Up to 50% of Nigeria’s problems could have been solved this weekend if all those who gathered for President Buhari’s son’s wedding had signed a Bichi Declaration

Ayo Akinfe

[1] As from henceforth, we pledge that all future such parties and gatherings will take place in Nigeria. We will ask the National Assembly to pass a bill making it illegal for public officials to throw parties abroad

[2] Everyone of us here pledges never to seek medical attention abroad again. Rather than enrich foreign hospitals, we will invest that money in local healthcare. If we end up paying with our lives for this, it is a sacrifice worth making for the nation

[3] From today, each of us pledges to send all our children to schools and universities in Nigeria

[4] From henceforth, each of us pledges never to hire a private jet again. Money earmarked for future hiring a will be paid into a National Railway Fund

[5] We are as from today launching a new national campaign known as Anything We Don’t Produce We Don’t Need. This is aimed at making us self-reliant as a nation

[6] As from today, all those of us importing generators will convert these companies into power distribution firms with the aim of getting Nigeria to be able to provide a 24 hour electricity by 2023

[7] Everyone of us here is totally committed to the scrapping of the Federal Allocation Formula that makes Nigeria dependent on one primary commodity for survival. We are signing up to its phasing out under a programme that will end in 2025

[8] Each of us here is committed to suspending all foreign religious pilgrimages for the next 10 years. Money saved will be invested in building local monuments and tourist attractions

[9] Each of us commits to never paying a penny to armed bandits, kidnappers or hoodlums operating within our domains. Clearly, the monies paid to them in the past have been used to equip them better

[10] We are all committed to seeing our poor subjects from all parts of Nigeria being able to gather peacefully to break bread as we have done here. To this end, everyone pledges to never make a divisive or inflammatory statement that will heat up the polity again

The Bichi Declaration