Open Letter To:
His Excellency, The President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria Muhammadu Buhari, & Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, Senate President, Senator Bukola Saraki, Speaker of the House, Rt. Hon. Yakubu Dogara, Members of the Senate, Members of National Assembly & Governors.
By Onyema Nkwocha
Dear Mr. President and Deputy President, Senate President, Speaker of the House, Members of Senate and the National Assembly, and State Governors:
On behalf of the millions of poor and downtrodden Nigerians out there, North, South, East, and West of Nigeria, I humbly Congratulate all of you on your winnings and being elected (re-elected) into the various national and State positions you occupy! CONGRATULATIONS!
Mr. PRESIDENT, I urge you to create a New government agency to help you and your Administration Unify this God-Blessed country, Nigeria! Mr. President, create the Department of National Unification (DONU) before you leave office to begin the realistic task of unifying the many disparate nations that makes today’s Nigeria! This is imperative!! The duty and Roles of DONU would be to search, discover, encourage, nurse, integrate, inculcate into the national psyche, and apply all that enables the formation of unity, into our national affairs that would take Nigeria closer to attaining the long-awaited national unity. The advocated DONU at the same time, will discover and catalog all activities, actions, and practices that tends to divide us, and by law – or the authority given to it, intentionally do away with these or even prosecute those, agencies, organizations or institutions found not in compliance with any statutory or legal authority that would be ascribed to it as its operating authority base.
Mr. PRESIDENT, if we must survive as a nation and a people, with common destiny on this geographical location called Nigeria, then, we must have to resolve purposefully to take the bull by the horn, forget tribalism, religious, and cultural divides, and again, resolve to designedly create a new UNIFIED NIGERIA – not this current dispensation that we are all witnesses to. There must be a PURPOSEFUL, WILLFUL INTENTION TO UNIFY NIGERIA before it can happen! The STRATEGY MUST BE INTENTIONAL, PLANNED, and the DEVELOPMENT, Unswervingly, resolutely, GUIDED.
As the LEADER of the people, law makers, and Governors of the people, we must start this arduous journey from somewhere. Mr. PRESIDENT, that somewhere is by Internationally, purposefully, designedly, strategically, and resolutely creating a new Government Agency to shoulder this massive national responsibility. That Agency is the DEPARTMENT OF NATIONAL UNIFICATION, (DONU)!
If we mean to, and are sincere to make Nigeria a great nation that people of the world would come to respect and revere; if we have the respected veracity when we avow publicly that we will build a United, developed and great Nigeria, I challenge all of you in this open communication that together, we can unify the nation – Nigeria with, and by the creation of DONU, under whose leadership, this awesome national task will reside!
Mr. PRESIDENT, the burden of unifying Nigeria squarely rests on your shoulders, and on no one else. And, you cannot shirk or shy away from this awesome national responsibility that comes with the highest office of the land that you currently occupy.
You can begin that UNIFICATION process now if you choose to. The dream of a better “New Nigeria” that all Nigerians, at one time or another have dreamt and desired about and even clamored for and shed their blood and lost lives for, has not come about because we the people have not realistically resolved to make this goal a national priority, and therefore, it has not happened since the Whiteman skippered home and left us to see to, and manage our own affairs and destiny. We, the people, have not worked to build a UNIFIED nation because we, the disparate nations do not believe we are one or have anything in common with one another.
We do not believe we are one nation because we do not have a LEADER who has what it takes to corral together the disparate people and look them in the eye, and challenge them to take their own destinies into their hands, to look and work past their differences and toward a more Glorious common goal and destiny as a people. Mr. PRESIDENT, we do not yet have that kind of leader!
We do not have a LEADER, nor have we ever had a LEADER to take us to that dream and desired UNIFIED Nigeria. Both present and past leaders have failed to take Nigerians to the Promised New UNITED Nigeria because the leaders failed to understand the basic natural and biological makeup of humans and their rootedness in one common Ancestral source and origin: the SUMMUM BONUM of all that is Good!
Mr. PRESIDENT, Nigeria has failed to Unite because past leadership and the immediate past Administration have not and did not adopt programs that would fan the variable features, elements, and spirits of national UNIFICATION! Instead, what Nigerians witnessed and experienced firsthand has continued to be DIVISIVE programs that DIVIDE NIGERIA according to Tribe, Religion, the Haves and the Have nots sponsored with the Commonwealth budgets of the people of Nigeria, against Nigerians for the benefit of a few Nigerians. It is wrong! Absolutely, wrong and it is unacceptable!!
MR. PRESIDENT, in this your last leg of Administration and Governance, you, your Senate, the National Assembly, and Governors stand on a trove of Golden opportunities to re-write the History of Nigeria for the better even within the shortest period of time as little as four-years! You can do it MR. PRESIDENT! You have all the Powers of Machineries of the entire national Resources to do it and make this happen, only if you choose to do so!
This tall order cannot be done and remains impossible, only if you decide and RESOLVE NOT to do a thing in this regard. But, Mr. PRESIDENT, I know you and your Senate, the National Assembly, and Governors can do this if you choose and Resolve to end your Administration and Governance in a positive note. And thus, end the peoples’ miseries going to 60-years unending!!!
The following is a glimpse of what the proposed Department of National UNIFICATION can help you accomplish within a short period of four-years:
– Document and Bring to National Awareness All that Divides Nigeria.
– Review All National Documents that bear Emblems of division and tribalism such as, tribe of origin: Ibo, Fulani, Hausa, Kanuri, Yoruba, Christian, Muslim, etc., and delete them from all national and State Government official Forms.
– Redesign these forms to be tribal and Religious Neutral, bearing only State of Residence for statistical and planning purposes only.
– Championing and Promoting only National UNIFICATION and Unifying Programs!
– Promoting at both the national, state, and international levels, national unifying programs, and encouraging same a long States, Local Governments, and Nigerians where ever they are.
– Using our huge educational institutions to champion Unity – National Unity and oneness!
– Offering Scholarships to our children that encourage National unity.
– Challenging the Universities and other Institutions of Higher learning to begin to develop and teach programs that encourage National unification, team work, love for nation, state and fellow Nigerians, and research and the States.
– Encouragement of the use of Sports, and our rich Cultural Entertainments to promote national unity.
– Encouraging inter-state sport- and entertainments, inter-state and cultural-Marriages among citizens of the various States contrary to the current tribal great divide!
– Having the legal authority to bring to court any individual, group, association, organization, or institution found working toward thwarting the goal of National UNIFICATION Program.
– Tying future Federal Government funding of State Programs to staying in COMPLIANCE with the Federal Unification Directives!
MR. PRESIDENT, there are yet many more unlisted roles the proposed DONU Agency can help to accomplish within the last four years of your Administration, only if you intend and resolve to begin the path to National UNIFICATION as your lasting Legacy!
In my next continuation part of this letter, I will highlight for your reference, how a few nations around the World have used the creation of Departments of National Unification to their advantage to salvage, unify, rebuild, and develop their countries that were once teetering at the verge of collapse and disintegration but thanks to a quick and timely thinking and creation of Department of National Unification!
MR. PRESIDENT, once again, I know you can do it if your resolve to Unify Nigeria prior to your exit from office in the next four years. Therefore, I urge you, MR. PRESIDENT, the Senate President, Speaker of the House, Members of the Senate, Members of National Assembly and State Governors to work with MR. PRESIDENT for once in your lives as elected public officials representing the People to live up to the spirit of your being voted into Office by the People: Give the people what they want – UNIFY NIGERIA! There is no doubt in my mind that you can do it if you so resolve to do so!!!
Once again, CONGRATULATIONS to All! May the God of Nigeria and Nigerians guide you, to begin the road to the true and realistic Unification of Nigeria through the creation of the Department of National Unification!!
Thank you, MR. PRESIDENT and thank ALL for your time and listening.
Dr. Nkwocha, Onyema, EJD, Ed.D.
U.S.A
