The Anglican Bishop of Minna Diocese, Rt. Revd. Daniel Yisa, has said three years on, Nigerians are yet to experience the much-promised Change from the Buhari administration.
In a sermon on the occasion of Easter celebration in Minna yesterday, Bishop Yisa stated that “the only change the administration has succeeded in bringing is, criminals automatically becoming saints once they crossed over to the ruling party.
“If the 6 people mentioned in the first looters’ list are the thieves, what happened to the rest, especially those that crossed over to the ruling party?” he queried.
The bishop enjoined Nigerian leaders to emulate the leadership style of Jesus Christ who led by example, saying: “If you are a leader, you should be a leader in words, thoughts and actions.
“When we have a government that is supposed to transform the lives of the people and it’s not doing so, then you know that not every government that preaches change is sincere. Under the government, politics has become business.
“Jesus left a legacy for us, He redeemed us, that is why we are celebrating.
“What are we going to celebrate at the end of the tenure of this government? Those that have the capacity to speak out, have been silenced one way or the other.”
The cleric expressed the need for leaders to sacrifice, saying Jesus sacrificed his life to save humanity.
“The kind of sacrifice I expect from this government is for them to drive on our roads rather than fly. Let them sacrifice by driving on roads like Mokwa to Jebba bridge and see what the common man is passing through.
“I wish there are no chartered flights for these people to travel with so that they can ply our roads. If they are sacrificing, let them drive on our roads,” he said.
That’s the problem with Nigeria’s politics and administrative governance. There’s no water-tight system to prevent corrupt practices, and in every strata of governance. Many front-liners are so irrelevant, incompetent and with dubious potentials, But many Nigerians saw this coming before the 2015 elections when those with the ‘mark of Cain’ outflow into the APC. The fact that the Coalition itself emerged from an amalgam of several political parties, potent and not, gave access to political ‘fugitives’ to see the APC as a haven of sort. Now, they have become liabilities to the credibility of APC, with certain prospect that same APC;s chances of a come-back, aside leadership personality, are almost non-existent. Internally, there’s skeptical loyalty to leadership or the party; externally, the competitiveness with other political parties, old or new, are so stiff to the point of calumny and ‘bare-back’ mud-wrestling.
Question is how many current APC ‘customers’ and lip-service patriots will be there before and by the outcome of 2019 elections.
In some quarters, chieftains feel that things had already gone so awry for APC, not even charisma can construct a miraculous victory whereas, some believe that as an incumbent, a game of ‘multiplicity’ is allowed to be played – just like any other political machination. To be prudent, this translates as ‘rigging’.