The Bishop of the Catholic Archdiocese of Sokoto, Matthew Hassan Kukah, has disclosed why Nigeria’s Presidents since independence could not solve the country’s challenges.
Bishop Kukah explained that presidents of Nigeria came to power unprepared.
He spoke during an interview with Toyin Falola, a professor of History at the University of Texas in the United States, US.
The clergyman said past leaders’ ability to plan and “think about how they might resolve the problems of the country” was limited because they were unprepared.
“President Buhari had already said after he tried in 2011: ‘I’m done. I’m no longer interested’; Yar’Adua had already said: ‘I’m done. I want to go back to the classroom.’ Obasanjo was brought from prison (to become President)
“What passes for governance is digging a whole to fill a hole because you borrow money to win elections, and you see that there is a correlation between the spiral of awarding of contracts and the contracts not being finished.”
“The challenge is for us to create a conducive environment and this is why I worry about this government because the government has not created a narrative that points in a direction that we should be going.
”We don’t expect the President to do everything. We are not expecting angels, but it is that a nation has to survive on a vision about where we are going and how we are going to get there. But when you raise this question, people begin to think that you are an enemy of the state or that you are inciting citizens.”
