Kukah decries voters’ apathy in Osun, berates Nigerian govt over ASUU strike

Ahead of the Osun State governorship elections scheduled for Saturday, Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto and Convener of National Peace Committee (NPC) Matthew Hassan Kukah has decried the indifference of the electorate towards participating in the exercise.

Kukah made this call on Wednesday in Osogbo, Osun State, during the signing of a peace accord by political parties and candidates ahead of Saturday’s governorship election in the state.

According to the cleric, suffering and frustration inflicted on ordinary Nigerians by the political class was the main cause of the widespread apathy towards exercising their franchises.

He bemoaned the excessive monetization, which includes the costly sale of nomination forms, which is converting Nigeria’s democracy into one in which only the wealthy participate.

Kukah further pointed out that the issue of rising voter apathy might be resolved whenever elected officials and politicians stopped disregarding the constituents who gave them their support.

Read also: Peter Obi rallies support for Labour Party’s governorship candidate in Osun

The cleric lamented the recent university closures caused by the Academic Staff Union of Universities’ industrial action (ASUU). He said that undergraduate inactivity was unacceptable and harmful to democracy.

Kukah said: “We are not unaware of the fact that as one of the campaign slogans says, “you want to win from top to bottom”, but the experience of ordinary Nigerians is that after winning from top to bottom, it is the top that seems to benefit, and this speaks to the need and urgency of political actors to begin to focus on ensuring a much broader spectrum of opportunities available for our people.

“The persistence of violence in Nigeria is directly correlated to the tragic situations around which our people find themselves. The bottom of Nigeria is characterised by ordinary people who make up over 90 per cent of the population.

“Our lives, today, are characterised by hunger. People are angry. People are dying. People are sick. Children are out of school. University students in Nigeria can, as well, be classified as out-of-school children. This is unacceptable, especially as I said that these things are happening in a democracy.”

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