The Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Matthew Kukah, has blasted past and present leadership in Nigeria, describing them as “men in a drunken stupor who stumble and fumble while searching for the way home.”
The outspoken Catholic priest, in his Easter message to the nation on Sunday, said for over 60 years after independence, Nigerian leaders have failed to create a template on which the country should run seamlessly but rather their lives of “immoral and sordid debauchery has spread like cancer destroying all our vital organs.”
In the message, Bishop Kukah called on the Federal Government to come up with a robust template on how to reverse the trend of bad governance and put the country on a path of national healing.
“Our leaders chose the feast rather than the fast. We are today reaping what we sowed yesterday. For over 60 years, our leaders have looked like men in a drunken stupor, staggering, stumbling and fumbling, slurring in speech, with blurred visions searching for the way home,” he said.
“The corruption of the years of a life of immoral and sordid debauchery has spread like cancer destroying all our vital organs. The result is a state of a hangover that has left our nation comatose.
“Notwithstanding, Easter is a time to further reflect on the road not taken. It is a time to see if this Golgotha of pain can lead us to the new dawn of the resurrection. Nigeria can and Nigeria will be great again. Let us ride this tide together in hope.
“The government must design a more comprehensive and wide-ranging method of recruitment that is transparent as a means of generating patriotism and reversing the ugly face of feudalism and prebendalism.
“There is a need for a clear communications strategy that will serve to inspire and create timelines of expectations of results from policies.
“There is a need for clarity over questions of the who, what, when, and how national set goals are to be attained and who can be held accountable.
“Second, the notion of rejigging the security architecture is a hackneyed cliché that is now at best, an oxymoron. It is difficult to fathom our current situation regarding the ubiquity of the military in our national life.
“It is impossible to explain how we can say we are in a civilian democracy with the military literally looking like an Army of occupation with an octopussean spread across all 36 states and Abuja.
“This has very serious consequences both for its professionalism, its integrity and perceived role in protecting society.
“No other person than the immediate past Chief of Defence Staff, General Lucky Irabor, who recently referred to the military as facing the dilemma of what he called ‘see finish.’ It is now difficult to say whether the persistence of insecurity is a cause or a consequence of military ubiquity.
“Trillions of naira continue to go into bottomless pits with little measurable benefits.
“Our military’s professionalism cannot be diluted by the recruitment of hunters, vigilante groups, and other unprofessional and untrained groups,” the cleric lamented.
