My column today simply outlines the call of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria for governance to be based on the search for the common good. This was articulated in a communique issued this week following their annual conference. They pointed out that the season of Lent this year coincides with the Ramadan, the Muslim period of fasting. They considered this not as a mere coincidence but God’s invitation to work and live together in harmony and mutual respect as Nigerians use the opportunity to intensify their prayer life, works of charity, refrain from sin, and repent, all contributing to good neighbourliness and a better society.
They argued that the Church has always taught that the good of individuals is bound up with the good of the community. The Common Good, therefore, is both the good which is meant for all and the totality of conditions that make possible the flourishing of life. Common Good therefore is a social good meant for all people by the fact of human existence. The Common Good presupposes respect for the dignity and rights of everyone. These are actually clearly spelt out in Chapter Two of the Nigerian Constitution. It involves the social welfare and development of one and all in the society and government has the responsibility to ensure all Nigerians enjoy them.
I completely agree with the affirmation of the Catholic Bishops that in every society, responsible citizenship is a virtue, and participation in political life is a moral obligation. This message is particularly important as more Nigerians are giving up hope and adopting apathy, refusing to participate in elections while lamenting that democracy has died forgetting that democracy dies only when the spirit of citizenship in the people dies as well. Nigerians must resist the urge to adopt Bola Ige’s famed “sidon look” attitude.
Nigerians are giving up hope because every government that has emerged in the Forth Republic – Obasanjo, Yar’Adua, Jonathan, Buhari and Tinubu has turned out to be worse than the one before it. In the minds of many Nigerians, this has wiped out the hope of future progress and this can be very destabilising. Successive leaderships have shown themselves to be corrupt and self-serving. This is destabilising because as the Catholic Bishops argue, leadership is the platform for working for the Common Good. It is the responsibility of public authority to ensure that the citizenry has access to what is needed to lead a truly human life: food, clothing, health, work, education, culture, suitable information, the establishment of a family, etc.
The Common Good also requires peace, stability and security of a just order. The obligation of government to the Common Good must not become the usurpation of the rights of the governed. It must be carried out without repression or tyranny because each sector of society as well as individuals have their proper contributions to make, and government must respect and encourage these contributions. This approach paves way for the participation of all in politics and, most especially, contributes to leadership effectiveness at all levels of society. Indeed, effective leadership means the prioritization of the Common Good over selfish and sectional interests.
The Catholic Bishops lament the persistent insecurity and loss of lives in the country. Nigeria, they point out, continues to experience tragic events of senseless massacre, mass burials, endless tears, and grief. There are incidents of mass murders in different communities, particularly in Woro and Nuku villages in Kwara State, where over 200 people, both Christians and Muslims, were gruesomely massacred by scores of Islamist jihadists for refusing to embrace fundamentalist Islam. Most recently, in many parts of the country, particularly in the Northern region and the middle belt, there are cases of attacks and mass killings involving many students, pupils and worshippers. Still more, while many farmers cannot go to their farms for fear of being injured or killed, many other persons are still displaced from their homes and business areas, owing to the activities of insurgents and bandits. In all, the gunmen operate brazenly, freely and unchallenged.
On the socio-economic front, they point out that conditions are tough and government policies sabotage the Common Good. Nigeria is richly blessed with abundant mineral resources. With good leadership, these resources would have been contributing significantly to our national economic growth and development. In our country, the ownership of all mineral resources is vested in the Federal Government, which also regulates their exploration and exploitation. Yet, trillions of Naira are annually lost to bunkering and illegal mining owing to banditry, kidnapping and other organized crimes in parts of our country. Often, these criminal groups use proceeds from the sale of minerals, such as gold and lithium, to fund terrorist activities across the country. Yet, the Nigerian government has continued to borrow huge sums of money without much to show for the welfare of citizens. Furthermore, taxes paid by individuals and businesses are not adequately utilized for the Common Good.
To stem the tide of economic sabotage, especially in relation to illegal mining and stealing of our mineral resources, with the attendant environmental degradation, the Catholic Bishops enjoin the government to devise a more aggressive approach to fighting these illegalities across the country. For instance, the “Mining Marshals” deployed by government to secure mining sites and arrest unlicensed miners have not been fully effective in covering the vast, remote, and difficult terrains, where illegal miners operate. The efforts of these Marshals should be complemented by using drone technology and artificial intelligence (AI) for monitoring remote and high-risk mining sites. Again, rather than importation of food as is currently being done by the government, to lower the prices of food, which invariably has negatively affected the local farmers, we demand that the government provide adequate security and grant sufficient subsidy to the farmers to enable them to produce enough food for the nation.
The Catholic Bishops are correct in making the argument that the major cause of our problem as a nation is poor leadership and the wrong idea of politics. Where politics is erroneously understood only as rigging of elections and stealing of other people’s mandate, leadership is unfortunately taken as the amassing of illicit gains or engaging in other fraudulent activities. Bad leadership in our nation has caused systemic damage showing up in a worsening economy, widespread and persistent insecurity, and extreme poverty, despite the blessing of rich human and natural resources. This situation has fuelled corruption, infrastructural decay, high rate of unemployment and a deep lack of trust in government institutions.
The Catholic Bishops concluded on the positive note that a better Nigeria is possible if we all contribute to building our nation with the objective of serving the Common Good. We must ensure that those who occupy positions of leadership in our land, at both the national and sub-national levels, are people with track records of probity, competence and commitment. I endorse this pathway to correcting the evil in the land and establishing the type of government we would all be proud of.
