•Make Nigerians safe, tackle corruption, end polarisation
By Matilda Ikediobi
On Wednesday, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria, CBCN, expressed dismay over the worsening socio-economic and political challenges in the country and called on government to take urgent action.
Specifically, the bishops decried persistent insecurity and loss of lives, socio-economic sabotage, and poor leadership as major causes of these afflictions.
The bishops lamented the situation in a communiqué issued at the end of their First Plenary Meeting, held from February 19 to 26, 2026, and signed by Archbishop Lucius Iwejuru Ugorji of Owerri, outgoing CBCN President, and Bishop Donatus Ogun of Uromi, outgoing Secretary of the Conference.
Part of the communiqué said: “We continue to experience tragic events of senseless massacre, mass burials, endless tears, and grief. There are incidents of mass murders in different communities. Nigeria is richly blessed with abundant mineral resources. With good leadership, these resources would have been contributing significantly to our national economic growth and development. In our country, the ownership of all mineral resources is vested in the Federal Government, which also regulates their exploration and exploitation.
“Yet, trillions of Naira are annually lost to bunkering and illegal mining owing to banditry, kidnapping and other organized crimes in parts of our country. We observe that a major cause of our problem as a nation is poor leadership and the wrong idea of politics. Where politics is erroneously understood only as rigging of elections and stealing of other people’s mandate, leadership is unfortunately taken as the amassing of illicit gains or engaging in other fraudulent activities. We note that bad leadership in our nation has caused systemic damage showing up in a worsening economy, widespread and persistent insecurity, and extreme poverty, despite the blessing of rich human and natural resources.”
Leading member of the CBCN, John Onaiyekan, who is an Archbishop Emeritus of the Catholic Diocese of Abuja, in this interview first aired on Arise TV, spoke on the various issues highlighted by the body. Excerpts:
Bishops’ Conference says Nigeria is drifting into insecurity, economic sabotage and democratic decline. Is this country already mired deep in crisis or approaching one?
Before I answer that question, permit me to remind our viewers, and I hope also remind those in power who may be listening to us, that this communique is not a political statement. It is a document that was fashioned with a deep love of Nigeria in mind, with honesty, and I also say with deep Christian faith. Imagine a group of almost 70 prelates from different parts of Nigeria and different ethnic nationalities who come together and are able to endorse this kind of communiqué. We believe that we are reflecting what people are actually saying on the ground. I like to say we represent the people in what we say more than what is happening in the National Assembly, which is supposed to represent the people.
But that’s part of our major problem, that we are no longer sure that our representatives in the National Assembly represent us, both in the priorities they set, in the decisions they take. Why I am stressing this is so that governments should not look at what we are saying as the rantings of some political organisations. We have no intention of taking over government. If anything is driving us, it is purely the love of our nation, and we have what we consider like a prophetic role, namely to speak truth to power. We don’t speak carelessly, but we are not afraid to voice out the truth in clear terms.
Not to put down anyone, but to let people know this is what is facing us. I have been in this country now for 82 years. 60 of them I was quite aware of what is happening. I am not the only one who is feeling that this is not the country we lived in before. Not that, when we say not the country we lived in before, this country is worse than it was before on many aspects.
Of course, there are areas where we seem to see indices of progress and so on. But there are other areas too where we really are very sad. I am particularly sad in the area of political institutions.
Why?
Elections. We studied the data of the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC. And from 1999 until now, every election, voter apathy was getting worse and worse and worse. We interpreted that to mean people no longer trust the election.
You said you and your colleagues’ statements are not a political statement, which is understandable. But your communiqué blames bad leadership and what it called a distorted understanding of politics.
Can you tell us more about what you and your fellow bishops believe has gone wrong at the highest levels of governance?
It did not happen in one day. And obviously, it did not happen because of President Bola Tinubu. This deterioration has been going on. Like I mentioned, if you take the indices of the number of Nigerians who come out to vote, we find that they are less and less. In the last election, 23 per cent of registered voters showed up in the last general election. That’s what we are told from the INEC data, meaning whoever emerges as winner has been elected by a very small minority of Nigerians. What kind of democracy is that? I think those in power ought to understand, therefore, that we have to face how we make sure that elections begin to be acceptable by the people. Popular by the people. People that will want to leave their home and go and vote in the election.
Do you believe that the reason why there’s such voter apathy is because of a loss of faith in the system?
Well, certainly, first of all, some of the people were not even allowed to vote. There was quite a lot of manipulation. I still remember many young people making pilgrimages to the INEC offices for many days to collect these famous voters’ cards and were not able to get them. They come and they show up in a big house, in a big room full of voters’ cards and they could not find their own. Many people were disenfranchised simply because of that. And then there were those who just felt there’s no point going because even if we vote, they are not going to count our votes. I think it is not good for us. If we do not want democracy, maybe we should say it and say, look, this system doesn’t work for us, let us look for another system. There are other systems. There are other ways of running government. There are places where government is run by a family. Is that what we want to do? If we say we want democracy, we should be sincere about it.
In your communiqué, the bishops speak of senseless massacres and communities living in fear, even as you raise questions about whether government is truly in control of the security situation in this country. You suggest that there’s a perception of complicity when terrorists are not prosecuted or are reintegrated. So in your assessment, government is either complicit or soft on terror…
Before I come to terror, let me go back a little bit. One would have expected that the National Assembly would be as anxious as, at least we bishops are, and as anxious as the rest of Nigerians are for a review of the electoral law. But we don’t seem to see that.
Why do you think that’s the case?
Well, your guess is as good as mine, but I don’t want to impute any bad feelings on them. But obviously they seem to be happy with the status quo.
Well, they would argue that they’ve actually moved the electoral laws forward, that they’ve added things that weren’t there and improved on it…
But not enough. If you read our communique, you will notice the areas we refer to. For example, how do you ensure that an incumbent government that is also a part of the election, how will you ensure that that kind of government can conduct a free, fair and impartial election? It is not rocket science. Other countries have managed it. That is where we are saying that when government in power controls every institution of the state, in order to have an advantage in this context, then we are not really serious about wanting to allow the will of the people to prevail.
We come to the other serious issue, which is insecurity. For a long time, in the past three years, we keep hearing government telling us that they are on top of the situation. But what we see doesn’t reflect it. It is interesting and amazing. We once went to the villa and we thanked President Tinubu, who gave us an audience. We raised the issue about insecurity on the road. To our surprise, the National Security Advisor started talking. As he was doing that, we were all looking at one another. He was telling us how much progress they have made, how successful they have been and how safe the country now is. And we asked if we were in the same country. We have been hearing this government feeling that they must by all means keep telling us that not only this is the best they can do, but this is the best we can have.
A bit like Animal Farm, it sort of reminds you of Boxer…
Our communiqué raised this issue that we thank God, we commend the fact that finally government seems to admit that they really are not coping because the movements we are seeing about reaching out to foreign nations to help us, that means that we need help. But that creates its own problem.
You acknowledged some steps by President Tinubu, including declaring a security emergency. But you said the results remain grim. I know that you talked about structural failures…
We were expecting that when the declaration was made, that there’s a declaration of emergency against insecurity, we were going to see a definite change of attitude. That the terrorists would be hunted down. But we didn’t see anything. It’s only a presidential declaration. We do not think that Nigerians are asking for too much. We ought not to be living in a country where killings are going on. Where villagers are not safe. Where even the people in power are not safe. I challenge any of them to jump into his car and drive to his village without security, which means this is not how it should be. We cannot continue like this. Let no one tell us that there is no other way out.
You talked about oil bunkering, illegal mining as a reason for the insecurity. You also criticised continued food importation. Is this a failure policy or political will?
As you know, when a group of 70 bishops tried to come up with a communique, everybody would have brilliant ideas. So many things came out. We had to pick and choose which we are going to even mention. The mining thing, which for a long time we did not even know about. Nigerians are now hearing. There are people who are doing large business, carting away our mineral resources without any government control. Bunkering is even better because at least in bunkering, it is understood that the petroleum resources go through a particular channel, through the NNPC. There are people who have been making billions from our natural resources without any accountability. And certainly not without the complicity of those who ought to stop it. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes we say in Latin, meaning who is going to look after the grass man himself. When those who regulate are not doing their duty, where do we stand? It’s not only that mining is depriving Nigeria of our natural resources, it is also destroying our environment. It is destroying communities. The latest, what we do know now is that a lot of these attacks, which end up displacing villagers, is to make room for large scale mining.
How can that be happening in a civilised nation? It is difficult for us as bishops to believe that those who are in charge of our affairs are not aware of this. This issue of food worries us. Many bishops who come, especially from the north, are saying farmers are now in trouble. They went out to plant. By the time their crops, rice, beans, whatever, comes to the market, the prices have come down.
And it is reported, it is alleged, that the fall of price is a political gimmick, that government flooded the market with imported food. If that is true, then it is the wrong decision to take because if government flooded the market with imported food, that means our money is being spent to go and buy imported food from abroad, thereby supporting those who produce those things. That money should have been given to our farmers. To reduce the cost of production of their food, reduce the cost of fertilisers, give them free, just give them everything that they need.
If you had the president’s ear tonight, what are the three immediate actions, or three or four or whatever, you would demand that he takes?
One would need to mention things that he should be able to do that are feasible. And of course, for most Nigerians, the major problem is security. We can’t continue like this. He should do whatever it takes to make Nigerians safe. Second point, a major point, which is linked to security also, is corruption. You cannot completely eliminate corruption. Corruption is all over the place in the world. But Nigeria is different. It seems that corruption thrives.
In other countries, people who want to be corrupt have to be careful because they can be caught. And when they are caught, they pay for it. But here in Nigeria, it seems that those who are corrupt always get away with it.
It’s not right. And of course, the third element is our own peaceful relationship among ourselves. In my own opinion, that’s even the greatest thing to help Nigerians to begin to…
Get past religion, ethnicity, and all the rest of it?
Exactly. There has been too much polarisation. Yes, I would agree with that. First, it was because of politics. Because by this very nature, politicians want to say we are better than the other group. And so, the nation was split . Now, later on, religion has become more problematic now than it was 20 years ago. We need to really face it. I have the strong conviction that the vast majority of Nigerians, Christians and Muslims, want nothing more but to live together in peace. There are those fringe groups that have their own ideas. Thank God, those ideas are not shared by all of us. We should be able to deal with them. We should be able to deal with them, and deal with them decisively.
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