Congratulations on you invitation to eminent Nigerians


By Chris Tunde Odediran  (EMAIL)
New Jersey, USA
Friday, February 23, 2001


wholeheartedly extend my felicitations to you and the Chicago State University for the platform offered to Nigeria's military bigwigs at your lecture series.

The choice of these eminent Africans shows your institution's deep concern for development and the common good, particularly for Nigerians.

Dr. Daniel, as a loving mother, would you open your doors to thieves and murderers to teach your children about the issues of life? Would you? Ask yourself in good conscience; because that is exactly what you have just done to the innocent students and the academic community of Chicago who will listen the these bandits from Nigeria.

In case you are hearing for the first time, your distinguished lecturer, former Head of State, Abdulsalami Abubakar, said in front of us journalists in Lagos in 1993 that pro-democracy activists arrested by the military junta should be thrown into the sea for sharks to feed on. He later became Nigeria's leader and handed over power by "army arrangement" to his retired boss, Olusegun Obasanjo, who was nominated by Ibrahim Babangida, who I will comment shortly.

On his entourage is Mohammadu Buhari, whose regime conducted one of the most remarkable acts of human rights violation on the African soil. Buhari later joined in the Abacha administration, which is renowned to be the most brutal regime in Nigeria. Buhari also supervised a public parastatal, now dismantled, where millions of dollars were stolen. He was minister of a government department through which $2.8billion was alleged stolen in the late 1970s.

He will also be accompanied by Ibrahim Babangida. What can one say about this guy that will adequately convey the evil he represents. He is arguably Nigeria's richest man, his wealth apparently derived from stolen public funds. His name has been mentioned in drug trafficking, arson, murder, among others. He took Nigeria down the lane of regression. He conducted acts of state murder exceeding those committed by Uganda's Idi Amin, but was able to hide them because he is a self-styled "evil genius." Babangida has been hiding from prosecution under the cover of state power provided by the current government which owes its ascendancy to him. Above all, he cancelled an election that has been widely acclaimed to be the fairest in Nigeria, just because he did not want to vacate power. One of the people who tried to bail him out of the political quagmire he found himself in was the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who has little respect among reasonably-thinking Nigerians. The same discredited Jesse Jackson is now implicated in the attempt to let these trio stage a comeback.

Are these the people your extolled university want to glorify? What is the message you will be sending to the world, but more particularly to the young academic minds that are being groomed under your tutelage. What is the future of the world when people who would have been jailed, were they to commit only one of their numerous crimes in the United States, are glorified rather than condemned.

Status and glory should be earned and not purchased. We the concerned people of Nigeria feel this event has been purchased through blood money. Please return their money and cancel the lecture in the interest of justice and good judgement. To allow this event to hold will be an insult to our citizenship, and a disservice to all the goodness enwrapped in humanity.

But if you still decide to go on with your plans, congratulations! The future is near; and your actions will be recorded for posterity to judge.

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