seemed to execute such simple chore with so much a force of presence that the hall could, in turn, tilt so powerfully as to throw his audience out the window onto the garden.
De Gaulle seemed to have wielded power in a manner that assuredly re-echoed Louis XIV, a monarch of pre-revolutionary France who saw himself as the state and the state his good, powerful self. That is why the French general and president could see politics as not befitting politicians but only generals, the likes of his omnipotent self. My dear General Obbartov, even In this parallel, you are much like your late French colleague. That is why you brazenly want to doctor the constitution at all cost to enable you FUn court a La Louis XIV.
Though there are more similarities between you and the French general, he was, In the end, a different man - and surely a better ruler than you. When he was defeated in a referendum over senate and regional reforms, he voluntarily quit office in 1969. De Gaulle could have the humility and common sense
, to do what he did because he was basically a realist. He would say in
1951, after his party, the largest In France, failed to win a majority: "How can you govern a country which produces 246 different kinds of cheese?" the people whose complexity could awe even an intrepid general of De Gaulle's status can be appreciated in another dimension. In France, on good authority, there are 685 different ways of using eggs!
And what about our Nigeria? According to your'Federal Ministry of Information, there are some 370 tongues and tribes. In such a setting, there should be at least over 1,000 items that may make the dining table. And, of course, some 140 million
ways and propositions on how to provide for that table! But you
mistake the huge external reserves, debt forgiveness and the consequent enrichment of the state for popularity. In a way that is strange but painful, you fail to understand the cultural polyglot that Nigeria is and the people's great yearning for democracy and
have, instead, created for yourself sad paradoxes by which you are inordinately driven. You voluntarily handed over power to civilians decades ago only for you now to desire to rule for ever. You have a stupendously wealthy state and a pauperised citizenry with no hopes. You fight prodigiously against corruption only to
have it promoted as Ii state instrument for sustaining power and leadership. You preside over a democracy in which !he stat_ ,Ili gracious enough to rig elections on behalf of the people, enduillg them with so rare a privilege.
Now, general, beyond your mentor, De Gaulle, I know why they like you so much in Moscow. If you don't mind this missive, then
I will write again. Surely. For now, bye, your excellency.
Very sincerely,
Olusegun Abubakar.

TELL, May 22, 2006

Strange. People will post anything.