The news circle has been dominated for some time by the visit of Catholic Bishops to President Tinubu to draw the attention of Government to their concerns over the policy direction of the Administration. Speaking to the visit in a television interview, the Archbishop Emeritus of Abuja, John Cardinal Onaiyekan has done Nigeria a good turn by boldly coming out and showing that the President Tinubu’s administration is determined to win the 2027 elections “by all means”. All the indicators are blinking red showing a single-minded determination of the Tinubu Administration to use State resources to undermine the credibility of the electoral process. The problem, according to the Cardinal is that ordinary Nigerians are in distress suffering from the misery and hardship of the harmful policies imposed on the people by President Tinubu.
The response of government has been to launch a campaign of calumny against Onaiyekan. In a statement on Saturday, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Temotope Ajayi, described Onaiyekan’s action as an abuse of privilege. Ajayi said there was something fundamentally inappropriate about Cardinal John Onaiyekan granting a television interview to offer his own account and interpretation of what transpired during the private meeting between the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) and President Bola Tinubu. It is strange that in a democracy, visitors to the President are denied the right to complain about his strong disagreement with their analysis. They had gone to see him to articulate a different vision for the country. He had rejected their position. They owed it to Nigerians to explain to them that President Tinubu is determined to stay in power to pursue the same anti-people policies he had been pursuing.
