AN OPEN LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT - 1

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT - 1

By

Uchenna Akwiwu ura_ohaeri@yahoo.com

 Dear Sir:

The Golden Future, The Promise of our New Generation, Must Start Now.  We Cannot Wait!

It is with the greatest humility and respect that I write you this letter, Mr. President.  I do so in a public forum with the hope that I might inspire debate and dialogue about the direction in which this country is headed.  I write this letter, knowing that, if I met you, I might stutter and be nervous in your presence.  You have an enormous history and legacy, of which few leaders can match, here or abroad.  So, I am honored to be speaking to you.  However, even though I am humble, I write these words with the strength of a warrior! Why?  Because one day, you will be gone, as the dictates of Father Time have always ordered, and, eventually, someone of my generation will lead this country.  

Foremost, I would like to thank you and your Economic Management Team for a job well done in the production of NEEDS.  Well thought out ideas, culled, long ago, from the lecture circuit of the NEEDS principal architect, Professor Charlie Soludo.  I am proud of you all.  

NEEDS does a spectacularly good job on some economic and institutional fronts and waves a very casual hand carelessly on others.  

A review of Professor Soludo’s publications, writings and lectures rightly informs me that his main thrust in NEEDS is to improve, to a good maximum, the capital efficiency of our institutions, both public and private, through their re-engineering and sundry capacity building, thereby erecting a framework to guarantee maximum utilization of resources.  

He is, together with the Finance Minister, therefore, of the deep conviction that we have to place a 5-10 year moratorium on domestic and external borrowing while we work on improving our capital efficiency.  It is no surprise, then, that we have placed ourselves under a budget of $8 billion per year till 2007 to implement NEEDS.  The problem is not that the budget would not do for NEEDS, for Charlie always pays for what he orders, it is just that NEEDS has to go through some strengthening and good makeover before it can be tagged a bold, imaginative, ambitious and aggressive strategy worthy of making, in your words, Nigeria great again.

I definitely agree with Charlie and Ngozi on the prime importance of improving capital efficiency.  On that, we have no choice!  Also, a consequent and corollary thrust is to send a strong signal on the dawning of a new era that would not tolerate business as usual and the seemingly endless bazaar and carnival sponsored with the national cake by a few corrupt hogs.  To that, I say amen. 

However, I beg to differ on the strategy NEEDS offers to improve the capital efficiency.  The problem with the NEEDS strategy is that it is painfully slow (5-10 years is just too much) and is not guaranteed to improve the efficiency that much.  I have no doubt, Sir, based on your recent appointments that you have a strong desire and will to change things for the better at least in the FG.  I admire and appreciate that!  On the other hand, what of the states and SEEDS?  Are they like minded and of like precious faith?  It remains be seen and I frankly do not see how it shall happen.  

Another example, that makes me shake my head and feel that it is déjà vu again, is the N10 billion appropriations that is being thrown at a comatose NEPA to build 5 new power stations.  Why, Sir, please why?  I understand we need electricity urgently for the industrialization push.  However, the way we are going about it is just plain wrong-headed.  To rely on that agency to meet the electrification needs of our industrialization push is like putting a bottle of wine in an alcoholic’s hands and telling him, that “this time, you can’t drink it!”  Is it because we cannot improve on our energy efficiency and distribution loss, that we add more power stations?  This is also a classical example of your advisers’ shortsightedness and I ask you to reconsider your solution for our country’s electrification problems.

The strategy to depend on NEPA whether re-jigged, reformed, reconstituted or refashioned, in our industrialization push, is a bad one.  NEPA should be allowed to whither on the vine and die.  Our Risen Savior could have been talking to NEPA when, in my own adaptation, he said:  Woe unto thee, NEPA! Woe unto thee, NEPA! For if the mighty money, which was spent on you, had been spent on any other government corporation, they would have revived long ago from sackcloth and ashes.

An aside.  Who is going to assemble and build (not manufacture) these power stations?  Nigerians, Foreigners or JV No-Nigerian-Technical-Expertise Fronts?  If not Nigerians, what about the capacity building that Charlie’s NEEDS talks about?  How then are we improving efficiency?  Even if we do not have Nigerian Engineers that can build and assemble power stations, what about having a Transfer of Technology (TOT) plan that would produce Nigerian Engineers who would then go on to, in the future, build and assemble power stations for the ECOWAS region?

My main argument against NEPA, both now and in the future, is that its system is so complex that it defies debugging, maintenance and upgrading.  Please there is a better system that would not cost us this much and get electrical energy supplied at a very high efficiency.

In view of the above and my study of the NEEDS document, the NEEDS Strategy please consider how the NEEDS Strategy does not adequately address the following feasible plans:

1. A Gradual but Steady Naira Devaluation Plan – At least a factor of 2 to 3 by 2007.
2. A Specific Industrial and Technology Production Export-Led Plan.
3. A Creative and Ambitious Infrastructure Development Plan – At least, extra New 4000km multiple carriageway with only 25% FG share in cost, 90% power efficiency.
4. An Aggressive Social and Moral Charter Plan that would define A New Nigeria where there is equal opportunity for all regardless of race, tribe, nation, creed or sex; respect for law and decency and good taste.
5. An Ambitious ECOWAS Regional Integration Plan that guarantees freedom of settlement anywhere within the ECOWAS.
6. An Imaginative Plan to eliminate North-South Education imbalance and improve the productivity of all nations of Nigeria.
7. An Urgent Plan for an e-SMART Government on a Broadband Infrastructure – With minimum, a nationwide IFMS for real-time budgeting, debt management, Revenue tracking and collection, economic planning and statistical data. 
8. A Depopulation, Industrial Deconcentration and Reconfiguration Plan for Lagos and FCT.
9. A Serious Ethnic Integration Plan to foster national unity at the grassroots level.  NYSC has not helped.
10. A Plan that would eliminate all ethnic and religious conflicts.  How can that be?  All things are possible!
11. An Inexpensive Plan to formalize much of the Informal Sector of the Economy – would expand and invigorate the Banking Sector; establish a solid socio-economic framework.
12. An Innovative Plan to correct the deficiencies in and convert the National ID to a one-stop National ID.
13. A True and Implementable Gender Equality Plan – target 50% quota in public workforce for women by 2007.
14. A Conservation Plan to start a Land Bank – This is going to be hottest and most controversial if it is not handled carefully and with good communication.
15. A Smart and Deliberate Triangulation Plan to pry open markets in rich countries for our soon to start Agro-Business Processing Industries.
16. A Plan to sign FTA with South Africa by 2008 and with USA, Canada, Brazil, Germany, Australia and South Korea by 2010.
17. A Credible External Financing and Fund-Mobilization and specific FDI competition and attraction Plan.
18. A Prudent Plan to guide and regulate FDI.
19. A Plan to instantaneously have a high capital efficiency.  This is the big one!  This is the Beef, the Enchilada and the Cheese of any strategy.  

Most of the above items are either pure strategy items and where money is involved they are mostly FDI projects and money.

Space, time and focus would not permit me to enumerate more plans that could be included, let alone mount a sustained but coherent and logical argument for the inclusion of the above plans in NEEDS.

For now, Sir, please forget about the rosy picture of creating 7 million jobs by 2007.  It is not what we want.  We are already suffering and three years and 7 million pitiful jobs, mainly from agriculture and environmentally dangerous mining, would not make a darn difference if we do not have a very sound economic foundation and structure and a good political base that can carry a long term, stubborn and high-flying growth.  The seven million jobs would only go as far as alleviating unemployment situations in the seven most populous states.  How about the other 29 states?  Does that mean that in a family of 10 people, only 3 can eat?  If that were to happen, are you misled to believe that your children would not fight over the food?  Respectfully, Mr. President, I don’t need to tell you to do the math, but we are a nation of 150 million.   How does a tourniquet for a bleeding finger (7 million jobs) stop the hemorrhaging from the gash in our leg (wholesale poverty) that is crippling us as a nation!  Seven million jobs may be laudatory, but the applause is muted by the tears of hungry children throughout this great land of ours.  We need to get some very essential fundamentals right.   

Toyota is today the world’s second-largest automaker with its eyes set on beating General Motors to become numero uno of automakers.  It has taken them a while to arrive at their current position but not before getting the most important fundamentals right.  They worked on their extreme competitive advantage to build a solid corporate foundation and an unbeatable production system that has consistently trounced its competitors in the auto industry and market.  They set targets and they beat those targets consistently and always.  The results are just unbelievably spectacular. They have even dared their competitors to visit and study them all they want. Toyota is confident that its production system cannot be replicated.  And Toyota just has this knowing:  “Nobody can stop us from being Number One”.  NEEDS is good but it is very narrow because of the basis constraints placed on it.  Worse still, it is being implemented on an old economic foundation bequeathed to us by a colonial power and within a dangerous and unstable political context and structure.  

There are three efficiencies every economy needs to experience a healthy and sustainable growth:  economic efficiency, social efficiency and political efficiency.  NEEDS focus is mainly on a small subsection of economic efficiency because the architect sees, quite appropriately, no other way out of our current impoverished and debt-laden situation.  All it takes is for a cheap political con-artist coming after you, who is hell bent on discrediting your work in order to create a good legacy for himself, to capitalize on the unfortunate opportunity in the system’s political inefficency affecting economic growth and hence dump NEEDS.

Simply put, we should not be in a hurry to put together a strategy that could disappoint or one that a new government can easily change.  We just have to have a strategy that builds on a good solid economic foundation and within a political structure and that would put us on an unstoppable accelerating fast-track mode.

I think you are in a hurry, just to leave yourself a legacy, and in danger of exceeding your God-given mandate for the eight years you have been divinely allotted.  You have been called and anointed, no matter what anyone says, to take us out of Egypt and not to lead us into the Promised Land.  The good Lord did not call you to create jobs but has asked you to fight, like a soldier you are, to establish a peaceful and new Nigeria.  Hence, I very much doubt that you have the grace and immunity to take us to the Promised Land.

I would like to pause to explain what I mean by grace and immunity.  God is the smartest, most serious and very purposeful business being.  When He wants a job done.  He searches out a person and anoints him or her for an office.  He grants the person two things:  Grace and Immunity.  Grace to perform or execute the duties of the office within the very clear and strict divine mandate.  Immunity to protect the person from attacks and distractions designed to thwart the purpose of God.  When the appointed officer of God fails to follow the given clear and strict divine job instructions he or she enters very uncharted territory where there is neither sufficient grace nor unassailable immunity.  This might result in a failed leadership.

Sir, I wish you would focus on just the few things that the Almighty has given you grace to deal with.  I urge you to take a cue from King David who fought all the wars and handed over a peaceful kingdom and materials for building the great temple to Solomon.  Please read 1st Chronicles 28 and 29 and allow the good Lord to speak to you.  I would have given you more scripture to read but many twisted and crooked minds reading this letter would read very wicked meanings into them.

In putting the Petroleum Ministry under your portfolio, you have moved us ahead of schedule on the LNG trains and bringing a semblance of transparency with the Oil & Gas Industry (despite all of the criticisms, insults and mud-slinging). Without knowing it, Sir, you have been gathering the materials needed to build a great and new Nigeria by boosting our future foreign exchange earnings.  On that score, I am pleased to inform you that you are fulfilling a very important part of your divine mandate.  Also, you have done very well in some of the strategic appointments you have made.  You need to be encouraged to be more aggressive in changing the face of your cabinet.  We need more Ngozi’s, Charlie’s, Nasir’s, Nenadi’s, Oby’s, Remi’s.

Now for the hard part that you have very much neglected and is my main reason for writing this letter.  This is about the political inefficiency that plagues us.  You have to begin to inform your colleagues – military, customs, police and political hogs of the old order (retired, ex, First, Second, Third and Fourth Republics) – to understand that it is time for most of them to vacate the political space and honourably and sacrificially, for the good of the country, walk out into the twilight night of political old age and retirement.  It is very essential that we fumigate the political terrain so as to send these creeps scurrying and scramming, like the vermin they are.  I mention no one by name, because they know who they are – they are the ones who oppose my use of the term, “rat” to describe them.  

This would make it possible to start to depoliticize the country and have it run mainly by poli-technocrats – young, highly educated, and some returned from abroad to give back to our nation, like the Asian diasporas have produced all over the world.  Your colleagues have to be told that the future now belongs to the Dora Akunyili’s, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s, Nenadi Usman’s, Oby Ezekwesili’s, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai’s, Julius Bala’s, Kupolokun’s, Charlie Soludo’s, Fani-Kayode’s (poor rascal, please forgive him), Remi Oyo’s, Ifueko Omoigui’s, Bode Agusto’s.  They form the face of a New Nigeria.  I am very proud of them and I am once again very proud to be called a Nigerian together with these fine, decent, peace-loving and hard-working All-Nigerians.

An aside.  An All-Nigerian is one who has no ethnocentric belief system.  He or she believes in and defends and loves all Nigerians regardless of race, creed, sex or nation.  He is not beholden to any ethnic interests as enshrined in organizations such as Afenifere, Arewa Consultative Forum, Ohaneze and others of the like.  Sir, I would like to call you the first All-Nigerian.  Read the following excerpt from an article written by Wale Adebanwi, titled “Ohaneze and the New Aburi Accord” and published Saturday May 8, 2004 in This Day and would understand why:

After Obasanjo first settled in power in 1999, the Yoruba reclaimed him.  But in no time, they realized what a tragic turn things had taken and fled from the spare lunch, which he had prepared for them.  Since then, Obasanjo has dealt fatal blows on all these power bastions.  He decapitated the Hausa-Fulani north, violated the Yoruba West and ignored the Igbo East.  The minorities counted for little in his estimation.  From Balewa to Obasanjo (2), all major ethnic power formations in Nigeria jointly have, for the first time, a Frankenstein monster on their hands.  Not even in the darkest days of the Abacha infamy was there a federal power that was constituted in spite (or to spite!) the three largest ethnic groups in Nigeria.  At least Abacha had a major chunk of the north behind him.

Bravo, at least for the first time, Nigeria does not have a gworo-cruncher, or a cocoa-sucker or an mbaduga-mauler as President.  We have an All-Nigerian President.  Praise God!  Please Baba we need you to prepare more spare lunch.  In his next paragraph, Wale labels the current government as grossly inefficient, ineffective and irresponsive.  Do not worry about that criticism, for while you are working on improving efficiency, part of your divine mandate lies in being a Frankenstein monster to the ethno-geographic entrepreneurs.

Please ask Remi to pump up the volume and liven up the circus.  The media and the opposition just seem to enjoy calling you the dictator.  For once they are right and I agree with them and please better have a fat toad for lunch than a small one with a bad name to boot.  To spice things up a bit, why don’t you agree to be the Don Corleone of Nigerian Politics, just as the Minna General is the Maradona of Nigerian Politics.  We all know the big five political families – AD, ANPP, APGA, PDP, UNPP.  In a recently politically motivated rally designed to incite a very restless and naïve mass, they behaved like Don Barzini, Phillip Tattaglia and Victor Strachi of Mario Puzo’s Godfather in their whining when asked for the beef, enchilada and cheese of their protest:  Don Corleone, a man we thought was a modest and reasonable man, has refused to share the judges with us!  One begins to wonder, if not for God, when this circus extravaganza and carnival would end!  It is very sickening that this country has been turned into a theatre of the absurd!  I just want to say this: we are tired, tired and really tired of all this shenanigan perpetrated against suffering, unsuspecting and politically unsophisticated Nigerians.

The three major principalities that affected the destiny of this country have come and gone.  God bless the memories of  Obafemi Awolowo, Nnamdi Azikiwe and Ahmadu Bello.  They created and defined Nigeria.  Their job is done and finished and I dare not judge or criticize them no matter their flaws.  However, we are tired of their followers who continue to make us suspect and distrust each other.  They have refused to understand that these principalities have done their job and have gone.  Why should a job that is done be revisited? Are they saying their masters did not do a good job?  These followers must close shop.  We have heard it all - the North-South imbalance, resource control, nation superiority, the nation of good diplomats and administrators, the nation of bureaucrats.  It just goes on and on and on.  We are tired. Please put these ethno-geographic entrepreneurs out of their wicked, manipulative and exploitative business. We want to build a New Nigeria!

As I write this letter, the North-South imbalance is rearing its ugly head again.  The nineteen northern governors under the ACF umbrella want the presidency back to the North.  The Ohaneze and the south eastern governors say they are going to fight for the south east to have the presidency because it is their turn.  I have no objection to who becomes the President, northerner or southerner, provided he is not beholden to any ethnic or geographic interests and whose only mission is to continue the great march to Nigeria’s greatness with justice and equity towards all.  A deep insight into the unfolding drama exposes the prebendalistic mindset of both sides clamoring for the presidency.  God help us all.  This is just another case of judges’ sharing.

Please inform your political colleagues that they have the opportunity to become All-Nigerians only if they, first, repent and second, sacrificially walk away, for the good of this country, from the political space.  They do not have a clue that we are in a very highly competitive global economy and we need the best to compete.  Our needs as a country have changed and we definitely do not need these people to run things any more.  We need SMART (Simple, Moral, Articulate, Responsible and Transparent) people to manage the affairs of this country.   Please, the good Lord would have you start meeting with these folks one on one to facilitate their exit from the political space.

As I earlier pointed out, any policy whose strategy is implemented on this existing old and colonial economic foundation and within this ethno-geographic and ethno-centric political structure would not accomplish much and is bound to fail.  NEEDS is important and we definitely need to implement a significant portion of it.  However, it is narrowly focused, since it deals mainly with economic issues, and worse still, it is a bad acronym, forgive me Ngozi and Charlie, for a development strategy.  Another big problem with NEEDS is that it has not got anyone excited and really energized.  And, it is too dependent on the SEEDS working within a decentralized framework.  

I believe in decentralization and I believe it is very important for faster and responsive development.  However, for now, and much to horror of the ethno-geographic entrepreneurs, we need a strong and SMART center and leadership to establish a good economic base and a solid institutional structure and after that we can then decentralize properly and for the right reasons.  Haba! Must we copy verbatim everything thing the West tells us works well.  We have to always keep in our minds that any reform policy has a history behind it and this history must be studied and understood in other to know what reform strategy best suits our context.  We are balkanizing and decentralizing Nigeria for very wrong reasons and this would come to haunt us later.  For now, the center needs all the resources it can marshal to build a solid economic and institutional base.   If we do not get it right, now, we shall smart for it later and really badly too.

We need way more than NEEDS.  We need what I call the New All-Nigerian Economy.  Unlike NEEDS which adopts a top-down structured (TDSM) strategy on an old economic foundation and within a divisive and contentious ethno-centric political structure, the New All-Nigerian Economy should adopt a totally different and unique approach based on an object-oriented dynamically programmed model (OODPM) applied on a brand new economic foundation and within a highly efficient political and social system. 

The top-down structured approach NEEDS advocates and which has been quite trendy the world over and in all ages makes it impossible and very expensive to upgrade, turn around or adapt the economy very fast in the face of a very dynamic global economy.  In fact, the whole world has never known any better model than TDSM.  The TDSM approach is very ad-hoc in nature and makes for very difficult data collection and analysis. 

This is the very first mention ever of an OODPM-based economy.  I very much doubt that it has ever appeared in any economic literature.  Adapted from the software engineering discipline, it follows an object-oriented approach that is very flexible and allows for very easy and fast modular (economy object) additions, upgrades, trial runs, deletions, testing and debugging.  Just as Toyota produced an unbeatable and irreproducible production system that can adapt very easily in the face of any market conditions and competitive pressure, we need a strategy that would give us an economy that is flexible and very adaptable to any global economic situation.  

In order to construct a New All-Nigerian Economy we, first of all, need to design an Architectural Master Plan (AMP) that comprises of the political, economic, technological, spiritual and social components.  This AMP, also, should outline an OODPM-based strategy that seeks to build a new economic foundation and institutional structure for Nigeria under the leadership of a New All-Nigerian generation armed with an e-SMART (electronic - Simple, Moral, Accountable, Responsive, Transparent) government.  It should be able to energize and galvanize all nations of this country to build a New Nigeria.  Then you shall have the grace to call on us all to make the big sacrifice that should lift Nigeria, and possibly the whole ECOWAS region, to an unprecedented industrial and economic height.  The colonial and the subsequent old-order structure and system, economic, social and political, must be dismantled completely.  It would be really unwise to build anything, including NEEDS, on it.  

Sir, just as the Industrial Master Plans (IMPs) of the Asian countries ushered in and unleashed the Asian Tiger Economies, we want an AMP that would usher in the first of the Sub-Saharan Eagle Economies.  We need a healthy competition here: The Tiger vs The Eagle.  You shall call on us and we, together with Oshiomhole, shall be ready to accept the devaluation and other huge sacrifices needed to send the Eagle Economy flying high.  We shall be ready and waiting to exploit our substantial comparative and competitive advantage, that should be quickly available, to the fullest advantage with a massive and overwhelming force.  If you care to remember, we are 150 million strong, smart, hungry, raw and black.  You cannot define a better mean human machine on this earth. I assure you this New All-Nigerian generation shall not and will not fail for we are very much equal to the task ahead.

Should you decide to go with NEEDS as it is, then, you must expect a Crab Economy: three steps forward, two steps backwards, four steps sideways and five steps diagonally.  It should be a disparaging sight to really behold.  This is not about trashing NEEDS but about broadening its scope to make it comprehensive enough to offer us an Eagle Economy.

For the New All-Nigerian Economy or Eagle Economy I would like to suggest a product management model for the New All-Nigerian Economy Team:

1. Mallam Nasir El-Rufai – Economy Administrator
2. Charlie Soludo – Economy Financial Director
3. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala – Economy Accountant-General
4. Oby Ezekwesili – Economy Auditor-Supremo
5. ?  - Economy Architect
6. ? – Economy Engineer and Logistician
7. ? – Economy Marketing Director

8.   ? – Economy Object Experts (EOEs)

The Economy Architect must be a multi-disciplinary person with exceptional abilities and strong educational background to marry or synthesize the political, economic, technological, spiritual, psychological, legal and social components that could affect the economy to come up with a solid and comprehensive framework for a New Nigeria.  The Economy Engineer and Logistician coordinates the translation of the Architect’s plan into a marketable product.  The Economy Marketing Director arranges the selling of the product to the nation and foreigners.  The Economy Object Experts have unusual insight, knowledge and wisdom in a particular economy component.  The above list of eight, while not being comprehensive enough, comprises of the essential members.

Permit me to touch on some economic issues.  For now, at least, I want to state that without a plan to devalue the Nigerian Naira by at least a factor of two or three by 2007, we cannot realize the dream of an Industrial Production Export-Led revolution that would truly make Nigeria great.  I insist on a plan, because there are things needed to be put in place, which I cannot address now in this letter but in the future, before we can begin to let the Naira slide.  This plan would draw a strategy for cushioning a little bit of the resulting heavy and strong devaluation impact.

We are not interested in just industrializing aka import substitution.  And we are not interested in primitive-local-industrial-production export-led growth.  We should be preparing for a high-tech industrial production export-led economy that would take off in all priority sectors by 2007.  We should also stop this mad dash to invite anyone to come and invest because of our desperation for FDI.  There is a much better way that would simply trounce the best of the developing economies in this world.  I very much mean it and we have all it takes.  Simply put, Nigeria is the virgin territory for an ideal, never-before-seen-or-heard industrial revolution.  The eagle must always surprise you!

We need much more money than is mentioned in the NEEDS document to ignite a speedy ascent.  If we do not find a way to make a very unprecedented bold, aggressive, imaginative and ambitious move very quickly, while maintaining a high in all the crucial efficiencies, we shall be waiting till China finishes building all the industrial factories the world needs and who knows when.  We seriously have to compete, albeit in a friendly and healthy way, with China now to attract FDI. 

As this letter goes to press, a report just came in that the Chinese Economy is about to crash land because of a flawed banking system that is in a tailspin and meltdown.  The analysis making the news round is that the economic miracle is about to be dubbed the economic mirage and that this would take the Chinese government time to correct.  This is our time and we have a very little window of opportunity, and like the eagle, we should strike with precise and incisive force and pick up a lot of FDI.  To be able to do that we need a more comprehensive strategy and plan than NEEDS.

Also, we have to stop the current privatization process till we have an AMP.  I am not against privatization.  In fact, I am an ardent free marketer but non-neoliberal.  However, the way we are going about the privatization is very wrong-headed and primitive.  The focus is mainly on getting the best price, the government out of the way and putting an end to the patronage culture.  That is very important.  However, there are other factors that should come into play, which I very much doubt are being considered. 

A social issue that is confronting us today is that of the existence of significant gender disparities.  Sir, any New Nigeria without equality for and integration of women enshrined in its body politic is not worth much.  It is now a well-documented fact that women, especially in developing countries, are critical to economic development, active civil society, and good governance.  Yet there are segments of our society in which women are suppressed.  I wish those whiners I mentioned earlier would have a rally to protest about that than bother the economy.  We are talking about poverty alleviation and have refused to understand that gender equality plays a critical role in reducing poverty.  It is well known that educating women yields higher returns than educating men.  For example, children gain more from an increase in their mother’s education than from the equivalent increase in their father’s.   Educating mothers would go a long way towards lowering child mortality rates, promoting better birth outcomes and weights, and bettering child nutrition, and guaranteeing earlier and long schooling for children.  

In a 1999 World Bank study it was stated that numerous behavioral studies have found women to be more trust-worthy and public-spirited than men. These results suggest that women should be particularly effective in promoting honest government. Consistent with this hypothesis, it was found that the greater the representation of women in parliament, the lower the level of corruption.  It was a Russian political scientist who stated that women rarely succumb to authoritarian styles of behavior and prefer not to maintain the sort of expensive entourage which often accompanies high-placed (male) officials. Finally, the presence of women in the higher echelons of the hierarchical structures exercises an extremely positive influence on the behavior of their male colleagues by restraining, disciplining and elevating the latters’ behavior."

I agree with that.  And I know you can agree with that when you watch the performance and productivity of the fine and exemplary women in your administration:  Nenadi Usman, Oby Ezekwesili, Dora Akunyili, Remi Oyo and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. Sir, please watch Ifueko Omoigui and see what gives.  You shall not be disappointed.  Show these you appreciate what they are doing for the nation.  It would energize the women folk to make even greater sacrifices.  Sir, stoke the political base the good Lord has given you.  These women believe in you and they are prepared to pay any price for the sake of this country.  Stop waiting around for these perennial and compulsive complainers, underachieving whiners who have refused to do much with the little they have been given.  Please, set a timetable for the women folk to achieve a quota on federal civil service positions to 50%.

I now come to the spiritual part.  A lot of people are going to go crazy on this.  I would ask them to hold their fire.  If they are not satisfied with the following then they should contact true prophets and not court prophets.  They should keep in mind the story in 1st Kings 22.  Approximately a year ago, God sent a divine force into this nation with an operational mandate:  Endless Justice.  I do not intend to go into much detail, except that this force packs a deadly punch and would not pull any punch when it initiates action.  This was the force akin to that sent into South Africa.  F.W. de Clerk and his white cronies were wise and smart enough to relinquish power and vacate the political space and Nelson Mandela and the blacks were magnanimous in their forgiveness, else that force would have wreaked a havoc in the midst of the whites.  It was something spiritual that most people, except the true prophets, could not see.  Now, this divine force is here with us unannounced and is waiting for a time and a decision before it engages.  Please Sir, you would do well to respect and co-operate with this divine force for he is on your side.  At stake is the New Nigeria, which is for the lifting of the African Continent, and that is all I am permitted by the Almighty God to say!

Sir, the Good Lord would have me offer you a pathway to this New Nigeria.  It follows:

1. Select four All-Nigerians from each state for a total of 144 All-Nigerians by end of 1st week in July.  Each tribe and nation of this country should be represented.  They must be 50-50 SMART and educated men and women.
2. Out of the 144, form an Economy Management Team (EMT).  The following must at least be included – Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Charlie Soludo, Oby Ezekwesili, Nasir El-Rufai, Nenadi Usman, Ifueko Omoigui.
3. Have this All-Nigerian Team come up with an AMP for the New Nigeria by a date not exceeding mid October.
4. These All-Nigerians must determine who stays or vacates the political space.
5. Call for a vote in November for all Nigerians to accept the AMP.
6. Prepare to transition to the New Nigeria by 2007.

The Good Lord searched you out to rule Nigeria and do the above because of the way you handled the transition to the 2nd Republic.  God, the Great I AM, said he allowed your imprisonment and near death experience so as to form a deep sense of purpose in you as regards the divine mandate he was about to give you.

The AMP for the New Nigeria has to be designed and created outside this country away from the negative influence of all the ethno-geographic entrepreneurs and soon to be old-order politicians.  Hence, please get someone to find and negotiate a country where the 144 would sit and hash out a New Nigeria.  First, the Economy Management Team must visit 3 countries, which I do not care to name now, so as get a first hand view and knowledge of the economy in those countries and to form a bond with their leaders, builders and managers who would lend a helping hand to them.  Then they meet up with others in a final destination where the AMP would be hashed out.  Remember, AMP has all of the following components:  Political, Economic and Social.

Sir, the person so appointed must have the all it takes to convince all the four countries host the Economy Management Team and the rest 144 expenses paid.  It is doable.  All the Federal Government has to pay is for a secured chartered flight to the host countries.  If the person cannot get you this bargain then do not even try to pay attention to any of the suggestions and recommendations of this letter.  It would be all lies.

One more incentive for you to act on the recommendations of this letter:  after an AMP is announced and before Nigerians vote on it, the EMT must promise to deliver the following:

1. $17 billion in debt forgiveness.
2. $7 billion in trade credits
3. $4 billion seeding grant to lay a foundation for two petrochemical clusters each with a world class seaport, one in Ondo State and the other in Akwa-Ibom State.
4. $5 billion dollars cash raised from pure speculation on the New Nigeria.

How shall this be?  If the above first test passes this one would too.  It should be very easy says the Good Lord.

Finally, Sir, I want to live in a country where I can call the now troubled Jalingo my peaceful home town; where a little girl from Oroworukwo shall one day be the President of Nigeria; where a man originally from Ilesha decides to start a high-tech firm in Illela and calls that home; where a Kanuri-born woman who happens to be married to an Ibo man becomes the Governor of Abia State.  It is not being naïve.  It is achievable.  That is the New Nigeria, the All-Nigerians are craving and would die for.  We cannot wait!

Most finally, Sir, please the only way you can get all Nigerians to commit to this with great excitement and anticipation is to think outside the box and move to make a paradigm shift.  The good Lord would have me tell you he shall bless your legacy forever if you do this.  

Baba, you are about to make history!  It should be your choice. Usher in the Eagle Economy and not the Crab Economy.  The Golden Future, The Promise of Our New Generation, Must Start Now.  We Cannot Wait!