LETTER TO MADIBA

Dear Rolihlahla Nelson Mandela,

The world mourns, and still mourning your final demise! Of truth, there seems to be no one on Earth who has been and still being celebrated as you are in the last century. The whole of last weekend was dedicated to you in the soccer world. There was no league that did not give you a standing ovation in every of their matches played, Bundesliga, Barclays, Serie A, name it. It shows how revered you are held world over! And just before your obsequies, I deem it fit to pen down these laconic lines perchance you could help me deliver same to the great beyond and please Baba Madiba, don't say 'No'!

But before I tell you my message, the need to provide a premise through which these messages are fundamentally germane and are worth delivering cannot be over-emphasized! For quite a number of decades, Nigeria has not had a Mandela-spirit-filled public servant like your humble self. Incorruptible persons like the likes of Buhari have constantly been rebuffed, vehemently opposed, and death like yours did not even allow that man with good heart, the only president ever to declare his asset on assumption of power to stay longer, I mean late President Umoru Musa Yar'Adua. Rather, what have  are give-no-damn-non-asset-declaring looters as leaders. We have been so unlucky to have avaricious and covetous leaders who live ostentatious life siphoned from our Common Wealth, they pillage and plunder away our natural resources.

Dear Madiba, please, when you get to the other side, help tell Herbert Malculay that the party he founded as a true national party which was reincarnated (though with no ideology) has been turned to People's Destructive Party. Tell Obafemi Awolowo that our children now pay school fees, yet the schools have been under locks for upward 5 months and still no headway. You will be doing us a lot of good if you could inform Zik of Africa, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe that the long wall to democracy he built has fallen, what we now have is a cracked fence that is also on the precipice. I am sure our elderstateman, Chief Anthony Enaharo will be so unhappy to find out that the independent nation he vigorously fought for alongside other nationalists is seriously being threatened! And that if care is not taken, Nigeria may cease to exist in a couple of years to come. 

Lest I forget, help tell that singular Prime Minister, who had no property acquired through power but was killed in the most horrendous manner, late Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa that his northern children have been polarized along religious jingoism. Tell them all that we now see ourselves as South South, South East, South West, North East, North West and North Central, but no longer ONE Nigeria. Tell Gen. Murtala R. Muhammed (Rtd) that his predecessor, Yakubu Gowon's NYSC programme occasioned by the ravaging Civil War (of 1967-1970) has been devastated by the menace of Boko Haram because graduates from the South (West, East and South) now dread the North. Tell Alh. Ahmadu Bello that our judicial system is now for the highest bidder. And that we still use kerosene to cook and candles to see. Tell King Jaja of Opobo that we are still slaves in our own country. 

Tell Prof. Fetus Iyayi that Federal Government's claim of CBN-paid N200 Billion to placate ASUU, we are yet to see the alert. Please, tell Ken Saro Wiwa that his South South freedom fighter brothers have overnight turned to billionaires, the likes of Asari Dokubo! Tompolo, Boy Loaf et al. And that environmental degradation still persists in the region. The East West is no-near completion despite being given a Ministry of Niger Delta, worst still, the teeming youths are jobless. Don't forget to tell Dele Giwa that the Nigerian press has been bought over with money. 

Baba, like I said, my message is not that much, but help us lay emphasis on the fact that Nigeria now is divided along ethnic chauvinism and religious bigotry. That we no longer appreciate merit, rather we apotheosize mediocrity and promote at the apogee, nepotism. That sleaze and excessive corruption are now the other of the day. That their legacy of immediate employment for graduates in those years have since gone into extinction and oblivion. And please please and please, tell them also this, that I, Wisdom Omógbóláhàn Kòkúmó Babs will disown, better still repudiate Nigeria's citizenship if all these pantomimic quagmires are not nipped in the bud as soon as possible! But wait o, no tell them that one abeg, I must stay here in Nigeria, it must get better!

Thank you, sir for I am convinced my message will be promptly delivered.

Czar Wisdom Omógbóláhàn Kòkúmó Babs, Cfr, VoM...Àsę ñ t'Èdùmàrè