My dear President, I am sure that when you see the heading of this piece, what will immediately come to your mind is that this is a citizen who is probably out to complain about the handling of the COVID 19 pandemic and the ancillary issue of palliatives. This is not my concern here, sir.
You may also think that I am a party heavy weight whose name has been omitted among the recent list of career and non-career ambassadors sent to the Senate for confirmation and I wish to complain to you about how I, my tribe, my senatorial district and my state have been marginalized and how you should correct it in subsequent appointments now that I have accepted my unfortunate fate with philosophical calmness.
Although I long to be an ambassador, I did not angle to be one so I am not entirely surprised that my name is not found among this current batch.
Sir, my concern here is with something I heard my community say of you which, due to my love for you, I wish you get to hear about and do something urgently about it because it is not complimentary to you at all.
Three months ago, before the lockdown came into effect, I went home to my community, Bekwarra LGA in northern CRS. Sir, having served as commander in the Army Barracks in Ogoja sometime after the war, you must know Bekwarra. Bekwarra was carved out as an LGA from Ogoja in 1996.
While at home and in the course of a conversation, I was told that Bekwarra has not had electricity supply since the second coming of Buhari in 2015. Since that month of your inauguration till now, light has not twinkled even for a minute throughout the length of breadth of Bekwarraland. This historical fact, I say, is not good for your image at all.
This is what my people will describe as being in bad history. That is, a person’s name is associated with a bad occurrence whether he is guilty or not. But the fact remains that since you came in, my good people of Bekwarra have had no electricity supply and an overwhelming majority of the people do not know what is wrong and they do not want to know whether it is just an ugly coincidence or a deliberate act of sabotage to give your government a bad name among a people who love you.
Your Excellency, the Bekwarra people love you and have done you an honour which you know not but which I will bring to your attention and possible appreciation now. Like most communities of the South-South and South East of our country, the Bekwarra people conduct their socio-political affairs through the age grade system.
Each age grade comes into being when young men of between ages 13 and 15 come together to form an age grade. They then name their age grade after an important social, political, economic or natural phenomenon of great significance.
Incidentally, in 1983 during your first coming as head of state, a historic event touching on you happened. In my own immediate community, Gakem village, where the Nigerian-Biafran Civil War in which you played a prominent role first started, a group of young men who were of the age of majority came together and formed an age grade called Buhari Age Grade which is still in existence till today and which will, forever, immortalize you.
For when the history of Bekwarra is told, mention will always be made to the Buhari Age Grade. The group was named after you because its members admire your typhoonic entrance on the national scene and your tough decision to cleanse Nigeria and make her a better place for all to live in. A people who do not admire or adore you will not name themselves the Buhari Age Grade.
Sir, this people who admire you so much are, ironically, the people that are now in darkness since your second coming. This is not right at all. And I solicit you to do something about it so that the Buhari Age mates will not begin to think they made a terrible mistake in naming themselves after you, their icon. If you will not do it for the sake of the entire Bekwarra people, do it for the sake of Buhari Age Grade of Bekwarraland!
My President, the Hon. Minister of State for Power, Mr. Goddy Jedy Agba, is from a community that is the immediate neighbours to the Bekwarra people. He therefore knows and can confirm what I am saying here concerning the plight of Bekwarra people. Sir, dispatch this brother of ours to go back home and ensure that within one week, electricity is restored to his brothers and sisters in Bekwarra.
Sir, to use the language of the times, ‘quarantine’ him there for only one week and order him to do whatever it will take for light to be restored to Bekwarra before he gets back to Abuja.
Sir, as he himself must have informed you already, Goddy Jedy-Agba unfortunately lost his mother a few weeks ago. In the language/culture of our people, that is a ‘big burial’ in which the Bekwarra people will feature prominently when Mama is to be buried. A week of presidential quarantine at home there will, therefore, do Jedy Agba a world of good. It will enable him to also prepare very well for Mama’s burial while he attends to the great need of his Bekwarra brethren.
The taking of electricity by ‘NEPA’ which started like a joke, a happenstance one month after your swearing-in was not restored in one year, in two years, in three years, in four years. No, it has now entered the fifth year and looks set to continue through to 2023 and even beyond!
It is no longer a joke or a mere coincidence. The Bekwarra peope are firmly convinced that there is something beyond the ordinary in this matter. Reassure them that you have heard their cry through me.
With the absence of light Bekwarra people have been valiantly running their lives on a generator economy since 2015. This has brought untold hardship on the people. I have a personal ugly experience to relate. Because of the absence of public electricity supply in Bekwarra, the people now have to go to Ogoja, Obudu, neighbouring Vandeikya or Adikpo in Benue state or in extreme cases, to Abakaliki in Ebonyi state, to get some services.
A few months back when I sawed wood from my farm and needed to get it further sawed into some furniture patterns, I had to take my wood to Ogoja. On the way, I suffered under Pontius Pilate. Police will harass and extort you; soldiers mounting road block will harass and extort you; VIO people will harass and extort you; Road Safety will take turn to harass and extort you; Ayade’s anti-deforestation task force will harass and extort you and when you get to Ogoja, agberos will surround your vehicle and harass and extort you.
Citizens have to bear all these just because they have no light in their own community.
Sir, I am very concerned about your image in the eyes of my Bekwarra people because this people are a very poetic people. They easily compose folk songs and churn out proverbs out of situations that try their souls or things they feel very strongly about.
A popular political folk song they composed about the politics of pre-Independent, 1959 national elections to usher in Independence and the First Republic, is still avidly song today. My people were in the former Eastern Region headed by the great Zik but loved Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s AG because of its promise of free education. They, therefore, sang a song entitled I Wish Somebody Can turn Awolowo to Zik.
The lyrics of this song has become proverbial and it is used in a variety of circumstances and situations over 60 years after. I do not want a wag in Bekwarra to coin a saying thus: “Neighbour, since Buhari came to power, have you seen light?’’
You are not seeking re-election but your eyes should permanently be focused on your place in history. If the above mocking saying is uttered from mouth to mouth, it will become indelibly etched on the memory or sub-conscious of hearers. Let it not be said that Buhari came and took Bekwarra light and never returned it until he left.
A week after this letter is ‘posted’ to you, I will call my friend Femi Adeshina who is your Special Adviser, Media and Publicity, to ask if you have read my letter and if so, what the response to it is.
Idang Alibi is an Abuja based journalist.
