The Catholic Bishops, led by Archbishop Matthew Ndagoso of Kaduna, on 28 July 2026, paid a visit to President Tinubu in the Presidential Villa for three main reasons – political climate, the economy, and the security. They made it clear to the President that they are not politicians seeking for his job or any other politician’s job. They were not sent by any political party to meet the President. They were not there to ask for personal wealth or oil wells.
They were not there for liberation theology. This branch of theology is a Christian movement that interprets the teachings of Jesus Christ through the plight of the poor and oppressed. Emerging in Latin America during the 1960s, it argues that faith requires active political and social involvement to change unjust economic structures, viewing God as a liberator who takes the side of the marginalised. They did not want to be seen as liberators who were interested in using their faith as a movement to change a government. One has no choice than to believe the Catholic Bishops because, by their faith, they neither marry nor bear children. Indeed, one of the requirements for priesthood is an oath of poverty. They are dead to the flesh and material things.
They are religious leaders with a duty not just to preach religious doctrines but also the duty to address the lives of their people, both those who are their members and those who are not. They were there to express the feelings of many Nigerians who have no way of meeting with the President – voice of the voiceless. They were simply Nigerians who believe that Nigerians deserve more than they are getting from a nation blessed by God.
The first candid salvo they released to the President is that the people around him were painting a rosy picture to the President of Nigeria, which does not reflect the reality of the situation on ground. They came to help the President appreciate the truth of the reality on ground. The President disagreed with them on that. The freezing of the account of the Osun State government on the eve of gubernatorial election without prior knowledge of the President irrefutably confirmed to the President that people around him are not telling him the truth. Also the appearance of the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC) in the budget the President prepared and presented to the National Assembly which the President claims is fake, is another indication that his aides are deceiving him. The Catholic Bishops were right.
In the issue of insecurity, they told the President that the nation is bleeding. The President denied it. Gov Alia of Benue State, an All Progressives Congress (APC) Governor, had used the statement himself when he said, “Benue is bleeding.” Since Tinubu came into power, more than 10,000 people have been violently killed in Benue and Plateau alone. More than 20,000 people have been massacred in Nigeria. Nigeria is now flowing with tears and blood. Again the Bishops were right.
In the area of the economy, the Bishops lamented that the economy is not helping the poor people. Nigerians are hungry. Tinubu responded that hunger existed before he was born and that the economy was doing well. I wonder where Tinubu got his statistics of hunger existing before he was born. As a young undergraduate in my late teens, the cost of food in our school was about one naira for a plate of food. One hundred naira was enough to see you through for one month in school. Naira was one of the most powerful currencies in the world. It was stronger than the dollar and even the pound. How are the mighty fallen. Nigeria was neither a poor country, nor were Nigerians hungry before or when Tinubu was born.
Nigerians became hungry from the inception of the APC government under Buhari and the hunger became uncontrollable under Tinubu. It became so bad that even Tinubu’s own people are crying “ebi npawa” – we are hungry. Again the Bishops were right and Tinubu was not. Today, naira is about N1,400 to a dollar, and fuel is about N1,200. This makes them unaffordable. Electric power is still epileptic. Transportation cost is at the highest and transmission of power is at its lowest. We have had more grid collapses in Tinubu’s government than in previous governments within the same period of governance. More than seven million people go into poverty every year in Nigeria by World Bank report. Today, more than 180 million people are in one kind of poverty or the other. Some Nigerians are actually eating from the dustbins. The Bishops were right.
It is in the area of the political climate that the Bishops sounded the greatest alarm. They recognised that there was a creeping danger of Nigeria degenerating speedily into a one-party state. In their own opinion, Nigeria will not gain anything to tow this path. They noted that the President and the ruling APC is bent on winning at all cost, by all means, and is poised to use every power at their disposal to achieve this. They ominously submitted that from the way things are going, the ruling party, under Tinubu, will handle the 2023 general elections in a manner that even if we have free and fair elections, the votes of the people will not count. This is a total vote of no confidence in the management of the election under the Tinubu’s partial and dependent INEC. They warned that if we do not rearrange our election to make sure that our election is free, fair, and credible, it can lead to difficulties. They deprecated the favourable posture of Tinubu’s government of congratulating itself as misplaced because this will make it not to do enough to address the difficulties.
In this regard, their Holinesses pleaded with President Tinubu to provide genuine level playing field for all the parties in contention for the 2023 general elections and ensure that the rules are fair to all. Again, Tinubu rejected their advice. He retorted that “all is fair in politics.” He assured that he will wrestle the opposition to the floor and will not give them the rope to strangle him. This smacks of the “do or die” politics of the Obasanjo days. Democracy was introduced to eliminate wrestling among opponents in a democracy. The relationship in the contest is between each candidate and the people of Nigeria. Elections are determined by the choice of the voters not by wrestling among the candidates. An incumbent who has all the levers of state and is spoiling to wrestle with his opponents in an election simply confirmed the fears of the Bishops that he wants to win by all means. Again the President goofed.
The Bishops never expected a cordial meeting with the President because when a nation is bleeding, there is always no cordiality between the religious and political class. But I doubt whether they expected the level of hostility visited on them by both the President and his uncouth spokespersons. The President’s aides described Cardinal John Onaiyekan as a political jobber who embarked on political voyage to the villa to market his preferred candidate in the next election. They submitted that the Cardinal breached confidentiality privilege for divulging the details of the meeting between the President and the Bishops.
This must be a funny response to a meeting that Senator Orji Uzo Kalu, an APC leader in the senate, rightly described as commendable. He educated President Tinubu’s aides that in a thriving democracy, open and honest conversations such as this create an opportunity to listen, reflect and work together in the best interest of Nigerians. Constructive criticism should be received in good faith. He reminded these disrespectful aides that the Catholic Church has always played an important role in promoting justice, peace, moral values and national unity.
Christians in Nigeria must up their political games. They must adopt the liberation theology approach to rescue Nigeria. Jesus Christ was a liberator and when he was on earth in the flesh he called out the corrupt political, commercial, and religious leaders and gave them their names accordingly. He used such names as fox, thieves, hypocrites, fools, blind, snakes, vipers to shame such leaders. He chased them away when needed and shunned them when desirable.
Time has come for Christians to chase away any political party or movement that do not cater for their interests. Where were the Christians when a foreign country intervened to save them from extinction from bandits, kidnappers, and terrorists in their own country. Where were the Christians when a President chose a fellow Muslim as his Vice during the first term, and boldly repeated the same insensitivity in the second term? Isaiah 9:6 is very clear that “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
The belief of Christians is that the government is upon the shoulders of Jesus. This is even an Old Testament provision that predicted the birth of Jesus and his mission on earth. The belief of Christians is that any government that removes Jesus from its presence has removed peace from it. Nigerians have seen how our country has lost its peace under Tinubu as has not been seen in the history of Nigeria. Time has come for Christians to be represented in the presidency through the President or the Vice President.
(The Sun)