Good Leadership Critical to Nigeria’s Devt, Says CBCN 

–         Urges FG to tackle illegal mining 

Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja 

Nigerian Catholic Bishops under auspices of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) has described bad leadership as a major affliction depriving the country attaining the desired economic growth and global influence.

The bishops also lamented that trillions of Naira are annually lost to bunkering and illegal mining owing to banditry, kidnapping and other organized crimes in parts of our country.

They said that these criminal groups use proceeds from the sale of minerals, such as gold and lithium, to fund terrorist activities across the country. 

In a communique issued after their first Plenary meeting held in Abuja and signed by the outgoing CBCN’s president, Archbishop Lucius Iwejuru Ugorji and Secretary, Bishop Donatus Ogun, the priests said that bad leadership has fueled corruption, infrastructural decay, high rate of unemployment and a deep lack of trust in government institutions in Nigeria 

The bishops said that democracy, elections are the means through which political leaders are chosen by the electorate, but regrettably, in Nigeria, the process of electing political leaders has been for a long time marred by gross irregularities.

“We observe that a 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,” they said.

CBCN noted that 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. 

The clergymen said that in a situation where governments in power usually have their own candidates in the election and therefore are parties in the contest, they thus become technically not impartial. 

“We call on the governments in power at all levels to resist the temptation to seek to win at all costs including the misuse and manipulation of state institutions, such as the INEC, the security agencies and the judiciary, to achieve selfish purpose. 

“We observe that a 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. 

CBCN further spoke on socio-economic sabotage allegedly crippling the economic development of Nigeria.

According to the CBCN, Nigeria is richly blessed with abundant mineral resources but these resources have largely been mismanaged and stolen by criminals and their government collaborators.

They argued that, “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,” they said 

CBCN suggested the deployment of Mining Marshals 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. 

On insecurity, CBCN said it supports the move by President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to declare a national security emergency, ordering the recruitment of more security personnel alongside far-reaching measures. 

“This has led our military to step up its operations against terrorists in the country. However, our country has continued to experience more security challenges. 

“We continue 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. 

“To deal with the problem of insecurity and recognizing the need for more proactive measures to secure Nigeria, we call on governments at all levels to invest more in modern technological equipment for surveillance,

“We also urge them to strengthen measures for intelligence gathering by security agencies to enable them to proactively perform their duties, ” CBCN said.