By Nudoiba Ojen
“Nigerians are not looking for handouts. Ordinary farmers just want to go back to their farms. People just want to be able to get back to their lives”
THE Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Matthew Kukah, has said that Nigeria needs healing from the many issues that have broken it down into fractures.
Kukah says that what the leaders have been doing was picking up the pieces in the name of politics.
The cleric, who spoke on a television programme, faulted the palliatives being distributed by governments to the vulnerable to alleviate their suffering following the hardship occasioned by the removal of fuel subsidy, among other economic policies.
The Catholic Bishop said that the people most often don’t get them, saying that a good part of the money meant for such is always stolen.
He said, “We need to see a much more robust programme designed by the government to help us go away from just lining up and collecting palliatives when we are not at war.
“I think it is the height of indignity to see Nigerians lining up every day under the sun and waiting to collect bags of rice, which probably never come, not because money has not been given, but because everybody who gives out money in Nigeria from the Federal Government knows that a good part of this money is always stolen.”
Beyond the issue of palliatives, Kukah said that Nigeria needed healing which the government should start by fixing insecurity issues in the country.
He said, “This is a severely broken and fractured nation; the evidence is before all of us. What we have been doing in the name of politics is picking up the pieces.
“The entire country is littered with broken dreams, hopes, and promises made and never fulfilled.
“There are more than half a million abandoned projects in the country. It’s a testament to the brokenness of our country. The country in the last 10 years or more has become almost a graveyard; we’re burying people in the hundreds, and we are not at war.
“We don’t need to explain further how broken our country has been.
“Nigerians are not looking for handouts. Ordinary farmers just want to go back to their farms. People just want to be able to get back to their lives.
“Ending insecurity is the beginning of this healing, and a decisive programme and plan to end it is the beginning of the healing.”
The cleric added that rather than blame the government or an individual, we should return to the scene of the crime to see the range of opportunities missed.
