Catholic Archbishop of Lagos Emeritus, Cardinal Anthony Olubunmi Okogie tells DGossip247 areas the ruling party should avoid to diffuse the poison allegedly introduced by ex-Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
How would you assess the state of the nation so far under President Muhammadu Buhari?
Nigerians’ expectations of our new president is great and I’m sure the president himself is aware of it. Don’t forget that he has been president before. One thing you just have to know about Nigerians is that we are like Oliver Twist. We always want things very fast and we are never satisfied. They seem to have forgotten that this man was once a military officer and a former head of state. Once a soldier, always a soldier.
Now, when he came into power, there were a lot of expectations, which is rightly to be so. But he hasn’t got a magic wand. People don’t seem to know that fact. Secondly, he is no more a soldier, a military officer. So, he’s got to take his time, to look at the ground and know where to place his feet. To know who to command and who not to command.
This is just what is going on at the moment. Some people are saying that he is too slow, and that he is doing nothing and they don’t know what kind of administration he’s going to have. They can say anything. They can say whatever they like but I don’t think it will move this soldier man.
The (military) blood is still there. The only way they can go about it, I think, is to take it easy. There is a hymn about this kind of thing in the Catholic Hymn Book that says take things one day at a time. So, let him study things and take things one day at a time and I think he is going to make a good leader.
What do you think of the leadership crisis currently going on in the National Assembly and within the APC?
A lot of people expected this to happen. You know, in Nigeria, we are good fishermen, especially our politicians. When they saw that the fish was finishing where they were fishing before and that the fish were moving to the other end, they all moved there.
These are the people, I’m talking about the PDP men in the APC. They now moved (decamped) in time to the APC because they could read between the lines that where they were was no longer safe. These (former PDP members) are the people that are trying to grab things from APC. This is what is happening.
Could it be because they have different orientations?
It could be because they are now finding it difficult to remove their PDP covering and adopt the true principles of the APC and become true APC members. But you can’t become a true APC member overnight. This is just what is causing the problem. I’m not a politician but I can see how things are going. Second, Nigerian politicians are greedy.
They are not patriotic. They wanted to get there, because they are just looking for money and they see politics as an avenue to make quick money. It’s just like when banks were rosy, every graduate wanted to work for either a bank or in the oil industry because they want quick money. That is the kind of politicians we have. Three quarters of politicians today are only after money.
Is that why there is continuous leadership tussle?
How I wish they can put the interest of the nation at heart first before any other thing, like people in other countries do. I’ve listened to British parliamentarians; the way they talk. They attack each other but it is not the way we do things here. Like Boma Boys, carrying chairs and fighting. It’s bad.
What legacy do we want to leave for our youths? How will there not be leadership struggle when we have greedy people, people who are unpatriotic, people who don’t even understand the constituencies they came from? These are the things that are causing the trouble.
The people causing the trouble are those who cross-carpeted from the PDP to APC. And when the APC people began to see this, they too began to want the same thing. So, the people who cross-carpeted from the PDP to the APC are the poison, as it were. That is what is causing the trouble. Now the APC say they are mending their net. Well, we hope so.
Do you think the ruling party has what is takes to lead Nigeria to glory?
What about PDP that ruled for 16 years. What did they do? Buhari is telling us that they (PDP) left an empty treasury. Where has all the money gone? Of course, APC has what it takes. Go to all the APC states. Take Lagos, for example, is it a PDP state? Anybody that comes into Lagos, either from abroad or from other parts of the country, sees progress. Go again to all the other APC states. They have strong manifestos and strong blueprints that they follow. I’m not saying that everything is okay but you can see the trace of progress.
Whether it is roads or it is education, you can see the way they are going. This APC is a party that, if we give them time, we are going to see traces of progress.
There is delay in appointing ministers. The excuse is that government is still studying the transition committee report to determine which ministries should be merged or retained. What is your reaction to this?
They are studying the handover notes. They can’t just jump into anything. Before the inauguration, we all saw how voluminous the handover note was when it was handed over to Buhari. So, he has to study it. He has to form his own committee to study it and advise him.
Except he wants to be a fool, then he will start doing things without first undertaking a study. And he can’t do that. Now, you’re talking about ministers. You see, one thing in this Nigeria is that ministers don’t understand their duties because these are the people that advise.
You already have House of Reps. What is the work of the Senate? You pass something from the House of Reps to the Senate and the Senate passes it again to the President; then he will have his own caucus to advise him again. We are wasting money. If I have my way, if I were there, we won’t have Senate.
If I were there, I would have just one arm of parliament. Let us see how it will work. There are times when I look, and I just ask God, why did you put me in such a place as Nigeria? You see, Buhari must look before he leaps. So, those who are blaming government and saying that Buhari is very slow, I think they should re-think.
What dangers do you foresee for Nigeria under President Buhari’s leadership and how do you think the President can overcome these challenges?
For example, some say President Buhari has a regional mandate because the South-East and South-South regions didn’t vote for him. In the president’s inaugural speech, he said he is a father, which means he is the father for the whole nation. He shouldn’t discriminate.
Take for example, the Archbishop of Lagos is the number one Catholic in Lagos. But will he say because this one is not a Catholic I should leave him? No. He has to carry everyone along as he does his work. When I was President of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) for eight years, we didn’t care whether you were a Muslim or Christian, we just saw you as a Nigerian. We didn’t discriminate. That was how we worked and that was why CAN had name then. But the moment we left CAN, look at what happened. It’s because we were doing it as God’s work at that time.
I’m a Nigerian and I’m working with Nigerians. So why should I not trust them? This was how we were working; we were not asking for money to go here or to go there. We even begged. For instance, we would beg people and say, “Please we want to travel to Kaduna. There is riot there. We want to go there and see what we can do.” Unfortunately, Mr. C.O. Williams who was my Secretary is dead. He would have testified to all these.
What do you think has changed in CAN?
The moment we left, everything started going down because people were looking for money. They have forgotten that they are Nigerians and that they are working for Nigerians and dealing with Nigerians. They don’t care. It is the money they are after. The money aspect.
And this money we’re talking about, my brother, does it last? Look at those who were enjoying under Jonathan’s government before. Where are they now? They are struggling to come to this regime, to continue in looting. To continue eating without doing any work.
This is what is happening. This is what I call danger, not for Buhari, but he has to be very careful. He has to beware of such people. Everyone shouts ‘God’. Even in the scripture, it says that not all those who say, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.
So, not everyone who says ‘I can work, I can work’, can really work. So, Buhari must be careful of these kinds of people because they are there. They are still waiting. Look at the National Assembly, how they are fighting in the two Houses of Parliament.
Look at the report that we are hearing that somebody even forged parliamentary procedures. President Buhari has to be very careful because the PDP or whoever can do anything to upset this government. If you listened to the campaigns you would have seen that the PDP were cocksure that they were going to come back. But you see how God turned things.
That is how life is. None of them ever thought that Buhari would win. They thought that since Buhari had been losing in the presidential elections all along, he would surely lose again. But no one is God. And the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. That will be my advice for the gentleman called Buhari. He should fear God, because the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. If he doesn’t fear God… I won’t say more than that.
No comments:
Post a Comment