Thursday, January 10, 2013

Passionate Appeal To South South and South East Governors: Need to relocate your (our) people from the North (Wrote this in the thick of the Boko Haram slaugtering)

Passionate Appeal To South South and South East Governors: Need to relocate your (our) people from the North

by Ena Ofugara on Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 2:18pm ·

We are under attack! there is no gainsaying this. Our (your) people are being slaughtered weekly. It has been bad for decades and for the flimsiest of reasons... Ahmahdu Bello and Tafawa balewa being stoned in the Lagos, Iraq being attacked, Afghanistan being attacked, Eclipse, GEJ winning election, you name it. Ojukwu saw this a long time ago and reacted by declaring The republic of Biafra. The reasons for Biafra are still extant today and even more so. However, for this not to be a call to break up Nigeria, which will make this a call to treason, I have decided to water it down so as to be lawful and legal (That is not saying in my heart of heart, I do not wish for a break up of Nigeria.)

Maybe I need to remind you of the primary reason for government. It is  to secure lives and property. Thus the life and property of every single one of our people, wherever they are, is your primary objective.

The situation in the North is of utmost concern. I don't know how you can be quiet and let your people be killed at the slightest or even no provocation. You have never called the governors of the states to answer for the crimes against your people. you have never tasked these chief security officers of the respective states and asked for an end to it or to at the least pay compensation to the families. Like ostriches, you have hid your heads under the sand wishing away the clear and present danger...a danger that refuses to go away and if anything, getting worse and worse.

The dreaded Boko Haram have issued an ultimatum to your people to leave the North and not one of you have addressed this threat. Not one of your Northern governors have assured of the safety of your people yet I see no action on your part. I thought for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction? Where is your reaction?

Should we continue to rely on the Federal Government and a biased police force (a lot of whom are Boko Haram themselves) to protect our people? Is there nothing we can do? I say there is.

You must as of this instant create a "ministry for resettlement". We must now encourage our people to come home.

I do not say this would be an easy task. But nothing good comes easy. I hereby make bold to suggest a modus operandi.

Each state has a liaison office in every state and the citizens have associations like Abia State Residents of Bornu etc. You went there or at least sent representatives there to campaign for you. It is time to ask them to make a full inventory of your citizens in each state. such inventory must state age, qualification, occupation etc. You will be surprised that the medical personnel your state so needs is right there in another state, which ordinarily wouldn't be so bad, except he may be slaughtered in the next mayhem. It is time to bring them home.

Having taken the inventory, your commissioner for lands and building etc must as of today build low cost apartments in large numbers. in six months, if you are serious, and the usual government laxity and recklessness is not a factor, you would have enough houses to act as stop gap settlements and after a year, they can vacate or begin paying for them. I am certain this could be made into "new towns" of tax payers and good citizens.

Those who are qualified to be teachers etc must be gainfully employed. Market stall must be made for the traders as well. This cannot cost your governments too much. It  will bring you goodwill as these people and their relatives will be eternally grateful for practically saving their lives...as this is what this essentially is...saving lives.

for those who refuse to return, you can continue to prevail on the state governors to guarantee their safety and to pay compensation should harm come to any of them. However, it is my belief that what they went to the North to do is to make a living and should that be guaranteed, even if it is to a lesser degree, most will come back home.

It is time to show the people you care.

Yours sincerely

Ena Ofugara

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