Letter To President Goodluck Jonathan On The Fuel Subsidy Feud

By Uche Peter UMEZ


Mr. President,

I empathise with you and everyone knows that to preside over a country is not a rule of thumb, more so when that country is Nigeria with its mottled history and complicated destiny.

I do want you to succeed. Like millions out there, who have now taken to the streets shouting out loud so that you can remember your teenage backwater days, the pre-election days, the plethora of promises you offered when we groaned for a homegrown messiah. We are not working against you. Not protesting against your person, but against this policy that hungers for our BLOOD. In truth, we want you to succeed.

People have alleged that you are weak, because your expression and bearing seemingly cast you as one. But taking a stick-in-the-mud stance and adhering to it in the face of collective opposition is not a true test of strength. A man does not have to be strong-minded just so he could prove his character. Please listen to the cries of millions – cries which will haunt you after you have vacated the fortress of pomp and power. Ask your predecessors. Really, you do not have to tell the world that the spirit of Egbesu lives in you, and you can be just as headstrong as the others before you. There’s no need for that, for there is goodness in your name.

There's goodness in your name but it saddens me really that you, Mr. President, do not realise that some of your closest family members and friends want you to fail out-and-out; they cannot stand the thought of you becoming a legend because they will never get to such an enviable height, so they want to replace the good in your name with evil. Turn you into a villain, which I’m afraid you may end up assuming if you continue to heed wholeheartedly to them, without attempting to sieve counsel. Do you want them to succeed? Or have you not yet found out that even most of your post-election speeches do not read convincing and genuine enough and yet these same speechwriters earn more than all the English Language teachers in Otueke. I know you are too pressured to even notice the subtexts in those speeches, but please always read them with a critical eye when next your spin-doctors breeze into your study.

You are not weak, Mr. President. You have goodness in your name, so please shower our lives with goodness: this is the primary reason why some of us were attacked and some of our relations died in various parts of the country so you could become the President! No, it is not a sign of weakness to withdraw one’s decision. It’s not a sign of weakness to show concession, when it borders on the collective good. In the name of good governance and social justice, please reverse your decision on the fuel subsidy removal, it’s not only ill-timed it is cruel! You have been poor and now you are rich, and it’s only right you help the poor to gain a little bit of foothold in a sinking bog. Just a little bit. For now the much you owe the bulk of Nigerians, the bulk being the very poor on whose backs our country is marching in its quest for greatness, is to let the fuel subsidy stay. Governance in my own view is all about attaining the highest good and providing the most possible happiness for the maximum number of Nigerians. Not just for one's family and well-wishers.

Please be brave, Mr. President, and let the fuel subsidy stay. Let it stay. You are no coward, only a coward takes a hardhearted position in the wake of popular dissent. Let it not be said that we the people made a mistake in trusting you with our votes, let it not be said that we couldn’t discern the right smile from one full of wiles. Let it not be on record that the labour of your forebears has been vain, that nothing good would ever come out of the Niger Delta, that anyone who comes from a despoiled area is quick to despoil others. Let it not be said that our education hardens us to the realities of our time. Please let the fuel subsidy stay. Let it be known that history is at hand and always repeat itself in times of folly.

Thank you, Mr. President.