Archbishop of the Aba Ecclesiastical Province and leader, Southern Nigeria Bishops Conference, Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion), Dr Isaac Nwaobia, has regretted that the country was on a downward slide and charged the Bola Tinubu administration to stem the tide.

In an interview with Ogbonnaya Ndukwe, the cleric said the continuous slide of the Naira against the American dollar, had also brought Nigerians untold hardships with no plan in place by the Tinubu administration to find solutions to them.

He spoke on other issues in this encounter with Saturday Sun. Excerpts.

President Tinubu recently said his government has been able to stop the country from bleeding and was now focusing on gains to be reaped from its economic policies. Do you agree with him?

It’s a pity Nigeria has found itself in this situation. We’re deteriorating by the day because of bad leadership. Unfortunately, the man said he has the solutions and made a very nasty pronouncement on the day of his swearing in, which caused the whole disaster after the increase in prices of petroleum products. I know that he was struggling to legitimise the illegality in his ascension to the office. He wanted to assert his ability; that’s why he made the statement. That’s what has provoked the crisis, and the about 500 per cent increase in prices of goods. The average Nigerian is suffering. The barometer we use in measuring the economy is more or less the dollar. If the dollar is at N1,600 now, then where’s the hope? It gets down to include the water we drink. We virtually live on imported life. The food we eat, bread, everything is virtually imported into the country. This means that foreign money is involved in our everyday living and this has affected Nigeria and everyone’s socioeconomic life drastically. We are in a position of hopelessness presently.

Are you saying there is no sign the present government is on course to repair the country?

I still maintain that there is no hope, because up till this moment, the president and his men have not laid any good foundation for such a programme. Like I said earlier, if he had at the point of assuming office, provided solutions on ways of revamping the economy, like proposals to build new refineries, repair the ones that are not in use, among other things that will boost the economy before subsidy removal, there’ll be hope. Now, we are just managing here, there, failing here, swapping there, making it here and losing there. Just trial and error is what we are doing both in the national economy and people’s individual lives. The leadership has not shown any seriousness for improvement. So, I still say there is no hope in the present dispensation. We are in a state of hopelessness.

Some of those serving in this government have excelled elsewhere before now. Why can’t they do the same here?

In the first instance, selection of those to work with him had been very nepotistic in nature. When one goes round his kinsmen to pick people to serve Nigeria, without an excellent measurement, getting good hands, experienced people that are sincere, the leader will not make it. What I mean is that past administrations went outside to the World Bank, the international community, among other public and private sector organs, to pick tested hands, not minding the part of the country they were from. They had looked at people that had excelled in one area or the other, not those from their tribe that will say: yes sir, yes sir, yes, my president. They came with their proven expertise, knowledge, to serve Nigeria and there were solutions. So here, as far as the current president’s nepotistic selection has come, we are going to have it rough. Most of the ministers presently are not performing. Their scorecards are virtually empty. They are not proactive. Only few know what they are doing and once a greater number is not performing, the trouble is there.

What’s your take on the case involving the former CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele?

The fact is that if the present administration wants to probe the activities of the past government, it should probe every person associated with that past. That government was not solely that of Emefiele. The head of that administration was Muhammadu Buhari and he had lieutenants that can be questioned. So, singling out Emefiele for prosecution, to me, is vendetta and portends danger. There were other key functionaries in the administration. Both the EFCC and the ICPC, and in fact, ordinary administrative audit, will unveil so many rotten things that happened. So many things were messed up. People gave unnecessary orders, were doing what they liked under the Buhari regime and those that were not far from the then president were giving them orders to do those things. The probe should be comprehensive, not just the former CBN governor.

What are your views about the May 30 killing of soldiers in Aba?

I want to say that what happened on that day was very unfortunate. I do not feel that it was done by Igbo youths, because if one thinks of honouring the dead, it won’t be by killing military personnel who were just on duty. The military were not harassing any person, and then a group suddenly came, targeted and killed all of them, carting away their arms and setting their vehicles on fire. This is an eyesore in Igboland. I do not feel that our boys were involved in this. I do not say too that the political enemies of the state are far from having a hand in what happened. Think of a state that had been very backward all the time and in recent time, we are up there in the news for developmental progress, road networks coming up, workers are being paid their salaries as at when due. We are now talking about airport, seaport in this state. When the seaport comes, it means that the economy is being taken to the next level. So, there may be one or two persons out there that are not happy and may like to mess up the system so that they will have an inroad to control the base.

What’s your advice to the people?

Every person has a big role to play – the Nigerian government, the military, the states, especially here in Abia. Government has to be very active. They have to be very handy to rise to the challenges of the day. We need to reactivate our spiritual architectures including the local vigilante, hunters groups here and there, because, like they say, “agwo no n’akirika, meaning there’s a snake in the dry rooftop. What happened that Thursday May 30th, I should say, we have to be very careful, vigilant, otherwise, we’ll be swallowed up. It is possible that when one brings soldiers here, the lives of innocent citizens will become coloured. We’ll then become intimidated, harassed and the economy will cease to develop, grow and flow. Investors will refuse to come. They will only come when the environment is conducive. So the government should rise to the occasion, go back in-house and think out what to do. I know security matters are not discussed in the open. It is important that the state government should take this matter seriously.

Do you think what happened was a slap on the face of the state security committee headed by retired Chief of Army Staff, Gen Azubuike Ihejirika just days after its inauguration?

Yes, it is a challenge to the committee because the opposition to the government’s good intentions may try to show their face to say, “we are still here.” People don’t like the peaceful atmosphere in the state and so will like to confront its security architecture.

The number of churches keeps growing, but the society keeps decaying. Why is this so?

Yea. This is an offshoot of the rottenness in the public. We are in a situation that people now consider valued and cherished cultures as being in the opposite of societal development. In our native communities then, it was a taboo to steal. People used to shout at such individuals, cajole them, strip them naked in pubic, and even ostracize them after parading them round the village up to the market square on community market days. Now, thieves are welcomed home and bestowed with chieftaincy titles. That has brought us to where we are today. We used to say that a man is a product of his people’s culture. This has now translated into our churches. We ought to be seeking the motive of those opening up and establishing new churches in every nook and cranny of our land. Can’t they be under other persons in already established churches? One begins to wonder what they are teaching, whether they are different from the issues that evangelists like John Wesley, Henry Townsend, those of old brought to our land? To me, they are just working to make commercial ventures of their churches which has every tendency for derailing. That is the problem and a challenge for the leadership of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN), who should rise up to the task of bringing a check to this. If indiscipline is allowed to thrive in the society, including the church, God’s sanctuary, then there’s no hope for mankind. However, like I have said, the law is there already, in existence but implementation is where the problems lie. We have to revert to internal mechanisms of church leaders to handle this. For instance, CAN in Abia now has a new leadership. Let them create the structures to be visiting church houses intermittently and periodically to monitor their activities whether they are in line with laid down regulations from the government, if they are doing the right thing. If any of them is not getting it right, it should be either corrected or sanctioned. If we don’t do this, we cannot clean up the system either.

How would you rate the Alex Otti administration’s first year in office?

I want to say that Otti has done very well in the leadership of the state since he assumed office, judging from where we are coming from. He may not be 100 per cent perfect because he is not a career politician, however, there are concepts he has brought inside leadership which had hitherto not been here. People equally argue that he had made more money in terms of income accruing to the state than what was got by his predecessors in office. That is a pointer that he is doing well. If not, he would not have been attracting such revenues to the state. I want to believe too, that one year might not be enough to mark him down, that by the time he enters his second year in office, we must have learnt from his activities, and improve in areas that are lacking. On the surface, we can see a sincere mind who wants to make an impact on the lives of Abians. That’s why I scored him high, though not 100 per cent.

There were mixed reactions to his presence at a reception for former Senate President, Chief Adolphus Wabara, a PDP chieftain, in Umuahia. What are your thoughts on that?

For me, Otti being present at Chief Wabara’s reception in Umuahia serves us good. It shows politics without bitterness on his side and neutralised the antagonistic politics being played by those that are not seeing the good side of his administration’s activities. He is showing that individual feelings in politics come far below the wellbeing of the people of the state. It is making us to understand that the state matters more and that since everything about elections have been concluded, we are now talking about leadership. As a matter of fact, I don’t blame him. Let me give you an example , there was a time during the second republic days (1979), when an accord brought the then National Party of Nigeria (NPN) and the Nigerian People’s Party (NPP), together, a situation that led to an NPP chieftain, Chief Edwin Ume-Ezeoke, to become Speaker of Nigeria’s House of Representatives. So, judging with numbers, the capacity of the people he has in his party (LP), I won’t blame him if he crosses over outside to bring in those he feels will work with him to develop the state, even from the considered opposition parties.

What advice would you give to Nigerians in view of the hardships they are passing through presently? Is running out of the country to seek pastures elsewhere the solution?

I was at the Embassy of the United States of America (USA) the other day and saw the extent the officials were exploiting and extorting our people, depriving them of their money. More than 300 persons had cued up for visa interview, but I’m not sure the embassy gave approval to up to 40, despite the fact that all applicants had paid the needed fees. This is the “Japa” syndrome. A situation in which a 300 level or 400 level student of a higher institution in Nigeria abandons his or her study to seek green pasture abroad, becoming a cleaner, labourer or gateman in America, Canada or Europe, to do menial jobs does not augur well for our youths, our country. It is very disheartening. We are losing our best brains due to the condition we found ourselves. Beyond what we are passing through, the people in government should work very hard. In Nigeria, whether it is rainy season or dry season, one is always comfortable, but overseas, when it’s cold, people freeze to death and when summer comes, hot sun burns them too. God created Nigeria for our good and the country is loved by Him, with everything good available. In fact, we eat organic food here in Nigeria. It is my prayer that the government works very hard to provide leadership that will restore hope to the people. Nigerians should hope that after night comes daylight. I’m very hopeful that our tomorrow will be better than today. Our politicians should not be thinking of themselves only. They should also think of the wellbeing of the country and people in their constituencies so as to make an impact when they are no more.

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