Okogie says Boko Haram, herdsmen not Nigeria’s real security threats

Former Catholic Archbishop of Lagos, Anthony Cardinal Okogie, has said that politicians and not Boko Haram, herdsmen, kidnappers and other criminal elements, are the real threat to Nigeria’s security.

Decrying the “show of shame” between the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) over counter accusations about who looted the country’s treasury, Okogie called on the two parties to tell Nigerians how they financed their 2015 election campaigns.

According to the Lagos Catholic Archbishop emeritus, the recent call by former Defence Minister, Lt. General Theophilus Danjuma (retd), for self-defense should normally cause apprehensions in the Presidency, since its legitimacy was in doubt.

He stated this in his latest letter to the nation entitled “We are waiting and watching 2,” where he also said that Buhari’s government rather than worry about several informed admonitions, including that of Bill Gates, who counseled it to invest resources on the people of Nigeria, that apologists of the current administration, as usual opted to insult the messenger.

The clergy insisted that political leaders in Nigeria “constitute the greatest threat to security in this country, not armed robbers nor kidnappers, not Boko Haram nor herdsmen.”

The letter which was drafted in 12 paragraphs is a follow-up to an earlier letter with the same title by the cleric.

Part of it read, “Whoever loves Nigeria should be concerned about the security of life and property within her borders. It affects all of us across party, ethnic and religious lines. It affects the rich and the poor. Unfortunately, it can, and it ought to be said that our political leaders constitute the greatest threat to security in this country, not armed robbers nor kidnappers, not Boko Haram nor herdsmen.

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“Nigerians are currently forced to watch a show of shame by the ruling party of today and the ruling party of yesterday. Such are accusations and counter-accusations of looting that Nigerians find it difficult to differentiate between the accuser and the accused.

“Huge sums of money belonging to the people of Nigeria obviously got into wrong hands and for wrong reasons. There are good reasons to suspect that the looting that took place cut across party lines.

“Nigerians deserve to know how, for example, the two leading parties financed their campaigns in 2015. But instead of honest answers, we are treated by the two big parties to a theatrical display of politically motivated compilation of lists of looters.

“We are forced to say what Jesus said to the accusers of the adulterous woman in the Gospel: whoever has not sinned let him cast the first stone.”

 

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