Open letter to President Buhari on new social order

I write with the highest sense of humility and respect for your exalted and prestigious office. I am constrained to make open my message to you for the singular reason of having no other way for me to reach your person even if I am in the country. The rationale behind this letter emanated from a question – “how can you transform Nigeria as a Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) foreign scholar”, which the team leader, Chief Uchenna Ufearoh of TETFund’s visitation panel asked during a meeting with usTETFund scholars at Eastern Mediterranean University (EMU), Famagusta, North Cyprus, Turkey, on October 15. On a new social order for Nigerians, from my experience in the country and other parts of the world, the attitude of many Nigerians towards others and the nation at large is unpatriotic. Growing up in Igboho, Oyo State, we were taught to be trustworthy, humble, selfless, deferential, patriotic and, above all, absolutely believe in God. Nigerians at home and in the diaspora, especially through globalization, portray social disorder. The disorderliness has eroded our founding fathers’ national values, beliefs and ideals; customs, traditions, dignity, respect, and patriotism.

Sir, permit me to remind you what social order entails. The term ‘social order’ can be seen in two senses. In the first sense, it refers to a particular set or system of linked social structures, institutions, relations, customs, values and practices which conserve, maintain and enforce certain patterns of relating and behaving. Examples are the ancient, the feudal, and the capitalist social order. In the second sense, social order is contrasted to social chaos or disorder and refers to a stable state of society in which the existing social structure is accepted and maintained by its members. I write on the urgent need to chart a new social order for Nigerians. This will re-orientate, reform and refine minds of Nigerians at home and abroad on national unity, economy, patriotism, security against social vices bedevilling the country. To have a new breed of Nigerian youths and politicians, the new social order is sacrosanct and in dire need OF being initiated by the presidency in conjunction with National Orientation Agency (NOA) and the Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports Development. The proposed national reorientation will educate the youths that Nigeria was never this bad before they were born and they should never think the ugly trends are inheritable norms of the land.

Mr. President Sir, I refer to Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s rejection of the invitation by former President Ibrahim Babangida soliciting his contribution at a National Political Debate on how to chart New Social Order (NSO) for Nigeria in 1986. President Babangida, in his good intention for the country, had promised to enthrone an NSO by doing away with the politics of the past, bringing in new breed politicians and changing the political landscape. In response to IBB’s request, Pa Awolowo wrote: “Dear Sir, I received your letter of February 28, 1986, and sincerely thank you for doing me the honour of inviting me to contribute to the National Political Debate. The purpose of the debate is to clarify our thoughts in our search for a new social order. It is, therefore, meet and proper that all those who have something to contribute should do so. I do fervently and will continue fervently to pray that I may be proved wrong. For something within me tells me, loud and clear, that we have embarked on a fruitless search. At the end of the day, when we imagine that the new order is here, we would be terribly disappointed. In other words, at the threshold of our New Social Order, we would see for ourselves that, as long as Nigerians remain what they are, nothing clean, principled, ethical, and idealistic can work with them. And Nigerians will remain what they are, unless the evils which now dominate their hearts, at all levels and in all sectors of our political, business and governmental activities are exorcised. But I venture to assert that they will not be exorcised, and indeed they will be firmly entrenched, unless God Himself imbues a vast majority of us with a revolutionary change of attitude to life and politics or, unless the dialectic processes which have been at work for some twenty years now, perforce, make us perceive the abominable filth that abounds in our society, to the end that an inexorable abhorrence of it will be quickened in our hearts and impel us to make drastic changes for the better. There is, of course, an alternative option open to us. To succumb to permanent social instability and chaos. On      the premises, I beg to decline your invitation. I am yours truly, Obafemi Awolowo.”

Though the letter is over three decades now, the message remains fresh and profound in its postulations according to the following quote: ‘‘…. as long as Nigerians remain what they are, nothing clean, principled, ethical, and idealistic can work with them. And Nigerians will remain what they are unless the evils which now dominate their hearts, at all levels and in all sectors of our political, business and governmental activities are exorcised’’. Mr President, after 33 years, the quote portrays the personality of Nigerians in politics, business, and government. From the 33 years of no NSO, Nigerians’ uncultured attitudes cum social vices have painted the country black in the face of the world. If the country still believes in the old social order which culminated in the genesis of instabilities in successive governments since January 1966 coups, then the handwriting is clear. Without a new social order, in three to four decades, the country will find it hard to sustain peaceful coexistence among its over 250 ethnic groups.

• Alao, a Senior Lecturer in Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo, is a Ph.D student in the Department of Economics, Eastern Mediterranean University (EMU), Turkey.