Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah,
yesterday, asked President Muhammadu Buhari to face the challenges of
governance and stop agonizing over misdeeds of past administrations. Nigerians,
according to the clergyman, “didn’t vote a government to complain about
yesterday. If we wanted yesterday, the new government would not be there.”
Kukah spoke with newsmen at a dinner
organized by Ondo State Government after the Catholic Bishops Conference of
Nigerian, CBCN, in Akure, the Ondo State Capital. He spoke as leaders of
Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, yesterday continued their attacks on President
Buhari over his comments that he inherited nothing from PDP administrations of
former Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo, late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and Goodluck
Jonathan.
Bishop Matthew Kukah Asked to
comment on the blame game of the present administration, Kukkah said: “The
previous government didn’t only do bad things, it did a lot of good things. “I
think the business of government is not our business; our business is: if the
previous government did bad, that is why we voted a new government. It is
really about taking responsibility.
No matter how much you praise or
abuse Jonathan, he is not the President of Nigeria. I think people must
understand, you take power to solve problems, not to agonize. “As the head of a
family, no matter how bad things are in the house, you, as a father, can’t
enter the house crying. It is the question of developing the mechanism.
Even my best friends in APC now
realise that nobody can sing the song about Jonathan being responsible for the
problems we are in. “We are not asking you to change the whole world. Jonathan
created problems but we are now riding a train between Abuja and Kaduna; the
train wasn’t there before. Things that Jonathan did that can help Nigeria,
let’s continue with them.
“On the bad things that Jonathan
did, those who deserve to go to prison should go to prison, but sending people
to prison will only be useful if it puts bread on the table of people.” Why
anti-graft war is not effective On the war against corruption, the Catholic
Bishop said: “I have always said, you can’t cure malaria by just providing
tablets; you might provide tablets to cure malaria but you have to look at the
cause of malaria.
As long as dirty waters and
mosquitoes are around, there will still be the disease. “My argument has always
been that we are really fighting corruption, we started off with the assumption
that corruption is all about people stealing money. But stealing money is
actually the other end of corruption. “The reason we don’t seem to make much
progress is based on the kind of diagnosis.
I still believe that unless we get
to the root cause of poverty, inequality, which are really the evidence and
symptom of corruption, you can talk of fighting corruption as very little is
going to happen.” High cost of living On high cost of living, Kukah said: “I
think that the extremes are very difficult but Nigeria is a hell of a country
and Nigerians are a hell of a people.
These are trying times and they can
actually help to bring out the best in us. “I think the challenge government is
facing is to be able to explain to people that this suffering has something
redemptive about it because if you know that at the end of this suffering
something good is going to happen, people will be ready to live with the
consequences.
“But so far, I don’t think
government is communicating effectively with ordinary Nigerians to know where
we are and the state of things. So, this is why you increasingly have a
situation where people are not willing to make sacrifices because they still
believe that their obligation is to protect themselves.
“I think unless the government
openly explains and engage people very constructively, what you are going to
face is a situation, which ordinary citizens are finding the best ways to
protect and defend themselves.
Source: Vanguard Newspaper
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