The Catholic Archbishop of Abuja, Most Rev. John Onaiyekan yesterday evening declared that President Muhammadu Buhari has no excuse to fail Nigerians owing to the solid experience he has in governance.
Addressing newsmen after a thanksgiving mass organised to mark his 46th priestly anniversary, at the Catholic Pro Cathedral, Our Lady Queen of Nigeria, Abuja, Onaiyekan noted that leaders in Africa and Nigeria had been around for a while, hence should have clear directions on how to develop their countries.
According to him, “Many of the present leaders have been there for the past 50 years. Take Buhari, for example, he was president more than 30 years ago.
“The people in government now are not young people. So there’s no excuse, we should be moving forward.”
Noting that Nigeria’s challenges were as a result of failure to align objectives with workable plans, the Archbishop said, “By now we should have learnt better what works well and what doesn’t, unfortunately we keep making the same mistake”.
He said the global political terrain had also developed tremendously, adding that many Africa countries today had democratic governments against some predictions.
“In 1969 the world was different from what it is today, the major political issues were between communist countries and western countries.
“Africa was just coming out of colonial regime. At that period we were even under the military and many people thought it would remain like that,” he said.
The Archbishop, however, urged Nigerians to pray for their leaders so that as the country advanced in years, its development would gradually become commensurate to its age.
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