19/10/2025
OPEN LETTER TO
His Excellency Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR
President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria
The State House (A*o Rock Villa)
Yakubu Gowon Crescent, A*okoro
Abuja, Federal Capital Territory, Nigeria
Cc:
The Clerk, National Assembly of the Federal Republic of Nigeria
Three Arms Zone
Abuja, Federal Capital Territory, Nigeria
By Chief Olawale Ojoge-Daniel
Barrister, Solicitor & Legal Consultant
B.Sc. (Politics-Philosophy-Economics), LLB (Hons), B.L.
Oct 19 2025
THE PARADOX OF GOVERNANCE AND POVERTY AMIDST ABUNDANT RESOURCES IN NIGERIA
A PREDICTION ON THE IMMINENT REJECTION OF A FAILED STATE AND ITS CONSTITUTIONAL ILLUSION
1. Introduction: Goodwill That Never Dies
Immanuel Kant once declared that the only thing which does not die is goodwill. It is goodwill — the moral force of leadership, the honest desire to serve — that etches names in history.
In Nigeria’s annals, one man embodies that truth: **Obafemi Jeremiah Oyeniyi Awolowo, SAN, MCFR. He passed away on 9 May 1987 — that is now thirty-eight (38) years ago.
Internationally recognised as one of Africa’s most visionary and intellectually disciplined leaders, Awolowo’s legacy of free education, welfare policy, and disciplined governance continues to be studied worldwide — by universities in the United Kingdom, the United States, and across Africa.
Before oil wealth entered Nigeria’s economy (oil was discovered in 1956 at Oloibiri), Awolowo effected change through vision, discipline and prudent management of limited resources.
As the only Nigerian political office-holder who voluntarily resigned his post (as Federal Commissioner for Finance under General Yakubu Gowon), he stands primus inter pares, non secondum — first among equals, second to none.
Mr President, you have in your hands an opportunity to leave your name written in gold. The task is simple: warm yourself into the hearts of poor Nigerians by adopting genuine policies that restore hope, rekindle faith and touch lives. True greatness lies not in power held, but in the comfort brought to the powerless.
2. Philosophical Diagnosis of State Failure
Socrates insisted that “an unexamined life is not worth living.” Aristotle warned that “poverty is the mother of crime and revolution.” These maxims mirror Nigeria’s reality: a country sliding into governance as genocide in slow motion.
Every sector has collapsed. The health-system, once emblematic of national aspiration, lies in ruins. Political office-holders, wealthy clergy inclusive, fly abroad for treatment, while their vulnerable followers languish in under-funded hospitals or prayer camps. They are shielded by DSS, soldiers and gun-wielding officers — while the masses are shielded only by prayers, blood of Jesus and broken promises.
We witnessed a former president die abroad — an ultimate shame, an indictment of institutional failure. Money has become the exclusive privilege of politicians and cronies. The masses — the true beneficiaries of governance — are taxed, extorted and exploited by the very system meant to serve them. This is not governance: it is a betrayal of the social contract, the erosion of humanity, and a crime against the people’s collective destiny.
3. Symbols of Fake Empowerment
Politicians hand out “okada” (motor-bikes) as pseudo empowerment. But for every rider, passenger, passer-by, there is daily loss of life from preventable accidents. What should have been a symbol of employment has become an instrument of destruction.
Our future mothers — young women educated or not — are being forced into prostitution because government has abandoned them. With no jobs, no social safety-nets, no hope, dignity becomes a luxury. Government, which by doctrine of the social contract should act in loco parentis, has abdicated. It offers oppression instead of care; exploitation instead of protection. A nation that fails to nurture its people plants seeds of its own destruction.
4. A Constitution Built to Fail
The 1999 Constitution (and its predecessors) may masquerade as democratic charters, but they carry the DNA of autocracy. At their heart lies Chapter II: The Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy, which affirms in Section 14(2)(b) that:
“The security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government.”
Yet the same Constitution contains Section 6(6)(c), which states:
“The judicial powers… shall not extend to any issue or question as to whether any act of a political nature… has been carried out in accordance with the provisions of Chapter II.”
That single ouster clause renders Chapter II promises non-justiciable — the judiciary is constitutionally shackled; the people have rights only on paper. This is institutionalised injustice. The social contract is broken.
5. Electoral Democracy, Not Democratic Governance
What Nigeria practices is electoral ritualism, not governance. Every four years, millions queue to elect their next oppressor. Ballots change hands; hunger remains. Power rotates among the rich; pain remains permanent for the poor. True democracy empowers people; ours empowers only politicians.
As long as Section 6(6)(c) stands, failure by government is legally unpunishable. Injustice is constitutionalised; accountability is optional.
6. Democracy’s Empty Boast vs Welfare Reality
We chant, “Democracy is good,” yet in Africa it often means hunger, chaos and impunity. Contrast: In the era of Muammar Gaddafi (for all his faults), Libya delivered free electricity, free water (via the Great Man-Made River Project), free education, free healthcare. Nigeria, though rich in oil and resources, delivers the opposite: decaying schools, tariffed water, epileptic power. If democracy results in suffering, then what we have is a democracy of deceit.
7. Root Diagnosis: “Survival of the Fittest”
State failure has devolved into Darwinian struggle. Corruption is no longer vice — it is survival. The architecture of the Constitution protects elite privilege and punishes the masses by omission. But a reckoning looms.
8. Prescription for Urgent Constitutional & Governance Reform
A. Constitutional Amendments
Repeal or amend Section 6(6)(c); insert an Enforceability Clause making welfare, health, education and security justiciable.
Introduce Mandatory Post-Office Stewardship: former Presidents/Governors must publish audited performance reports within 6 months; failure triggers criminal accountability.
Require minimum educational/competence thresholds for elective/appointive offices ("Nemo dat quod non habet").
B. Anti-Corruption & Accountability
Criminalise high-level corruption as capital or life-imprisonment offence (with due-process).
Establish independent corruption tribunals and automatic asset-forfeiture laws.
Make public service a true stewardship, not a spoils system.
C. Political & Administrative Reforms
Demonetise politics: pay legislators modest sitting-allowances; executives paid at civil-service ceiling; transparent campaign finance.
Prohibit office-holders from sending dependants abroad for education or themselves abroad for treatment while public alternatives remain unfit.
President to send the Executive Bill to the National Assembly implementing these reforms.
D. Social & Economic Justice
Criminalise exploitative begging; establish homes for street-vulnerable, disabled and homeless.
Guarantee universal services: social security, child-support, free primary education and health.
Create national affordable-housing and mortgage system (UK-style).
Conduct a genuine nationwide census; integrate NIN as basis for welfare benefits.
Scrap derivation formula & federal character quotas; replace with principle of “Equality of Rights to Social Security.”
E. Correctional & Civic Reform
Reform prisons into productive enterprises (mechanised farming, skills training, mining).
Introduce National Civic Service Corps for youth: world-class, stipend-driven, skill-based.
9. Moral Appeal: Leave Your Name in Gold
Mr President: History does not remember wealth; it remembers good names. Awolowo lives today because of integrity, not inheritance. Gaddafi is studied because he made people the purpose of governance. You, too, may live in history’s heart — if you choose justice over politics.
10. The Choice Before History
John F. Kennedy warned:
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable.”
If you push a people beyond endurance, silence becomes act of war. A nation denied justice will eventually enforce it on its own terms.
Nigeria’s salvation lies not in another election but in a constitutional rebirth — a People’s Constitution that restores enforceable rights. Until Chapter II becomes binding and Section 6(6)(c) repealed, democracy remains a legalized illusion: government of the elite, by the elite, and for the elite.
A new generation is rising. They will not beg or plead; they will command. They will not ask for permission to live; they will fight to exist.
May history show that the signs were clear, the warnings loud and our silence the greater sin.
For posterity and the generations yet unborn, I submit this open letter — not as an act of political opposition, but as a moral summons to leadership, stewardship and the good-will that never dies.
Respectfully submitted,
Chief Olawale Ojoge-Daniel
Barrister, Solicitor & Legal Consultant.
Advocate of good governance and social crusader.
CEO: OJOGE-DANIEL FOUNDATION FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AND CONFLICT MEDIATION.
