Catholic Bishops Tackle Federal Government Over Incessant Borrowings, Say It’s Anti-people

By Chidi Nkwopara, Owerri

The endless borrowing of humongous sums of money to fund personal interests of public office holders has been described as “anachronistic, unconscionable, wasteful and anti-people”.

President of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria, CBCN, Most Rev. Lucius Iwejuru Ugorji, stated this yesterday, while delivering a homily, during his pastoral visit to St. Patrick’s Catholic Parish, Okwu Uratta, Owerri North local council area of Imo State.

His words: “The seemingly endless practice of borrowing humongous sums of money, to fund the personal interests of the country’s public office holders.

“How come we are still borrowing to fund the wasteful activities of our leaders? Why must we borrow to fund the purchase vehicles for public office holders? This is anachronistic, unconscionable, wasteful and anti-people.

“At the inception of the present federal administration, we were given reasons why the fuel subsidy was removed. We were told, among other things that oil subsidy was stopped with a view to make life and living better.

“We have been trying to endure the accompanying pain and excruciating hardship for nearly seven months, but where are we today?

“Has anyone been bold enough to tell Nigerians how much has so far been saved and the use it was put into, for overall public good?

“Our roads, public schools, healthcare centres are anything but good. We are still grappling with hyper-inflation, hopeless public power supply, a sick economic environment, corruption, insecurity and a lot more.

“Nigerians are crying over the nation’s economic realities. It appears that the future is both dark and bleak. Our young ones now want to leave this country, in search of greener pastures.

“We are not safe on our highways and we are equally not safe at home. What type of life is this?”
Going into other areas of concern, Archbishop Ugorji said: “Corruption remains on the high side. Even our electoral process is not immune from corruption.

“The moment some money gets into certain hands, wrong things are done. The police looks the other way, electoral figures are altered and fake results are announced.

“There is also the issue of tribalism, nepotism and ethnocentrism. We all saw what the immediate past president did. We endured and prayed for better times after him. The question is: Are we better today?

” We must change our attitude. Nigeria still needs people that will save us from our current rot. We must change our favourable disposition for corruption, indiscipline, armed robbery, kidnapping, wasteful expenditures and irresponsible waste of precious human lives in our country.”