Former Archbishop Emeritus of Lagos, Catholic Church,
Anthony Okogie has said Coronavirus outbreak in Nigeria is a blessing in
disguise.
He said the outbreak of COVID-19 had been a dangerous yet
revelatory moment in Nigeria, saying it was dangerous because this deadly
pandemic had infected over a million and killed thousands of citizens of the
planet, as no one seemed to know when and how it would end.
“But COVID-19 is also revelatory, a blessing in disguise,
because it has exposed Nigeria as a country where quality of leadership is of
low grade. What we have known but has been denied for so long is now shown to
us as an incontrovertible fact: that the quality of leadership in our country
must improve.
“In the midst of poor-quality leadership, however, Nigerians
must speak in laudatory terms about Gov. Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos, his
Commissioner for Health, Professor Akin Abayomi, and his entire team for rising
to the occasion. For right or wrong reasons, Lagosians have been critical of
his government since its inauguration on May 29, 2019.
“But it must be admitted that with a population said to be
close to 15 million, if Gov Sanwo-Olu and his team had not provided
outstandingly exemplary leadership, we would have had a more dangerous
situation in our hands. At the risk of making a hasty judgement, it is to be
placed on record that, as at the time this is being written, Gov Sanwo-Olu and
his team have largely prevented the spread of the virus in Lagos. Let us pray
for them and encourage them so that they will continue to show exemplary
leadership to other political office holders in Nigeria,” he said.
Okogie, in a statement, said that COVID-19 had also revealed
to us that, rather than invest in good health care service delivery in Nigeria,
the nation had a political arrangement that made it possible, even encouraging,
to waste Nigeria’s money on government officials and health tourism abroad.
“Thanks to our country’s constitution dubbed federal,
government in Nigeria is embarrassingly big, sinfully expensive, prone to
corruption, and scandalously inefficient. Nigeria cannot adequately invest in
the sectors of health and education because, among other reasons, the
constitution of Nigeria has established offices that will require an endless
flow of petrol-dollars to maintain.
“By the time low-grade leadership combines with big
government and the seemingly irresistible tendency to steal and or waste
Nigeria’s money, you find a country whose hospitals are reduced to mere
consultation rooms. It is therefore insufficient for our legislators to forfeit
their salaries for two months, as they have offered. It is also unsatisfactory
for Senators to donate half of their salaries to tackle COVID-19.
“The humongous basic salaries and allowances of our
political office holders should become a thing of the past. The money should be
used to establish a regime of high-quality medical service delivery. COVID-19 has
revealed to us that if we do not do something positive about our hospitals in
Nigeria, if we do not invest our money in medical research, we shall one day
find ourselves in a situation where we cannot even board a flight out of
Nigeria to go on medical tourism. Let us make hay while the sun shines,” he
added.
He said those who claimed they did not to know what the
clamour for restructuring was about, the outbreak of Coronavirus had revealed
an explanation, saying that Nigeria needed to restructure the relationship
between her government functionaries and her citizens.
Okogie added that the current constitutional structure
provided for too many offices because it put in place a government that was too
big, noting that constitutional restructuring was a necessary condition for the
production of high-quality governance.
“But if we continue to run the affairs of our country with a
constitution that impoverishes and disables the citizens by establishing
offices that do not serve the people, then we would not have learnt good
lessons from this pandemic.
“We are spending billions buying brand new cars for our
political office holders, paying them sundry allowances, when we have no good
hospital to handle the current emergency. Government impoverishes Nigerians,
and, the same government has now decided to spray raw cash on the people it
impoverishes. On prime-time television, we witnessed the spectacle of bales of
naira notes, and a minister of the Federal Republic was doing the distribution.
“But government could and ought to have used this moment to
encourage Nigerians to open bank accounts. A more transparent means of giving
out the money would have been to ask each person for his or her bank
verification number and to send the money into their accounts. Apart from the
fact that it would have encouraged more Nigerians to open bank accounts, it
would have made it possible to account for every naira that is given out. In
the same vein, we have heard how billions of naira are being donated to
government without government telling Nigerians how the donation will be
spent,” he said.
According to him, COVID-19 had also revealed to Nigerians
that there were false prophets living among them, saying that in a country
where once “you grab a Bible and a microphone you become a pastor or prophet or
apostle, where you can become founder of a church without any serious
theological formation, we have seen how some of our religious leaders have
resorted to dishing out false prophecies.
“We have been treated to the cruelty of conspiracy theories
woven by attention-seeking pseudo-apostles to nurture fear in the minds of
people. We have seen how those who did not foresee any pandemic when, at the
beginning of the year 2020, they claimed to be “prophesying” for Nigeria, now
lay claims to have received a message. Rather than join the government in
providing palliative measures, we have also seen how some pastors have been
asking their members to pay tithes even when those members are unable to
venture out to earn their daily bread.”
Okogie said some who ventured out were brutalized by
policemen and soldiers who were not held accountable for violating the rights
of citizens they were paid to protect, saying “Can’t we reason? Let us think!”
In summary, he stressed that COVID-19 had been a blessing in
disguise and exposed the falsehood and hypocrisy “we call politics and religion
in Nigeria. May Nigerians become sufficiently wise to read and interpret the
signs of the time. For a stitch in time saves nine. Having taught us the hard way,
may this pandemic go to bed early, never to rise again.”
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