The Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Matthew Kukah, has said that the problem hindering Nigeria’s growth and success as a sovereign nation hinges on the inability of successive leadership to steer the country with vision and commitment.
Kukah made the assertion, yesterday, when he delivered the 10th Convention Lecture of the Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University, Igbariam, Anambra State. His convocation lecture was titled: “Nigeria: What time is it?” According to him, Nigeria has not had an aggregate of shared values hewn and crafted into a constitution to inspire the reverence and awe of its citizens, and has no process in leadership recruitment.
“This is the vacuum that the political elite has exploited by turning the country into jungle, where the arbitrary rule of men has replaced the rule of law, and mere human instincts have become substitutes for constitutionalism,” he said. He said that leaders of Nigeria have neither destination nor roadmap, thus, giving enemies of the country the opportunity to launch onslaught on the people.
According to Kukah, now is the time to rescue Nigeria from the hands of predators. He said: “The educated class must renew their commitment to the value of education and rise up quickly before the entire country is devoured by the darkness that hovers over it in the name of toxic politics by too many charlatans. “We must restore honour and dignity, and see eliticism in its proper sense, and see the intellectual elites as dreamers and visioners, bearers of a promise and a dream to rescue the country from its nightmare and darkness. Only the elites can dream of a country, create the structures and institutions that can espouse the values of our common humanity.
“The birth of a new Nigeria depends on the choices we make today. Now is the time to make the right choices, and the mantle falls on us. We must make a choice. Democracy cannot co-exist with feudalism. Anybody that wishes to govern us must be fully stripped of any gown of hypocrisy. We should no longer accept any leader arriving in a parachute wrapped with religious or regional irredentism.”
THE SUN, NIGERIA