Dear Professor Ibrahim Gambari CFR,
I write this piece with a heavy heart; my mind is troubled with the current happenings in our dear country. Prof Sir, I specifically write to you because of the high respect I have for you, and indeed with the hope that our dear president would listen to you as his close and trusted friend.
No doubt, the current administration has tried on infrastructural developments most especially in the transportation and aviation sectors, despite the downturns in the oil industry globally.
However, there are many issues people are grumbling about in the effort to ensure the socioeconomic stability of the country. Let me start by the most recent government decisions that are directly going to affect the ordinary Nigerians drastically:
1.The increase in the fuel pump price to N151.56 per litre.
2. Increase in electricity tariff
Sir, the president needs to be informed that these decisions shouldn’t have been his priority for now; or at least that the timing is absolutely wrong considering the economic hardship that many Nigerians are currently subjected to.
Sir, in case the president is away from the Nigerian reality, kindly remind him that the current price of local rice is over N23,000 and that of foreign rice about N27,000. To talk less of other cereals; apparently the price of everything is skyrocketing at the speed of light.
Perhaps, the 30,000 tons of maize the president ordered for release from the federal reserved to feed poultry should have been distributed to the Nigerian masses, because there is so much hunger in the land.
In addition to all these, Sir, as an experienced academician, and I am glad to call you Professor, perhaps, the first professor to hold this subtle position if my memory of Nigeria’s history post republic serves me well, the current situation between the federal government and Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) should not be happening under your watch. After their salary was withheld for several months, followed by their forceful enrolment into the controversial IPPIS, again the same salary is withheld currently indefinitely.
KHALID GARBA MOHAMMED
