Bishop Matthew Hassan Kuka while delivering Keynote paper during GOCOP 3rd Annual conference in Lagos, Friday.

By CLEMENT NWOJI, Lagos

The Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, His Lordship, Dr. Matthew Hassan Kuka, has attributed the apparent lack of development of the country to “systemic disruptions” of policies of previous administrations by successive governments.

He lamented that each administrations in Nigeria have had noble policies and passion for the nation’s development which however, were disrupted by successive governments not because such policies were useless but just for the sake of introducing new ones.

Bishop Kuka spoke while making a keynote presentation on the theme: “Economy, Security and National Development: The way forward” at the 3rd annual conference of the Guild of Corporate Online Publishers (GOCOP) held at Sheraton hotels, Lagos.

The conference which climax include the induction of OPTIMUM TIMES and 12 other Online Publications into the GOCOP and swearing of the re-elected Executive led by Dotun Oladipo as President, was chaired by the Managing Director, The News Group, Bayo Onanuga.

Bishop Kuka who reeled out many of the previous policies and programmes of successive Nigerian governments, regretted that one can hardly find a trail of them or what impact it had made on the people or society in general.

Some of the defunct programmes he reeled out include: Farm Settlement Option, 1960, National Accelerated Food Production Project, 1972, Agricultural Development Project, 1973, Operation Feed the Nation, 1976, Rural Banking Scheme, 1977, Austerity Measures, 1978, Green Revolution, 1980, Directorate for Roads, Rural Infrastructure (DFRRl) (1986) Better Life Programme (BLP) (1987); National Directorate of Employment (NDE) in 1987; National Policy on Science and Technology, 1987, Science and Technology Fund, National Economic Recovery Fund, Family Support Programme (FSP), Petroleum Trust Fund(1995), Oil and Mineral Areas Producing Development Committee(OMPADEC), National Agriculture, Land Development Authority, NALDA, River Basin Development Authority) in 1993, National Directorate for Employment, Family Economic Advancement Programme (FEAP) in 1997, National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP), 2001, Operation Feed the Nation, Free and Compulsory Primary Education, Green Revolution, Low Cost Housing, among others

According to Bishop Kuka, “There are programmes and policies initiated by successive administrations yet hardly can you find a trail of it or what measurable impact it has made on our society.

“But it is measure of the kind of society that we are in that any time a new government comes in, they have something else to offer or our inability to have sustain policies. That does not mean that those policies are useless.

“This systemic disruption of policies account for the systemic poverty and underdevelopment because any of these initiatives have the ability and capacity to transform and develop our society.

Further, Kuka noted the prevailing general discontent towards Nigerian leaders, submitting that non of the past leaders had actual evil intention to destroy the country.

He said: “There is non of the past head of state or president of Nigeria that I’ve not met one on one and left with the impression that he is an evil man who had come to destroy this country. Rather each of them had good intentions for the country. I’ve met people passionate and committed to develop this country in their own way.

“But I find it difficult to believe the sense of contempt that Nigerians have, it grows progressively worst from Buhari down. We hate Buhari now more than we hated Jonathan; we hated Jonathan more than we hated Yar’Adua; we keep going down and down like that. There is no single Nigerian president who you mention his name and Nigerians will keep quite. So, there must be something wrong.”

He maintained that bad governance breeds insecurity, adding that development can hardly be achieved where insecurity is the order of the day just as he stressed that security is not negotiable.

“The politicians say that you cannot grow where there is insecurity but I tell them that it is bad governance that cause insecurity. From the president to the modest local government in the country there is a general believe that things are not working.

“I owe the responsibility to let people know that politics is a noble profession. But we may not be happy with the quality of politics we have now, that is because there are no angels anywhere. The task of nation building is a collective responsibility”, he said.