Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria, on Friday, advised the Federal Government to tackle the insecurity ravaging the country rather than expending energy and time on blackmailing it’s critics.
CBCN President, Augustine O. Akubeze, gave the advice in a statement titled, “Urgent call to the Federal Government to be open to criticism in addressing the pervading insecurity in Nigeria”.
Akabueze, who condemned that the recent coup scare by the Presidency as uncalled for, said many Nigerians who experienced the brutality of the military are aware that a return to such days is not the prayer or desire of Nigerians.
The statement read, “A Nigerian does not need to be a registered political party card-carrying member before speaking about the failing economy, the daily killings and kidnappings of students, older men and women; babies and infants; people being killed in IDP camps and even in their homes by insurgents.
“Every reasonable Nigerian is sick to the stomach to read or hear of a Governor running from insurgents who want to kill him in the State where he is constitutionally the chief security officer.
“Nigerians are tired of hearing of bandits taking youths in the University and executing some of them, while others are kept to be used to bargain for ransom,” Akabueze said.
The CBCN president said in the midst of all these, the Presidency recently stated that some religious leaders and some Nigerian politicians were plotting to destabilise the country while the spokesperson for the Nigerian Army stated that there was no plan by the military to take over democratically elected government.
He added, “While we reject any call for the destabilisation of Nigeria or military takeover, we nonetheless say to the Federal Government of Nigeria, led by President Muhammadu Buhari, there is no need to focus your energy, time and resources in any form of propaganda against religious leaders who disagree with your performance.
“There is no need to spend so much of your time trying to blackmail anyone who criticises your Government.
“We speak out because we do not want Nigeria to collapse.
“We are not speaking out for the APC Government to fail we are speaking out so that Nigeria will not fail,” he added.
The cleric also said that the Federal Government must be transparent with every Nigerian in the struggle to revive the economy, industrialise the nation, objectively deal with corruption and significantly reduce the high level of insecurity and unemployment.
He stressed that the Catholic Church wanted the Federal Government to summon a meeting of all stakeholders for a sincere discussion on the way forward, adding that such discussions must seek how to implement the much talked about restructuring and devolution of power down to the local government level.