“SIR, YOU ALMOST SAID THE TRUTH” – AN OPEN RESPONSE TO ASIWAJU BOLA AHMED TINUBU'S KEYNOTE SPEECH AT THE 2017 KING'S COLLEGE OLD BOYS ASSOCIATION (KCOBA)'S ANNUAL DINNER

Your Excellency,
It was recently and profusely reported on the media that you delivered the keynote speech at the 2017 Annual Dinner of the King’s College Old Boys Association (KCOBA). Like many Nigerians, I read the speech as published and entitled “A New Nigeria or A Better One: The Fighting Tools of a Great Repair” (Henceforth to be quoted in this letter as “ANN” for brevity). I have to say that, as usual, you made us proud with your sheer display of long-and-hard-groomed erudition. Let me admit unabashedly that my first spontaneous reaction upon reading the first paragraph was, “Wow! This man’s coarse physique is far more than made up by the fineness of his mind. This must be the major bait that endeared him to that damsel”. I’m really sorry for washing my dirty linen here in the open but it’s what you caused by that superb command of language. You even went as far as revealing another side of you I never knew – a poet – with expressions such as “the only strong belief is to disbelieve” and “when we unite and not untie, we build on an existing maxim of ONE NIGERIA by describing that ONENESS as a fabric of a larger society S.E.W.N. (South, East, West. North) together” (ANN). And, what of that beautiful pun whereby you wrote, “it would be wrong to mistake this for a tempest in a teapot. If not careful, we may be tossed about like a teapot in a tempest” (ANN)? Oh, and there are more and more and more of such masterful expression of language skills. Congrats Great Lion of Bourdillion, the Asiwaju of our Era!

Again, besides mere skillful employment of language, you also displayed rare understanding of the state of affairs in the Nation. You left me thinking “we know many modern American, British, French, even South African and other great leaders for their wise sayings, couldn’t we just have a President Ahmed Bola Tinubu?”. I do not care if that was all you set out to achieve any way; after all, shouldn’t people have an aim in everything they do? All I need is one of my own kind that other nations can quote as I quote theirs. For instance, you said that “in one way or another, we all have felt the sting of man’s capacity to wrong his fellow man. But we are also endowed with the God-given spirit to overcome adversity and to make of old enemies, new allies and even brothers. I stand before you as a faithful believer in sentiments such as these” (ANN). Well, a faithful believer? I’m not sure I can bet on that. The one I can bet on is that those lines could easily have been spurn off the mouths of the Charles de Gaulles, the Winston Churchills, the Abraham Lincolns, the Nelson Mandelas, not to talk of the Barrack Obamas of this world. You surely belong in this league even if you come from a Nigeria.

If all that was needed in our current teething situation was a beautiful use of language, you surely would have the panacea in that speech. Indeed, your excellently beautiful use of language actually played a role in tending to hide some serious missing links in the speech. “A chain” they say, “cannot be stronger than its weakest link”. So, I hereby reveal to you and to all who have read the speech what I consider the missing or weak links since these are points that would affect real human lives if left as they are presented.

The solutions you proffered to our problems were hardly new. They include points you and other commentators have posited countless times such as true fiscal federalism, building industry to create employment and ensure self-sufficiency, having a national infrastructural master plan, making huge investments in agricultural development to ensure food security and more. And, I must admit, you also had a new twist to some of the points, like when you pointed out how the current credit system characterized by high interest rates, if reformed, would reduce or even exterminate corrupt practices and how an improved mortgage system would up our security profile as a people. You took many of us back to the classrooms. As I read through your submission, I thought “we’ve had so many like this who had great solutions to offer or so they thought. And we’ve come so far all because those solutions were not all a failure. Yet, we all agree we are all far behind our potentials and most of our peers. Why the lapse then?” Why are we still here in spite of the fact that we’ve had many like you who showed themselves to have great solutions? Why, let’s be clearer, have those people’s offer of solution not been a success as intended? This is one of the questions I want us to answer together as a contribution to the national discourse which you recommend.

On Coming To A Round Table
Talking about a national discourse, we all have had people talking about coming to a ‘round table’ (it could well be a triangular table). Other words have also been used such as sovereign national conference or a confab. Words could be multiplied to infinity but it is only the Omniscient One that would know what each person means by each word. But one thing I think is clear enough from this proliferation of words is a platform where different constituents of the country come to discuss to find solutions and define bases for our union. When you recommend such a thing, I really begin to wonder what on Earth the two arms of the National Assembly have been doing all these years. Which other discussion can we have that we haven’t had? What has the media also been doing? Some of you that advocate these things tend to bamboozle the populace with big words like when you began to add the word ‘sovereign’ before ‘national conference’. ‘What makes it sovereign?’ I asked, and I was told it would be independent of the influence of the government in power (by which is meant, of course, the executive arm of government) and would have the force of law. Is that not what, essentially, the three arms of government were meant to represent, independent and legal checks and balances?

In your speech at the KCOBA Event, you made a point about the high importance of thinking clearly through courses of action before embarking on them – looking before we look. “That which we cannot think clearly” you sagely noted, “will not be attained despite the magnitude of our exertions and expenditure to achieve it” (ANN). Should we apply this wisdom to the question of coming to a discussion table, I ask ‘how shall we begin? Who will initiate it? Who will organize it? Who will fund it? Who will choose representatives for the people? By what means will the reps be chosen? How can all these aspects truly accord with the word ‘sovereign’? That is, how can they be totally devoid of the influences of the government of the day – the executive, legislative and the judiciary arms? Will angels come from the outer space to do them for us? Is it not the same Nigerians with Nigerian mentality that will see us through these stages and aspects of the round table discussion? If the daily, year-in-and-out round tables called the National Assembly could not achieve it, how could a one-off conference – no matter how verbally embellished – achieve it overnight? Are we actually thinking clearly through this proposed course of action?

Again, how shall we suddenly bring ourselves to get objective on issues and really reason together in that round table? You wisely pointed out that “in the hard sciences such as physics, chemistry or mathematics, one can speak of immutable principles and objective formula. In the affairs of men, most things are subjective. Virtue and vice, good and bad, what is optimal and what is not, have no fixed meaning. Definitions change with the ideological and moral perspective of each person. As in almost all social interactions, there are few acts devoid of subjective ideological coloration. The decisions we make are determined by how we would like the world to be” (ANN). Permit me to add that, if this were true of humanity as it is, it is far truer of people in less evolved society as ours. This is a situation where people still have very heavy leaning toward tribe, religion and region irrespective of all objective considerations. How then can the round table happen? How can we reason together? How sure are we that people will honor the agreements reached? Even presently, we have laws (which are agreements between us on how our union should run) but we also have ‘sacred cows’ who flout these agreements and nothing happens. This is extreme subjectivity playing out in hard real life far more than you could ever say it in the comfort of a King’s College auditorium. So, how can I be sure that a similar fate will not greet the outcome of the much touted round table? For example, we have extant laws against unauthorized trespassing into other people’s property but today, we have herdsmen flouting them in most brazen ways and nothing happens to them. Instead, the same instruments of law are used to protect them. There are now several reported cases of these herdsmen killing and raping the so called fellow countrymen and the laws (the ‘agreements’) suddenly cease to exist. In at least one case (Agatu in Benue State) these people were even reported to have boasted publicly on ‘why we killed’ and nothing has happened to them till date.

We have another provision of the law (another existing agreement, that is)... Continued here: http://www.twapin.com.ng/2017/09/place-as-very-important-presidential.html

Well said

Cc: DocHMD iSlayer2 OjukwuWarBird niceprof ConqueredWest CarlosTheJackal fratermathy generalbush Ikpummiri NuclearWinter

Nigeria have always been an unequal country. APC just made it worse. Tinubu himself wouldn't have bargained for all that's happening. However his kins-men think he sold out