The Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) on Sunday, called for a return to regional government, noting that 25 years of a presidential system was not beneficial to the country.
The bishops, who stated this at the opening ceremony of the ‘2nd CBCN Plenary’ meeting in Auchi, Edo State, decried the alarming rate of corruption in Nigeria, as well,as the huge debt burden, which they said could be cleared by stolen monies stashed away by politicians in foreign countries, and the issue of hunger in the land.
President of CBCN, Lucius Ugorji, who made the remarks yesterday, in his welcome address, also criticized the killings in the recent #EndBadGovernance protest that it agreed went violent, contrary to the original plans, but insisted that it was wrong for anybody to prevent Nigerians from protesting in fulfilment of their Constitutional right.
Ugorji, who is the Archbishop of Owerri Diocese, lamented the recent kidnap in Otukpo, Benue State, of some Catholic medical students, at the Universities of Jos and Maiduguri respectively.
According to him, “The socio-economic problems of our nation are unmistakably beyond what economic reforms alone can effectively resolve, no matter how well thought-out and how meticulously implemented. When all is said and done, we must admit that the cost of running our military-imposed presidential system of government with so many elected officials assisted by numerous support staff is staggering and unsustainable.
“We must also acknowledge that the corruption level of many Nigerian politicians has gone beyond scale and measure and that controlling our national resources at the federal government level creates more opportunities for corruption to flourish”.
He further said the current reforms of President Bola Tinubu’s administration were similar to the Structural Adjustment Programme, SAP, of General Ibrahim Babangida, backed by the International Monetary Fund, IMF, which did not work.
Ugorji listed the numerous problems bedeviling the nation to include: increased debt burden of $2.25 billion loan facility from the World Bank in June 2024, with a repayment period of 40 years, and which increases Nigeria’s public debt stock by 2.46 per cent to $93.7 billion, multiple taxation, hunger and hardship induced by insecurity, added that pro-active steps must be taken urgently to address the situation before it snowballed into a huge crisis.
