Having enemies is a thing that happens when you are put in charge of something. As a president, you are bound to have a few people who would think that you’re not doing enough and will bear grudges. This popular cleric has come out to speak on his displeasure with the number one man in the country.
The Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Dr. Matthew Hassan Kukah, has said that no President of any nation on the planet can be as untrustworthy in the use of power as a Nigerian president. He made this known in Akure, Ondo State on Friday while conveying the yearly Ulefunta/Oyemekun Festival address entitled “Building blocks for a good society” held at the Francis Idibiye Lecture corridor of the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA).
According to Kukah, the structure of the Nigerian presidential office makes the holders of the office extremely powerful, so much that he can deploy power the way he wants. He said, “No president in the world has the kind of power the Nigerian president has and as such, no president in the world can be as irresponsible as the Nigerian president. His power is so much that he can give oil bloc to his girlfriend and many others. You thus can’t be a man of honour and live in a country like Nigeria and not be angry.”
Kukah said that from the primary Nigerian Prime Minister, Alhaji Tafawa Balewa to President Muhammadu Buhari, for all intents and purposes every one of them were hauled into the presidential office, keeping up this was dissimilar to the administration of the United States of America where the president does not rise by situation. He stated, “What is the problem? It is the dilemma of leadership. In America, there are basic expectations of what a president should be.
“For instance, he must have gone through Harvard as an institution, he must have language and track records, not even wealth. You can’t surprise the system. Here in Nigeria, local government chairman wants to be governor; the governor wants to be president and the president doesn’t want to go! Many states have two governors representing them at the National Assembly. Governors have control and monopoly of resources of state and they use same resources to oppress people.”
Kukah said that we have flopped in creating systems that will defy insecurity, keeping up that doing as such was the sign of awesome nations. In his own words, “In Nigeria, it is not a question of looking for trouble because trouble is already here. The Nigerian state has no capacity to protect itself and there is no loyalty to Nigeria from its citizens but to those who help individuals to get to positions in the system.”
Kukah anyway singled two previous Nigerian pioneers out of the administration spoil, Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Alhaji Aminu Kano, who he called “architects of a good society.” He went on, “Awolowo, for his major quintessential evidence as somebody who already figured out what he would do with power if he got it. He understood the building blocks for an egalitarian society. Aminu Kano single handedly took on the feudal class in Northern society and had a deep understanding of society, even as he textually talked about a free society in a way and manner that didn’t offend religion.”
While expressing that it isn’t sufficient for a people to have the building blocks of a decent society alone, Kukah likewise kept up that Nigeria has not possessed the capacity to fabricate a decent society in light of the fact that the nation has not complied with the tenets of plan. He stated, “We have to understand the building blocks of society which are not too different from the rules of building a house. A good society is not different from the building blocks of society. When a building collapses, it didn’t collapse in a day. It began to collapse a long time ago. For us to build a good society, we have to have eyes that monitor the needs, growth and development and feelings of that society. Then you can be sure of the quality of that society.”
