Fellow compatriots,

On this Independence Day anniversary, I will do something no Nigerian president has ever done in our 64 years as an independent nation. I will speak to you from my heart.

I will not read a speech prepared by civil servants and rehearsed and recorded in front of my media aides and image-makers. I want to have an honest conversation with you, my fellow countrymen and women.

I won’t be telling you something you do not know if I say things are hard in our country. While privileged people like us live comfortable lives, ordinary men and women from Sokoto to Port Harcourt find it difficult to make ends meet.

I won’t tell you I feel your pain. Saying so will be lying to you. It had been a long time since I knew what it was like to survive on noodles and garri soaked in water.

I won’t list things we are doing to fix our economy and bring everyone prosperity. You have heard that from me long enough, and things have gone from bad to worse.

My advisers said I should tell you that the hardship you are experiencing now is the birth pang of the new Nigeria coming soon. If I am sitting where you are today, I call it nonsense.

My ministers said I should blame the unbearable hardship you are going through as unintended consequences of tough decisions we must take to save Nigeria from total collapse. Even though it is the truth, the bigger truth is that we, the ruling class, are not sharing the hardship with you.

We, your leaders, have been living large while more and more of you fall into what the big grammar-speaking consultants call multi-dimensional poverty. More of you are finding it hard to eat two square meals a day, pay the school fees of your children, and buy life-saving medications to deal with chronic illnesses. Some of you working do not even make enough money to pay for your transportation to work.

It is not right. It is not fair. It should not be happening in a country like ours. It is abominable. It has to stop. Now.

And that is what I want to talk to you about today.

While I cannot say to hell with those countries and financial institutions to which we owe money, I can say that the days of waste in the government are over. While we must continue to service our debts, which take a substantial amount of revenue that we get, we, the leaders, must sacrifice much of our perks of office so that our people will survive these tough days and be alive to see the glorious days we promise them.

I plead to you all to forgive me for coming into the office and feeling this sense of entitlement that has disconnected me from the people I am in the office to serve. Years of privileged life made me lose touch with what a servant leader should be. It instilled in me an arrogance that had become second nature. Deep down, that is not me. It is an acquired taste. And I have expelled it out of me.

Moving forward, you will get a lean government that aligns with the meagre resources at our disposal—no more jamborees by government officials, my wife, children, or hangers-on. Government officials will no longer display flamboyant lifestyles at any level in this country. We must live by example.

Here are the concrete steps I have made along these lines. And I am starting with the Office of the President.

Having acknowledged that Nigeria is rich but currently poor because we have mismanaged our resources, I am cutting my travels abroad to six times a year. People who need me so badly should come to Nigeria and meet with me. We will sell off all the planes in the presidential fleet. I will travel on my plane or a chartered one if I must.

I am abolishing the office of the First Lady. Besides receiving security details, the government will no longer spend Nigerian resources sustaining the First Lady. The same goes for my children and siblings. They should spend their time pursuing meaningful employment and not hanging on my coattail.

We are cutting the overhead cost of every ministry and government parastatal by two-thirds. It means the many assistants and aides seen around government officials across this country will disappear. When I say lean government, I mean no fat, no fills, no padding.

Working with the National Assembly, I will divert the billions of Naira that the state governments in this country collect as security votes each month. We will redeploy it for the benefit of the Nigerian people.

The members of the National Assembly are going to make sacrifices, too. I am asking the agency in charge of fixing their salaries and allowances to reduce them to what this country’s highest-paid civil servants make.

The party is over. Henceforth, those interested in public service must serve the public. Public service must cease to be for those interested in stuffing their pockets.

Though these measures are mere symbolism, the message is simple. We are serious about fixing this country. We cannot be pleading for loan forgiveness while living like oil magnets. Even though I indulged in this, it never made sense.

On this Independence Day, this is the greatest gift I want to give you all. From tomorrow, we will make public things about your government that the public needs to know.

Starting tomorrow, anyone with a smartphone should be able to find out from government websites how much any government official makes in salaries and allowances. Information about any contract awarded by any government agency in this country will henceforth be public. You should be able to know the name of the company awarded any contract, how much the contract is, how much the government has disbursed to the company, and when the company is supposed to complete the job. With one click on the name of the company, you will find out all you need to know about the owners.

If you hear that Alpha Beta is collecting taxes on behalf of the government of Lagos State, in a click, you will find out when they started, how much they collected each year, how much the Lagos State government paid the company for the job and the people who owned it.

We are removing all secrecy from the government’s operations in this country. Corruption thrives in secrecy. The Nigerian people have the right to know how their government functions. It is the only way to know the people to hold accountable.

So, on this 64th Independence Day anniversary, I do not have rice and beans for you, for palliatives are mere bandages on infected wounds. But what I bring you is transparency and accountability. I believe that with those, everything else shall be given unto you.

May God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Rudolf Ogoo Okonkwo teaches post-colonial African History, Afrodiasporan literature, and African folktales at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He is also the host of Dr. Damages Show. His books include “This American Life Sef” and “Children of a Retired God,” among others. His upcoming book is called “Why I’m Disappointed in Jesus.”