From Tola Adenle.
http://emotanafricana.com/2011/11/14/an-open-letter-to-nigerias-president-jonathan-2/
Above will lead you to an open letter to the President carried by this Blog yesterday, November, 14. A reader read it and suggested a copy be sent to you as your oversight responsibilities of the executive arm include vetting ministerial lists.
Since the allegations against Ms. Madueke were already flying around BEFORE she went to the Senate confirmation hearing, would it not have been considerate of the citizenry at whose behest “lawmakers” enjoy their positions to ask questions of Ms. Madueke? Allegations are merely that until investigated. Shouldn’t a person who had served a term as Petroleum Minister but with loads of allegations bordering on ethics: corruption, graduation date that did not add up … be made to face a panel of investigation and if found to be wrongfully accused, she could then be cleared for confirmation?
Or was it expedient to ignore the public’s clamor for transparency and equity/justice as has become the pattern in governance as the Executive and Legislative arms of this ill-served country’s presidential system seemingly operate as one arm that work hand in glove?
You may also wish to read http://emotanafricana.com/2011/11/14/readers-react-to-open-letter-to-president-jonathan/.
I reported here a while back how I visited a job cement block-making site at Ondo State where the seven or so workers were made up of a recent Fed. Univ. of Tech, Akure (FUTA) graduate awaiting posting till God knows when, an HND graduate and two OND grads. Is this the Nigeria that stupendously wealthy law-makers (who have fed fat on the hog) want to bequeath to the children of those without “long legs”?
Here are a couple more stories that I’m sure you must have read or, at least, be aware of. They could feed the rage of well-educated jobless youth of today’s Nigeria against the system leading to public violence from their private angst:
http://emotanafricana.com/2011/11/12/darker-side-to-dan-etete’s-245-saga-alison-diezani-madueke’s-new-cash-cow-sahara-reporters/
http://emotanafricana.com/2011/11/10/after-buhari-every-nigerian-minister-and-head-of-state-became-an-oil-sheikh-except-general-abdulsalami-abubakar-david-west/
“Nigeria can still avoid the road to mass revolt”,http://emotanafricana.com/2011/10/19/nigeria%E2%80%99s-road-to-mass-revolt-short-takes/
The discontent in the land runs deep but with the disconnect between the governed and the govern-ors, with the lives of opulence and those of poverty between the ruling class and the ruled, it may be difficult for you to know.
The “Arab Spring” may not yet be here but it CAN happen here. When a university graduate sits under an umbrella all day selling phone cards from which he nets less than a construction site unskilled laborers, the seeds of mass revolt are being watered after having been sown but as in one of the essays above, it needs not be and we can still avert such but the move has to come from the legislative IF the executive arm is already determined to ignore the public cries of Nigerian masses.
Ms. Diezani Madueke needs to answer the several questions in the letter to the President if Nigeria is not to continue to be a laughing stock. The impunity has to stop and even though most Nigerians do not regard the Senate you’ve headed for years with respect, Saul did become Paul but time is runninng out.