Open Letter To President Buhari: Sir, You May Have To Dissolve The Peace Council By Ogundana Michael Rotimi

Your Excellency Sir,

This is the first open letter I will be writing to you since your inauguration as the President and Commander In Chief of The Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. I will go straight to the point and won`t bug you with the facts and figure that you already know. Right now, you have become facts and figures yourself and there is no information that you are not preview to.

Sir, those that voted you and believe in you hold you in high esteem because of your level of integrity, discipline and courage in handling issues. Since you became the president, you have painstakingly taken your time to take every decision you have made. You have deliberately not appointed your ministers and other members of your cabinet because you want the best hands and less partisan Nigerians to work with you.

As you will recall Sir, the reasons why Nigerians voted en-masse for you are for you to wage war against corruption, recover stolen funds from corrupt person or group of persons that have plundered the nation and for you to reposition the nation on the path of excellence. These are the things they believe you can do which informed their decisions to vote for you. This is the more reason I believe you have been careful of the caliber of people you place in sensitive positions and in committees.

However, you are human, and the very fact that you are mortal makes you inevitable to mistakes. But it is one thing to make a mistake; it is another thing to keep making it.

On the transition of the National Peace Committee for the 2015 General Elections to the Peace Council and retaining its members, Sir, sorry to say this, you shouldn`t have. You should have dissolved the committee. My reasons are not farfetched; going by your stance to have credible and non-partisan Nigerians in positions and committees, the National Peace Committee should have been dissolved. Because some of the men that make up the Committee are not honorable men.

Honorable men do not protect the interest of a few corrupt persons at the peril of the innocent impoverished majority. Honorable men do not shield the wicked from the wrath of the law. Honorable men do the right thing with power and don`t abuse it.

Some members of this committee have proven times without number that they cannot speak truth to power and cannot be trusted with leadership. This should have informed your decision to dissolve the peace committee.

There is nothing peaceful about the Peace Committee if all they do is to seek peace for some corrupt golden few than for the vast majority of Nigerians that have suffered heavily from the burden of corruption.

For any group as highly placed as the National Peace Committee to resort to seeking soft landing for corrupt person(s) is another obvious reason why the committee should be dissolved.

Again, Sir, some members of the Peace Council do not believe in probing a democratically elected government like that of your predecessor. It shows that you do not share the same ideology with them. Hence, you cannot work with them. You believe in probing so long it`s done legitimately without trampling on individual`s rights. It is the more reason why you should dissolve the committee Sir!

Furthermore, the National Peace Committee has done its duties by ensuring peaceful elections. They can now stand down and let you do the job Nigerians elected you for. This is to salvage the country.

Moreover, Sir, some members of the peace council are stunt loyalist to your predecessor. They will do anything within their power to protect him from the jury. Besides, you cannot expect such committee that is loyal to your predecessor to perform transparently without external interference from him. This is why it is paramount on you that you dissolve the peace council.

According to Bishop Kukah’s he said: “Our commitment is not to intimidate or fight anybody, the former President’s commitment and what he did still remain spectacular and I think that President Buhari himself appreciates that. So our effort really is to make sure that the right thing is done.” The questions are: what did Dr. Goodluck Jonathan do that remains spectacular that warranted such statement? He lost an election and conceded defeat, what is spectacular about that? Or what is spectacular in running a corrupt driven government with so much impunity? You see Sir, the Peace committee are not working for you and are not working for Nigerians. They are not for you and they are not for Nigerians. They are for their Hero, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan!

Aside from the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar III and the Primate of the Church of Nigeria, Anglican Communion, Most Revd. Nicholas Okoh. Sir, people like Bishop Kukah, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor and Gen. Abubakar Abdusalami (rtd.) are the more reason why you should dissolve the Peace Council! These men are not honorable men their antecedents speak for them.

Of course Sir, I would have gone on and on, on why you should consider dissolving the Peace Council but I wouldn`t want to consume much of your time on this, so that you can also attend to other pressing issues.

It is with these reasons that I call on you to dissolve the peace council and constitute yours yourself if you need one.

God Bless Nigeria.

Ogundana Michael Rotimi is a Nigerian Biochemist, Socio-economic & Political Commentator, and Public Speaker. He tweets @MickeySunny.