An Open Memo to our #OgaAtTheTop [Service Chiefs] by DELE MOMODU

Full article here : http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/an-open-memo-to-our-service-chiefs/142271/

Our dear Generals, let me apologise for my lateness in sending this important memo to you. I had planned to write to you immediately after my last letter to the Inspector General of Police. That should have been the logical progression but events happened at supersonic speed in the last few weeks that I was forced to change topics regularly. Even this week, I was almost forced to change my mind by the latest gaffe of the Presidency that offered official pardon/clemency to those who needed it and those who didn’t without going into the merits or demerits of the pardons. They just never seem to get it right, whether in timing and/or execution.

It was the same slipshod manner that they treated the granting of national honours by awarding lesser Honours tothose who had already received higher honours.  In a similar fashion they bungled renaming of the University of Lagos after our martyr for Democracy, Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola. It is becoming obvious that something has gone terribly wrong when those saddled with huge responsibilities act before they think. The legion of Presidential aides and advisers inside the gilded cage of Aso Rock should have pondered long and hard before taking some of these decisions that have far-reaching implications. That certainly was not the case with the latest chicanery they rolled out this week.

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I know that your men are now spread out all over the place. I’m worried that in a democracy, soldiers have come back to defend our nation instead of the Police. They are working against all odds, killing people and getting killed themselves. This is very tragic. When soldiers turn guns at their fellow citizens, we should all get worried. There have been serious complaints of human rights violations that we can no longer ignore. It does not matter if we have to fight terrorism and terrorists with all our might. One innocent soul wasted is a wicked act. About three years on, all the force you can muster has not succeeded in abating the intractable problem of total mayhem in our country. The disastrous misadventure of combined super powers in some Islamic countries should have provided sufficient lessons that guns and bayonets cannot win all wars. I wish to put our own failure at the inability of our leaders to go to the root of the matter.


The first is religion. Nigeria is supposed to be a secular state but every government in Nigeria tries to amplify religious obligations for political gains. They would rather share money to religious leaders, and sponsor pilgrimages, than build solid infrastructures for the people like roads, good schools, hospitals, power plants, and so on. Religion has therefore become competitive where one Imam has to crosscheck what a Pastor is getting from the government. Every religion, and even every sect within each religion, therefore must fight to have its own people at the centre so that he can draw down the largesse that usually comes with high office in Nigeria. With your own disciple in power, you can become stupendously wealthy and even get a donation of a private jet for your birthday celebration. Nothing shocks us anymore

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