AN OPEN LETTER TO EVERY ELECTED OFFICIAL IN NIGERIA
To the Distinguished Men and Women of the National Assembly, the Governors of the 36 States, the President, the Vice President, and all who hold public trust in Nigeria,
A story from our shared African history demands your attention. It is not a story of war or politics, but of a quiet moment of character that echoes across five decades to question the very soul of leadership today.
In 1973, General Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, a man infamous for his flamboyance and corruption, visited Mauritania, then one of the poorest nations on earth. For three days, he sat with President Moktar Ould Daddah. Mobutu, a connoisseur of Parisian finery, noticed one startling detail: his host did not change his suit once.
In a moment of startling grace, Mobutu understood. At the airport upon his departure, he discreetly handed his host’s secretary a check for $5 million US dollars—a king’s ransom then, a fortune now. With it, he included the addresses of his exclusive Parisian tailors, hoping the President could finally afford a wardrobe befitting his office.
This is where the story divides. This is the fork in the road where a leader’s path is chosen.
President Ould Daddah, a man who drew a state salary and lived in a modest three-room house, did not see a personal windfall. He saw a national resource. Without a moment’s hesitation, he handed that check directly to his Minister of Finance to be deposited into the state treasury.
That $5 million was not used for Italian suits or luxury apartments in Dubai. It was used to build and equip the Higher School for Teacher Training. Mauritania was suffering from an acute shortage of teachers, a crisis perpetuating illiteracy and poverty. President Ould Daddah invested the gift in the only thing that guarantees a nation’s future: the minds of its people.
Five years later, when Mobutu visited, he was bewildered by banners thanking him for a “gift.” As his motorcade stopped at the new school, President Moktar explained, “This is your valuable gift… With education, we can defeat these plagues that hinder our progress.”
It is reported that the flamboyant Mobutu, overcome with emotion, embraced him and said, “If only the rest of Africa’s leaders were like you, our continent would not be suffering.”
If only.
This true story is a stark mirror held up to our nation today. It is a gift to every public official, but a painful one. It asks questions that should haunt your silence:
· Where is our “Higher School for Teacher Training”? Where are the monuments to integrity built from unexpected wealth? Instead, we see abandoned projects, ghost schools without teachers, and primary healthcare centers without roofs or drugs. We see budgets inflated and contracts awarded to shadows, while the real needs of the people are starved of funding.
· What do you see when you look at a windfall? Do you see an opportunity for personal aggrandizement—a new fleet of luxury cars, another property portfolio, funds for election rigging? Or do you see textbooks, vaccines, stable electricity, and paved roads that connect farmers to markets?
· How do you wear your “suit”? President Ould Daddah believed it was wrong to adorn himself in global finery while his people suffered in poverty. Yet, in a Nigeria where millions go to bed hungry, where young graduates lose hope, and where parents sell their possessions to pay hospital bills, we see a political class adorned in breathtaking opulence. Your watches cost more than a university degree. Your weddings are funded by the treasury. Your vacations are taken in capitals whose economies your actions have helped cripple.
The lesson is not about the $5 million. It is about the sacrificial choice. It is the understanding that the public treasury is not a personal bank account. That a leader’s comfort is irrelevant compared to the people’s progress. That the true legacy of power is not what you amass for your family, but what you build for your nation.
President Moktar Ould Daddah did not just build a school; he built a monument to integrity. Long after his suits turned to dust, that school remained, churning out generations of teachers, fighting illiteracy, and building a nation.
What monuments are you building? The monuments to your greed are already visible: they are the piles of debt, the landscape of poverty, and the seething anger of a betrayed youth.
The story of Mobutu and Mauritania is a clarion call. It is a call to remember why you sought office. It is a call to shun the temporary glitter of stolen wealth for the eternal glory of a transformative legacy.
The Nigerian people are not asking for much. They are not asking you to live in poverty. They are asking you to live with dignity, empathy, and a profound sense of duty. They are asking you to see every naira in our treasury as a check meant for our Teacher Training School, our children’s future, our collective dignity.
The world remembers Mobutu as a thief. It remembers Ould Daddah as a statesman.
History is watching you. It is recording your choices. It will judge you not by your slogans or your wealth, but by what you built with the people’s trust.
The question is, which side of this story will you be on?
For the sake of Nigeria, choose wisely.
