Buhari’s leadership style responsible for Nigeria’s woes –Onaiyekan

Catholic Archbishop of Abuja, John Cardinal Onaiyekan, has said the leadership style of President Muhammadu Buhari is the major reason for different impediments besieging Nigeria as a country.

The Archbishop said the president needs to urgently review his leadership style to bring the country back to the line of true democracy expected by the masses.

Onaiyekan, who represented the president, Catholic Bishops Conference, Archbishop Augustin Akubeze, stated this on Sunday while delivering a message at the inter-denominational church service for the 2019 presidential inauguration ceremony held at National Christian Centre, Abuja.

Expressing his concern on the state of the nation, Onaiyekan said Nigerians are getting poorer, feeling hopeless and helpless, adding that there was tension in the land, while the poverty rate was increasing on a daily basis.

Onaiyekan also advised President Buhari’s administration to put an end to blame game as it will not move the country forward.

“As we embrace a new term of government, it should be for us a new opportunity to change ways and review habits of governance, for a better Nigeria.

‘’We can and we should do this, God has endowed us with resources to achieve this, resources that we, unfortunately, turn into curses”, he said.

He also said his submissions were his personal opinion and not from Archbishop Akabueze, adding that for a positive change to happen in Nigeria, sincere change of leadership will also need to take place.

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He said: “The blame game of pointing accusing fingers at others will not carry us far. For a positive change to take place, we must all be ready for a sincere change of heart, from the lowest to highest, but especially at the highest levels.

“Empty boast and barefaced denials of the realities around us cannot build the nation.” Onaiyekan added.

Going further, Onaiyekan said that Nigerian leaders have failed in their endeavours.

“At this moment, we should do well to acknowledge our failure to do things the right way. Here, the words of the Psalmist should challenge each of us’’.

The Catholic cardinal lamented that while the rich were swimming in affluence, the number of poor Nigerians sadly continued to be on the increase.

“The truth is that our nation is not in a state for us to rejoice. The ranks of the poor are swelling by the day, hopeless and helpless, as they watch in frustration the affluence of the very few cruising in a different world. Such wide social economic disparity has led to anger, tension, violence and outright criminality in the land. All is not well. But all is not lost either.

“Again, here we must tell the truth. For too long, we have been seeing what seems to be a policy of polarisation of the nation along primordial fault lines of ethnicity and religion. The result is that we have been indulging in the risky game of ’dancing on the brink of chaos’. “We do not know for how long we can continue to get away with this. But the handwriting on the wall is quite clear for all who cared to see. It is sad that no condition is permanent: certainly not the present state of our nation.

“Our ethnic diversity is God’s will and gift that we ought to appreciate and celebrate. We should beware of those who seek to manipulate this in a game of divide and rule, for selfish interests”.

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