Nigeria In Crisis: Memo To Prof Wole Soyinka By Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, SAN

The Man Died! A brilliant literary effort put together by a
genius, amongst his many works. He towers above his fellows, his
image looms larger that his person and he is by all means, a
revolutionary, in relation to Nigerian affairs, African liberation
and indeed global politics. Little wonder that Wikipedia has this
to say about him:

“He took an active role in Nigeria’s political history and its
struggle for independence from Great Britain. In 1965, he seized
the Western Nigeria Broadcasting Service studio and broadcast a
demand for the cancellation of the Western Nigeria Regional
Elections. In 1967, during the Nigerian Civil War, he was arrested
by the federal government of General Yakubu Gowon and put in
solitary confinement for two years.

Soyinka has been a strong critic of successive Nigerian
governments, especially the country’s many military dictators, as
well as other political tyrannies, including the Mugabe regime in
Zimbabwe. Much of his writing has been concerned with “the
oppressive boot and the irrelevance colour of the of the foot that
wears it”. During the regime of General Sani Abacha (1993–98),
Soyinka escaped from Nigeria on a motorcycle via the “NADECO
Route.” Abacha later proclaimed a death sentence against him “in
absentia.” With civilian rule restored to Nigeria in 1999, Soyinka
returned to his nation.”

What I need to add is that Prof Wole Soyinka was instrumental to
the establishment of Radio Kudirat, which was the official
mouthpiece of NADECO and all activists involved in the restoration
of the June 12 mandate. Amongst his other progressive exploits,
Soyinka led Nigerians during the fuel subsidy protests and he has
continued to be active in the Nigerian project, thereafter. My dear
Prof, humbly expressed below are the reasons that compelled me to
address this memo to you, openly.

Nigeria is presently at a crossroad, plagued by poor leadership
and blind followership, resulting into backwardness, corruption,
cluelessness and lately, dictatorship. Nothing seems to be working
well at all, to the advantage of the common man, whom you have
dedicated most of your life to fight for. The ruling class has
become totally ruthless and greedy, eliminating completely, the
middle class and in that wise, enslaving the masses completely. We
now have legislators who openly pass Bills containing ouster
clauses, purporting to deny the court of jurisdiction to question
the actions of an agency of government (AMCON) and granting
retrospective operation to the said AMCON Act, in respect of
financial transactions concluded many decades ago. We are no longer
conducting elections in Nigeria, but politicians gather together to
declare bogus figures as election result, and when you challenge
them, they taunt you to go to court, knowing that the judiciary has
been totally crippled. The court system in Nigeria has totally
collapsed Prof, and it takes average six years for you to conclude
any case in the High Court, another five or more years in the Court
of Appeal and an indeterminate period of time in the Supreme
Court.

Prof, our land is filled with violence and bloodshed, as bandits
and criminals have taken over. We now have a situation where senior
police officers are kidnapped in broad daylight by criminals and
other policemen rally round to raise money to pay ransom for his
release. The terrorists have not ceased to torment our people in
the North East, whilst cultists, armed robbers and kidnappers, have
taken over the South. Our youths have no job and they have now
embraced a new trade of advanced fee fraud (YahooYahoo), whilst a
good number of them are foot soldiers for politicians to be
deployed as thugs during elections. Many of them are languishing in
slave camps in the Middle East whilst the rest of them trying to
escape poverty and joblessness in Nigeria have perished in the
Mediterranean Sea. You can no longer travel by road in Nigeria, due
to the poor state of our roads, which the government has proved
incapable of managing, with a 127 kilometre highway from Lagos to
Ibadan lasting well over five years for repairs, with no date for
its completion, wasting lives and destinies in the process.

Prof, Nigeria is approaching the brink, as never in our history
have we been so divided along ethnic and religious lines.
Fundamental human rights, for which you have labored tirelessly,
are on the reverse in Nigeria, as citizens are denied their freedom
of movement, when soldiers have invaded available space with
various military operations of Python Dance, Egbueke, Positive
Identification, etc. We are told that we have no right to free
speech but must subject ourselves to be regulated through Social
Media Regulation Bill and Hate Speech Bill. The government wants to
shut us up and impose a culture of silence and fear upon the
citizens. The protests and rallies that you freely organized in
those days, we are being told we cannot try them again, even under
a supposed democratic regime.

The President that Nigerians elected is absent from governance,
in fact and in law and it is said that a cabal has hijacked the
government from him. His wife has openly confirmed this a number of
times, to the extent that Nigerians are not sure who to hold
responsible for the actions of government any longer. Everybody in
one sphere of authority or other is a lord unto himself. Things
seem to have fallen apart and the centre is not holding anything at
all. We are borrowing money at an alarming rate Prof, but yet, we
are told that Nigeria Customs Service is raking in billions of
naira, JAMB claims to be milking poor students and their parents
and thus remitting billions of naira, the Federal Inland Revenue
Service is claiming to have generated trillions of naira, Nigerian
Ports Authority has tales of billions of dollars that it has raked
in, so too NIMASA, NLNG, while the EFCC, ICPC all claimed to have
recovered billions of naira and dollars from corrupt persons and
General Sani Abacha has never ceased to vomit dollars, even in
death. But we have no record of these mind-boggling claims.

Prof, we are still experiencing blackout all over Nigeria sir
and with constant system collapses, generator has become the most
common item in all our homes, offices, churches, factories,
newsrooms and even in Aso Villa and PHCN offices. We are still
compelled to pay for darkness through the crooked estimated billing
system and many small-scale businesses and even big-time industries
are groaning under the yoke of epileptic power supply fraud. Many
States are not paying salaries to their workers Sir, whereas some
of the Governors and the leaders earn fat bonuses, bogus pensions
and fraudulent security votes. Nigeria has become the poverty
capital of the world, at least from the perspective of the masses,
while majority of our people find it very tough to eke out a
living, as their purchasing power has dwindled drastically whilst
the cost of living has skyrocketed astronomically. Nobody is spared
Prof, except politicians and their allies in government, who all
have access to free money.

The activists are all in hiding Prof and civil society
organisations have either been conquered, compromised or settled
outrightly. The ones that have refused to yield their honourable
grounds have become endangered species, facing one trumped-up
criminal charge or the other, whilst the very harsh economic
climate has shut up many others. It is a great risk to be an
activist in Nigeria presently, as even the International Community
has been warned not to ‘interfere’ in the domestic affairs of
Nigeria, except when it comes to medical treatment for our leaders
and borrowing money to ‘finance’ the budget. It is that bad Sir and
we don’t want to continue this way, which is part of the reason for
this memo. Nigeria needs you now sir. It is not a case of the
wasted generation again as we have not done anything untoward as a
people, other than to trust our leaders with power and our
resources. We cannot continue this way Prof or else all of us are
in peril.

What do I want you to do Prof? Take the lead, give direction and
save Nigeria from dictatorship. You have the track record, you
understand all the issues perfectly well and you are best suited
for this assignment at this critical time in the life of Nigeria.
If you start it, I can assure you that Nigerians will rise up to be
counted. Let us declare a protest, in Abuja, Lagos, Kano, Enugu,
Port-Harcourt, Warri, Jos, Kaduna, Ibadan, Akure, Benin, etc.
Please raise your voice of courage across Nigeria and to the whole
world and they will listen to you. Let us occupy Aso Villa, take
over the National Assembly and other key institutions so that our
voices will be heard. Pa Michael Imoudu, Pa Anthony Enahoro, Alhaji
Abubakar Rimi, Prof Esko Tuoyo, Dr. Tai Solarin, Comrade Chima
Ubani, Comrade Bamidele Aturu, Chief Gani Fawehinmi, etc, will all
rest well in their graves when they see you move in action, against
oppression, repression and growing fascism.

At a time in the history of the Empire of the Medes, the Jews
faced the threat of annihilation but a slave girl who rose to be
queen by divine providence, staked her life for the salvation of
her people. In your own eloquent words: “The man dies in all who
keep silent in the face of tyranny.” You are way older than those
who are currently terrorizing us, you are far more exposed and
better educated than them all Prof. I urge you to take up the
gauntlet, and save Nigeria. And I perceive that I speak for many
Nigerians.