• Thursday, March 28, 2024
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Unless we halt the drift, Nigerian youths will have no future – Umunna

Bishop Umunna (2)

Leonard Umunna, founder and bishop of the Bible Life Church, is also a commentator on national issues. In this interview with ZEBULON AGOMUO, he takes a look at recent happenings in Nigeria, saying that there will be no future for the youth unless the political class begins to do things the proper way. Excerpts:

Nigerian as a country is passing through a difficult time. What do you think is really happening?

Many have been praying to see the days in which we are in now but it came in an unexpected way via the youth. They started with #EndSARS and added more things and more things. Nigeria as I have told you several times, had a glorious beginning but like an aeroplane, flew and crash-landed, and up till now has not been able to fly again. The engineers have not located the damaged parts or replacement parts not to talk of fixing them. What is happening is like in the days of Israel when God abandoned them for a while because they went after other gods. I don’t know what else to say. What kind of solutions that have not been given; all the suggestions have been made but which one has been adopted? I have said before that they should adopt the recommendations of the National Conference of 2014 by the Goodluck Jonathan administration, but nobody is listening. I have said on several occasions that we should change the name of Nigeria, and the constitution. They should throw away the current constitution. It is pro-military and was not the wish of Nigerians. They should look at what we are passing through now and craft a good constitution for Nigeria. All that we have passed through since independence; all the problems; solutions to them, plus what we get from other nations that are advancing should form our new constitution. Look at Britain, America, even some African countries, what their constitutions have helped them to achieve and pattern ours accordingly. We can borrow ideas from them. But some people do not want to hear it; they believe that leadership is their own natural inheritance.

What is your view on the stand of the Northern governors that the #EndSARS protest was targeted at removing the Buhari administration and APC government?

It is because they do not have the type of problems we have in the South. Nobody should tell anybody that #EndSARS was aimed at any particular government to change it. The children were crying for their rights for the sake of God. Everybody knows it that this set of children since 1999 have virtually no future with Nigeria. Everybody should know that. I learnt the other day that some people are prying into youths’ bank accounts to know who sponsored them; that is linking them with some politicians now to find out whether they gave them money to use to do something. Anybody who witnessed what happened at Lekki with their National Flag and those leading the team- the talk and the prayer- you know that these are just harmless children asking for their rights in their country. They were drawing the attention of government that they have no future. You get into school, to graduate is problem- endless ASUU strike because of government failures; you come out to look for a job, but a few people in government have cornered everything to themselves. All they were asking for at Lekki was ‘Daddy, our future is bleak; please make a room for us.’ But is it not true? Is it not true? Let anybody answer. Today, they say we are the most poor, the most unhappy people; we are the most war-torn country even though we are not in actual war. Let me tell you, it was the sympathy people had for the Lekki protesters that made them to give them food, water and provide medical assistance during the protest. People saw and knew it was a genuine protest; that was that. Nobody was sponsoring them to destabilise government. Who are you going to destabilise, anyway? The Federal Government that is backed by the military? How are you going to fight the military? And that period they came up with their Operation Crocodile Smile. Why must they always politicise every move to make us behave like good nation we should be. All our small, small neighbours are mocking at us. All over the world, we are being made a laughing stock because of bad leadership. In fact, we are having something beyond leadership problem in Nigeria; it is leadership catastrophe. The youths have know over the years that their government is untrustworthy and that’s why they continued to occupy Lekki and other places even after placing their demands. They do not have any trust in government. The truth is that the youth of Nigeria have no future. Many of them have graduated from the university but they are lying down at home, and many roam the streets without any job. The youth are telling you they are very hungry and being frustrated by the system and you say, they are joining politicians or that their cries are not genuine.

Some people are saying that the way the calls for restructuring are getting traction from across the country that Nigeria may not escape it in the near feature. What is your take here?

This was that thing they said that time during Jonathan administration that Nigeria would cease to exist as a nation by so and so time. Now, the time has come again; it is not just restructuring Nigeria, but whatever language or terminology; it is a matter of semantics; let us change to the right thing that other people are doing and are making it. We changed from left hand driving to right hand driving; and from right hand driving to left hand driving. All we wanted to achieve was to make our roads safer; motoring safer; life safer. I have on several occasions told them to adopt state policing; but they said Nigeria is not ripe or Nigeria is not mature for it; when will Nigeria be ripe? A journey of a thousand mile starts with one step forward in the right direction; begin it. To me, whatever they are doing unless they are able to crash the salaries of politicians in government; especially those at the top – the legislators; the executives, the judiciary – Ghana’s Rawlings’ approach will be a child’s play when it starts in Nigeria.

We have been talking about the poor state of things in Nigeria. Some of those who started the fight have either died or old. The anger is still there today even in greater measure; now the question is, do you think there will be a time when the expected change will come?

The time is now. They have asked me about revolution; I said don’t use the word revolution, the change- not the APC kind of change; that’s political kind of change- Nigerian kind of change it has started. It is always darkest (dusk) before the dawn. What I detested which I caution, is that segmented approach. If they don’t solve the problem of Nigeria which is character-wise- all this corruption, tribalism, nepotism, hatred, etc; if they are not purged from us, no matter the region that goes to form their own country, they will still fail. Let the Arochukwu, core Igbo form their own; they will still bring the Nigeria-factor and worsen their condition. Let those in the North continue to deny that #EndSARS is relevant; we will continue to have more Boko Haram. You continue to have more Boko Haram. You have read what some respectable heads of states and others have said concerning what caused Boko Haram in the first place. The right thing leaders should do is to dissolve Nigeria or reconstruct Nigeria. That’s what I advise; fight for idea not resources. Get the right idea so that the right constitution can be made, putting in the right people. You insist that positions are occupied by people with requisite qualification; by this we know that whether APC of any other party, people with character are in position of authority. Not what we have now.

The process is in place now to rebuild some of the states that were devastated during the #EndSARS such as Lagos. The state government signed the Executive Order Wednesday to that effect. Must this rebuilding be completely handed by the affected states since the cause of the protest had to do with a federal agency? Shouldn’t the Federal Government play significant role here?

We are borrowing to execute projects that nobody is seeing. The few that are seen, they say they are being sponsored by Chinese people who said that if we default they will take over that place. If Lagos undertakes the rebuilding of the state, will they not get the money through borrowing, again? Will Lagos not be subjected to the Chinese threat again? Get the idea right; we are working with wrong principles by wrong people. Economically, it is viable for you to borrow to invest in tangible things that will advance the wellbeing of the people; but if it is squandered, it impacts negatively on the people, even the unborn generation. If Lagos State calls on the Federal Government to come and help, the FG could still take this step of going to borrow; that’s not what we are looking for; the right thing is to develop resources. Lagos State has this knack for making the citizens pay for their projects by way of taxation; and many other ways. Therefore, the state should continue in the way it has been going and not bring in the Federal Government. They should rather receive whatever share government may give them as it gives other states; the massive devastation in Lagos State, notwithstanding. Lagos is not as poor as many other states. Even with the massive devastation, Lagos is still far ahead of others. Other states have their own complaints too; it will give the Federal Government another opportunity to borrow from the wrong sources.

What does the massive looting of the palliative warehouses in some states mean to you?

God says when you are harvesting, you should drop something for the poor. Therefore, if somebody is hungry and passes through your farm and finds something that can satisfy his hunger, do not trouble him. If these people looted because they were hungry; or that they needed something to eat; I would not be happy with any policeman that arrests them; but where I am not happy is when the looters develop covetousness, greed and begin to carry other things that are not food – equipment, etc. A man had one of his staff steal food; and he gathered all the people to deal with the case. They asked him why he did that. He said, ‘I’m not a thief; I was very hungry. I just took the food to satisfy my hunger. Look at your money there, I saw it, but I did not take it because I am not a thief. I don’t need the money but the food.’ So, it is different from someone going to private people’s homes to remove machinery and other costly items. We must balance the blame. Those that have been arrested by the police, the police should investigate very well. If it is only food items they carried, they should be released to go home and they should even be given more. That is what I should do if I were in government. Bu the ruffians who wanted to undo their enemies by looting dry their properties; they should by no means escape the punishment.