The Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Matthew Kukah, emphasized that unless the issue of a ‘bread and butter’ mentality is addressed, Nigeria’s democracy may persist in resembling a game of chance.
Kukah pointed out that many individuals in the country do not fully embrace democratic principles because the essential foundations for such a system are often lacking.
The bishop stated this while delivering a keynote speech at the third annual national public lecture of the First News Newspaper themed, “The Nigerian Question: Survival of the Federation in The Throes of Increasing Economic Challenges”, which was held at the weekend, in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State.
He said, “The good thing about Nigeria is that everybody knows what the problems are, and the people who are responsible for the problems are not also safe, they too do not know peace.
“Nigerians talk about other countries. I feel sorry for many Nigerians who, because of many troubles, hardly travel out of their immediate environments not to talk about traveling to other parts of Africa or other parts of the world.
“Though, every country has its problems, the challenge before us in Nigeria is that, what do we want, obviously, can we democratise and develop our nation? It is a very difficult question to answer because what we call the civilised world today is the last 200 years of exploitation of Africa that helped to build these nations.
“So we are imagining it ourselves, why are we not like other people? We are not like others because every nation has to find its navigational truth for development. It is not as if we cannot use democracy to develop Nigeria, but certain fundamental things must be on the ground before people can appreciate democracy.”
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