The following is this column’s version of the Inaugural Address that many of us would want to hear. When their final copy is delivered tomorrow from the Eagle Square’s bullet-proof pulpit, with an invitation-only crowd, we shall compare and contrast points congruent or divergent between this draft and their final version. Here goes:
Fellow Nigerians!
Two attributes have always been faithful to me: Luck and Patience. The first is intrinsically me, the second my second. Whoever is gifted with these two things has been infinitely blessed. They may still come in handy in 2015, perhaps beyond. To God be the glory!
I must thank you all for the support you gave us during the elections. Thank you North-Central and South-South; thank you South-East and South-West. And lest I forget, thank you also North West and North East. All your votes, the ones you willingly gave us and the ones we appropriated and expropriated, have given us hope that this country shall be better for all of us.
As I hand over to myself today, let us observe a minute’s silence in memory of all those who were killed to help get us here or to block us from reaching here. As for those corps members, we are angry with those that did them in, but we are much angrier with those politicians who compromised them to partake in what they were allegedly found to have partaken in. Those compromisers shall be doubly punished! And as for those other poor folk who were also killed, Five Million Naira Per Murdered is coming as National Compensation.
The violence in some states, I have been well briefed, occurred due to the directionless of that the great danger facing the elite in the North, Almajiris; a collective term for all the ten million or so young boys who have been unleashed on the society. These Almajiris, I am told, are almost all the children of poor rural peasants who have been trafficked to the cities due to the poverty and irresponsibility of their parents, as well as the insensitivity and lack of foresight, hindsight and current-sight of the region’s leaders.
We have already spent billions of Nigeria on Niger Delta youth, many of whom are now abroad learning useful life skills. Northern leaders have almost always only paid lip service to the important social crisis that the Almajiris portend. Now the Federal Government says enough is enough! The Almajiris must be rehabilitated. Every Northern governor must return home all his state’s Almajiris who are in other states, so that we can take an effective census and plan what to do with, or to, them.
Compatriots, the railway is by far the most efficient means of transporting humans and materials. One mistake my predecessor made was in the cancelling of the Lagos to Kano standard gauge dual carriageway rail system initiated by his own predecessor. True, the price at $8.3 billion was astronomical; true, it was found that at least $1 billion was over-invoiced. But had my predecessor been well advised, he would have used that extra $1 billion to extend the line from Kano to his own hometown. Alas! How I wish I can reinstate that contract; sadly, your governors and I have shared the excess crude funds we could have used to finance it. But we will continue the current rehabilitation of the old lines.
Coming to energy, you may have heard new talk of a national gas pipeline from Calabar via Ajaokuta to Kano, as part of the National Gas Plan we recently unveiled. A Public Private Partnership is been put in place to ensure that gas is piped to all the states of the country. At relevant places along the pipeline, there shall be spurs that will take the gas to other parts. Related to this is the matter of power. Gas-powered power projects can then take off in earnest when gas starts to flow. And let me assure you, fellow Nigerians, that we shall commence work on the Mambilla Hydro Electricity project next week.
Security, without doubt, will be one the greatest challenges this ‘new’ Administration shall face. Over the past years, lives and property of the majority of our citizens have been taken for granted. We all have witnessed how our innocent citizens are being killed and maimed daily, through the lackadaisical attitude of our so-called security agencies. Sometimes agents of such agencies themselves are being accused of doing the killings. This must stop!
On the matter of oil exploration, our neighbours in the Lake Chad Basin, (Chad, Cameroon, Sudan and Niger Republic) have struck oil in commercial quantities. We are very confident our part of the basin is also rich. Therefore, I am happy to announce that we shall this year begin exploration in our part of this basin. We are confident that in a couple of years we shall strike oil in commercial quantity. And we shall soon begin laying a pipeline from the source to Kaduna Refinery so that the crude will be refined there.
Fellow Nigerians, on the economy, this nation suffered almost irreparable damage twenty five years ago with the unreasonable devaluation of our currency. Devaluation of the Naira brought about brain drain and 419. The blind pursuit of foreign currency occasioned by that devaluation caused massive economic and social calamities in our country. Devaluation brought about the massive corruption that has made Nigerians hide their heads in shame. The Naira must be restored to its glory. I shall soon direct the Governor of the Central Bank to immediately begin the process of re-denominating the Naira to be at par with the Dollar, if not the Euro.
Further, social security system shall be put in place, with emphasis on the rural areas. Citizens who want to benefit from the planned social security system must be ready to return to their villages, and back to the land. We hope by this to help the real poor, and make agriculture a trade of pride for all able-bodied men and women. And for those who want to eat imported rice, they should be ready to import the rice growers to grow it here, or help mill our local rice to compete.
On the matter of corruption, we shall fight it frontally and sideways and from behind; for it is corruption that makes us all sleep in darkness and that makes us pay through our noses for services which go very cheap in other countries. It is corruption that made us what we are: a sorry people in a sorry situation. Therefore, for corruption and other crimes such as international and local drug trafficking, pushing and dealing, as well as rape, we are going to ask the National Assembly to legislate capital punishment. Kawai!
Once again, welcome to Eagle Square! Good luck Nigeria, good luck to me!
