Good morning, Mr President. I have chosen to address the statements of three Nigerians, namely, Sheik Ahmad Gumi, Nyesom Wike, and Omoyele Sowore. Their statements are critical to state policy, and you should take note of this, please.

Recently, I watched Mr Nyesom Wike, Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in the televised flagging off construction of roads in FCT and on Channels Television’s Politics Today, anchored by Seun Okinbaloye.

In the conversation with Seun, the interviewer, one particular stream of thought struck me, that is, that Mr Sowore is lucky that he can insult the president get away scot free, in an allusion to Sowore’s unsavory qualification of you as “criminal” in an August 25 tweet: “This criminal @officialpbat actually went to Brazil to state that there is no more corruption under his regime in Nigeria. What audacity to lie shamelessly!”

As a result, the Department of State Services filed criminal charges against Sowore for defamation, accusing him of using “false” statements that breach Nigeria’s Cybercrimes and Terrorism Prevention laws. The DSS went further to request that social media platforms X and Meta remove the tweet perceived as a threat to national security and public order. The Minister, playing the role of a proxy defender in public, said that Sowore was lucky that Mr President respects the rule of law. In his words, “But here, anybody can wake up in the morning and abuse the President, and we are happy. You are lucky you have a President who believes in the rule of law. You are lucky. Continue to be lucky. There are those you will meet that you won’t be lucky again.”

Mr President, my understanding of Wike’s statement is a call to you to lift the cold fingers of state on Sowore as practiced by the famous Latin American caudillos, in the era of rabid military dictatorship, as the Haitian Duvalier and his Tonton Macoute fit into what you are being egged on to do.  Mr President, you know the fate of all dictators. What became of Idi-Amin, Mengistu Haile Mariam, Siad Barre, Samuel Doe, and a host of others? In those instances, the state incarnated in Nietzschean essentiality as “the coldest of all cold monsters”. As always, dictators have never triumphed over the people who are the ultimate judges. As the eternal repository of sovereignty, they made a mess of them.

Mr President, the state is a social contract with the governed. Learn from Jonathan, who bore every insult with equanimity, and even to date, President Jonathan’s spouse’s statements are the butt of jokes all over the world. It has not undermined their worth; rather, it has increased their respectability in the eyes of the public, typifying tolerance. Please run from the evil counsel of those around you. When you constrict the freedom of speech in the arrogance of power, you kill democracy.

Those who choose public life should not be afraid of public censure. You have gone through the worst times in the past. Dissent, not insurrection, is of the essence of democratic practice. That is why the parliamentary system accommodates a statutory opposition leader who exemplifies the principle of loyal opposition, defending the interests of the state rather than of interim wielders of state power.

Intriguingly, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, an outspoken Moslem cleric, has been interfacing with terrorists, some euphemistically refer to them as “bandits.”

You once called this cleric an emissary of peace for his “peace” shuttle. Recently, some discontents emerged from his statements. These are: one, comparing the terrorists in the northwest with the militants in the Niger-Delta, who should be accorded amnesty and rehabilitation. Two that the Nigerian state should not rupture the peace agreement purportedly entered into by communities at the receiving end with armed terrorists. Three, issuing a warning to a sovereign state of consequences if the terrorists are held accountable.

On point number one, his statement is the most warped and self-serving argument I have ever heard from a commentator. Terrorists perpetrating brazen killings, territorial aggrandisement, and ethnical profiling of the indigenous Hausa people of northern Nigeria should be given the Niger-Delta treatment without accountability. Niger-Delta militants have been struggling for self-determination to access their God-given resources.

It is the oil and gas of the Niger-Delta that a skewed Nigerian federation is free-riding, sustaining the indolence of the hegemonic northern elite to the detriment of their people. The illogic goes to confirm the viewpoint of the presence of a collaborating elite who are shielding the terrorists from the long arm of the law.

It is refreshing to hear a dissenting view from Shehu Sani, who noted that “Bandits who have killed thousands, kidnapped innocent people, and raped women should not be rewarded with dialogue. They should be prosecuted or outrightly (sic) eliminated. Dialogue may give victims temporary relief, but it will never end the menace.”

Points two and three overlap. What is the logic behind the peace ambassador’s warning to the Nigerian state to keep off rupturing the peace that the terrorist entered into with the pillaged communities of Katsina state? What does Gumi take Nigerians and the state for? No section of this country, not even a tiny segment of outlaws, can levy war on this country for frivolities.

It is Illusory. It is high time the full wrath of the law is brought to bear on the visionless terrorists and merchants of death, disturbing the peace of the country. By the way, every geopolitical zone in this country now has a development commission from the resources of the Niger-Delta. If I may ask: what is the Northwest Development Commission and state governments of the north doing about the neglect of the people of the region?

An additional footnote is warranted. The other day, the same cleric raised the alarm about MOSSAD’s (the Israeli intelligence organisation) inroad into Nigeria, ostensibly to hunt down Moslem clerics.

Even if it were true, it is those who have skeletons in their cupboard that have everything to fear.

The peace of this country for development cannot be traded for the peace of the graveyard.

Odion-Akhaine, a Professor of Political Science, teaches at Lagos State University.