- Why Nigeria is a failed country, by Bishop Onyia
- APC insists Buhari living up to expectations
Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, has said critics of President Muhammadu Buhari are responsible for the division in Nigeria and not the President’s ruling style. According to the media aide, the critics caused division in the country with their mouths.
Adesina’s reaction is coming a day after the Catholic Bishop of the Diocese of Sokoto, Matthew Kukah, heavily criticised Buhari over insecurity, corruption and division in Nigeria.
Kukah, in his Easter message titled ‘To mend a broken nation: The Easter metaphor, had said every aspect of life in the country has been destroyed, while corruption is enthroned.
“With everything literally broken down, our country has become one big emergency national hospital with full occupancy. Our individual hearts are broken. Our family dreams are broken. Homes are broken. Churches, mosques and infrastructure are broken.
“Our educational system is broken. Our children’s lives and future are broken. Our politics is broken. Our economy is broken. Our energy system is broken. Our security system is broken. Our roads and rails are broken. Only corruption is alive and well,” the message read in part.”
However, according to The Guardian, Adesina took to his Twitter page yesterday to respond to the criticism of his principal. He said it was surprising that those who are guilty of creating division with mouths in Nigeria are the ones accusing the President of the same crime they committed.
Adesina wrote: “Those who divided Nigeria with their mouths, with evil, unguarded speaking, are the ones now accusing President Buhari. How sad! Their wicked intentions shall not come to pass.”
Adesina had similarly upbraided the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) for asking President Buhari to resign last week for failing to provide security in the country.
He had labeled the Northern elders as “self-seeking individuals who had hoped to get the better of the administration after President Buhari’s electoral victory in 2015.
“The forum is largely made up of angry, bitter, self-seeking individuals, who had thought they would be leading President Buhari by the nose when he emerged in 2015. In fact, key personalities in the group made strenuous efforts to be part of the administration. When they didn’t succeed, they became adversaries.”
But speaking yesterday, the Anglican Bishop of Nike Diocese, Enugu State, Rt. Rev. Christian Onyia, maintained that NEF was right to describe Nigeria as a failed state because the basic components that could enliven a nation have collapsed.
He identified the components as economy, education and security, regretting that none was currently working in the country.
Onyia, who was responding to questions by newsmen during a pre-Synod press conference of the Diocese in his office, noted that the situation in the land needed Christians not just to pray but live out their Christian life to challenge and correct the anomalies.
“I say it and will go to any length to maintain it that Nigeria as a nation has failed, because the three basic things that make a nation survive have collapsed. Our economy has collapsed, our school system has collapsed and there is no security. These are the three things that make a nation either great or fail. I was listening to the news today, the President was asking for more borrowing. You know Nigeria now lives on borrowed money and will continue to borrow,” he said.
MEANWHILE, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has said the President Buhari-led administration is living up to the expectations of Nigerians. APC, in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Mr Felix Morka, said the scathing attacks against the performance of the President were unfounded.
The APC scribe promised to unveil the performance of the administration since 2015 to buttress his claims.
He said: “People simply focus on the distractions, they frame issues in advancing their own self-interest but the fact is that in every sector you look, this party and the leadership of President Buhari has moved us quantum leap forward from where we were in 2015. That’s incontrovertible.
“As the National Publicity Secretary of APC, my job, which I intend to do with a lot of vigour, enthusiasm and candour, is to lead evidence-based arguments and facts to our people so they see it’s not what they think. People are paraphrasing this government in an unfair way.”
Kukah, in his Easter message had heavily criticised President Buhari over insecurity, corruption and division along ethnic fault lines in Nigeria, saying President Buhari has destroyed every aspect of life in Nigeria but has allowed corruption to thrive and grow.
The cleric had said: “Our dear country, Nigeria, still totters and wobbles as we screech towards a dangerous and avoidable canyon of dry bones.
“With everything literally broken down, our country has become one big emergency national hospital with full occupancy.
“Our individual hearts are broken. Our family dreams are broken. Homes are broken. Churches, mosques, infrastructure are broken. Our educational system is broken. Our children’s lives and future are broken. Our politics is broken. Our economy is broken. Our energy system is broken. Our security system is broken. Our roads and rails are broken. Only corruption is alive and well.”
Kukah is known for his courage in speaking truth to power. In his unsparing Christmas homily of December 2020, he had accused President Buhari of promoting northern hegemony, saying that there could have been a coup, if a non-northern Muslim president had done a fraction of what Buhari was doing.
Last year’s Easter, he delivered a blistering condemnation of the Buhari administration, saying the government had failed and turned the country into a massive killing field.
This year’s message appears to be even strident as the respected cleric lampooned the President. He said: “Nigerians can no longer recognise their country, which has been battered and buffeted by men and women from the dark womb of time. It is no longer necessary to ask how we got here. The real challenge is how to find the slippery rungs on the ladder of ascent so we can climb out. Yet, we ask, ascend to where?
“One would be tempted to ask, what is there to say about our tragic situation today that has not been said? Who is there to speak that has not spoken? Like the friends of Job, we stare at an imponderable tragedy as the nation unravels from all sides.
“The government has slid into hibernation mode. It is hard to know whether the problem is that those in power do not hear, see, feel, know, or just don’t care. Either way, from this crossroads, we must make a choice, to go forward, turn left or right or return home. None of these choices are easy, yet, guided by the light of the risen Christ, we can reclaim our country from its impending slide to anarchy.
“The greatest challenge now is how to begin a process of reconstructing our nation, hoping that we can hang on and survive the 2023 elections. The real challenge before us now is to look beyond politics and face the challenge of forming character and faith in our country. Here, leaders of religion, Christianity and Islam, need to truthfully face the role of religion in the survival of our country. The Nigerian Constitution has very clearly delineated the fine boundaries between religion and politics. Yet many politicians continue to behave as if they are presiding over both the political and the spiritual realms in their states rather than governing in a democracy.”
He called on all religious leaders in Nigeria to urgently come to the country’s rescue. “Religious leaders must face the reality that here in Nigeria and elsewhere around the world, millions of people are leaving Christianity and Islam.
“While we are busy building walls of division with the blocks of prejudice, our members are becoming atheists but we prefer to pretend that we do not see this. We cannot pretend not to hear the footsteps of our faithful who are marching away into atheism and secularism. No threats can stop this, but dialogue can open our hearts,” he said.
IN similar manner, two Christian leaders, the Bishop, Diocese of Kaduna, Anglican Communion, Timothy Yahaya and the Bishop of Kaduna Catholic Archdiocese, Matthew Manoso Ndagoso, had thrown their weights behind the Northern elders, who last week called for the resignation of President Buhari over pervading insecurity and dwindling economy.
The calls by the clerics were contained in their separate Easter messages, as they re-echoed the recent stance of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF), which handed their verdict of poor governance, inability to checkmate high level of insecurity and economic woes of Nigeria as a basis for the call for President Buhari’s resignation.
Bishop Yahaya said the right thing to do by a leader who cannot deliver is to bow out of office, adding, however, that there is hope for Nigeria as a nation.
“My Easter message is that there is hope for every individual in this country, there is hope for Nigeria as a nation. I know what we are going through; it is a dangerous and perilous time, but I tell you the only tonic of tomorrow is hope.
“I don’t want to join issues with the Northern elders because I am not a politician. But the truth about leadership is that there is morality in leadership. If you cannot deliver as a leader in a civilised clime, the right and best thing to do is to bow out.
“But what gives me concern seriously is that I am not sure if the President knows that his name is going down in history as the President that is supervising the killing of his people.
“Look at the railway attack, our brothers and sisters are in captivity for three weeks now. Such number of citizens in the hands of terrorists, over 160 and we are not hearing from Mr. President himself. This was the same thing they vilified former President Jonathan for when the Chibok incident happened. In other climes, the president will not sleep and heads will roll because somebody is responsible for the laxity that led to this train attack.”
For Bishop Ndagoso, it is hard to disagree with the Northern elders’ position on the need for the President to resign from office over killings in the country.
According to him, the only thing the people got each time scores of Nigerians are killed, maimed and abducted were empty assurances and reassurances of security by political leaders.
“To say the least, the seeming incompetence and lack of political will to face the ever increasing insecurity head on has left most Nigerians in a state of quandary to the extent that members of the National Assembly and other well respected individuals are publicly calling on citizens to bear arms to defend themselves. Do we need any further sign of a failed state?”
MEANWHILE, Nigeria witnessed its deadliest week in 2022 last week as armed non-state actors killed at least 215 people in various attacks. This implies that an average of 30 people were killed daily by armed persons in the country last week.
More than half of the victims, 142, were killed in Plateau State by gunmen. Apart from Plateau, other states that witnessed mass killings include Kaduna (26) and Benue (23).
The figure for last week indicates a sharp increase when compared to the previous week when at least 25 people were killed. Also, at least 2,968 people have been killed in the first three months of 2022.
