BEVERLY HILLS, October 03, (THEWILL) – Bishop Mathew Kukah of the Sokoto Catholic Diocese on Monday expressed worry over the ethnic fault lines now common among the people of Nigeria, noting that every Nigerian feels disgruntled about various things.
Delivering a paper at “The Platform’’ – a national discourse forum organised by the Covenant Christian Centre in Lagos, he warned that anger, hatred and violence cannot solve challenges, but would rather set the country on war path.
Kukah, who spoke on the topic: ‘Weakness of Power’ noted that every Nigerian feels disgruntled about various things, but harped on the need for positive change of attitude, peace, unity and good governance which were necessary for the country’s development.
He said, “All of us are unhappy and I believe the president too is unhappy because this is not the country he sacrificed for. The president said he fought a civil war to keep Nigeria as one, but if we fought a civil war over 40 years ago and the problem persists, then it means something is wrong.
“The country has become chaotic. Collectively, we are frustrated in Nigeria. The issue now is, how do we process this anger?” he asked, stressing that “where we are now, anything can go wrong because we are at a tipping point. Nigeria is on a dangerous precipice and we must therefore be careful.”
The bishop continued that anger is prevalent everywhere in the country, and the people are seeking means of expressing their anger, therefore, he argued that the best option is to address their grievances and not attempt to silence the people.
But despite this, he opined that the people should continue to enjoy their inalienable right to talk.
He however warned Nigerians against hate speech, which he said is always a prelude to massacre, adding that “we cannot begin to deploy hatred. Before every killing, you have to reduce the other person to justify the killing and that is what you do with hate speech.”
Kukah also regretted a situation where ethnicity is becoming a standard for evaluating persons, as he urged Nigerians to be patriotic, and love one another irrespective of their ethnic, religious and political leanings.
In his intervention at the event, former presidential candidate, Prof. Pat Utomi stated that although there had been several calls for restructuring and resource control, those could not guarantee good governance, which he identified, as the only solution to Nigeria’s problems.
“Right now, there is a Tower of Babel that is unfolding. People feel they are being shortchanged. People do not want to lose what they are gaining. There are sways of positions. But, part of the challenge is that the Nigerian state grew from a fusion or aggregation, rather than aggression,” he said.
Utomi regretted that agitations over revenue have continued to make people overlook the way they were being governed, adding that empirical evidence had shown that there was no correlation between more resources and development of the country.
He pointed out that some states with less resources were more developed than some resource-rich states, submitting that the belief that the states would do better with more resources was therefore a myth.
The development economist, who decried the costs of governance at the various levels of government, stated that the situation was a drain on the country’s resources.
He described governance in most states as poor, while saying local governments in the country were dysfunctional.
“The local governments in the country are dysfunctional and are a bloody waste of resources,’’ he said.
Utomi maintained that the country needed to be restructured in a way that the costs of governance would be reduced, so as to be able to deliver the goods.
He said the country fared better under the regional arrangement as it fostered healthy competition at minimal costs of running the government.
He described the call for the creation of more states as antithetical to development, arguing that states creation would only cater to the needs of the political elite through appointments and would not serve the peoples’ interests.
The APC chieftain said the destiny of the country was in the hands of everyone and urged Nigerians to work for the progress of the nation.
