Friday 17 August 2012

FG not doing enough on corruption, insecurity, says new Catholic Archbishop

NEW Catholic
Archbishop of Lagos
Metropolitan See, His Grace
Alfred Martins Adewale,
yesterday, took a cursory
look at the state of the
Nigerian nation and gave
thumbs down for the Federal
Government’s lack lustre
handling of the security
challenges and the war
against corruption, declaring
the Boko Haram sect as
terrorists bent on
destabilizing the country.
The Archbishop said: “Our
government is not doing
enough to deal with
corruption. It needs to do
much more than it is doing
so far. I can immediately
refer to the corruption in the
oil sector of the economy
where certain individuals
were indicted, taken to court
and suddenly we begin to
hear that the cases were not
thought through before they
were taken to court.
“That leaves a lot to the
imagination. If the office of
the Attorney General is not in
the position to think out
cases to the minutest detail
before charging them to
court, only to go there before
the trial gets under way, to
say there was a mistake,
leaves much to the
imagination,” the archbishop
lamented.
He added that the agencies
fighting corruption should
be strengthened to fight the
war to its logical conclusion.
While restraining Christians
from any form of violent
attack on anybody, the
archbishop threw his weight
behind calls by the Christian
Association of Nigeria, CAN,
for Christians to defend
themselves by whatever
means whenever they come
under any attack, saying that
human life is sacred and
must be regarded as such by
anybody.
He also urged the Federal
Government to urgently deal
decisively with all acts of
aggression against the
people, while also giving
thumbs up for the option of
dialogue where necessary
because “war has never
brought about lasting peace
in the history of humanity.”
In his maiden chat with
newsmen at the Church of
Assumption, Falomo in
Lagos, the Archbishop with
his Archdiocesan Director of
Social Communications, Rev.
Monsignor Gabriel Osu, also
used the occasion to
condemn the brutalization of
journalists on their legitimate
assignments.
The archbishop argued that
true federalism, which was
the pathway to national
development created by the
nation’s founding fathers
before the military
intervened in the political
process, is non-negotiable
because that is the only basis
for Nigeria’s aspiration to
level up with other nations
that began the political
voyage with Nigeria but have
left her behind.
Archbishop Martins argued
that the nation had gone
back to democracy after a
long period of military
interregnum, pointing out
however, that “we have not
addressed the real positions
where the real Nigeria began
at independence. Unless we
consider we where before
the truncation of democracy
by the military we will not be
able to know exactly what to
do, because true federalism
was what the fathers
proposed the nation’s
development.”
Arguing that the major
developments the nation had
witnessed since
independence took place
during the first republic
before the military
intervention because the
true federal nature of
governance, he said; “we
didn’t have a situation where
everybody had to go to the
seat of the federal
government to queue for
allocation in order to carry
out projects.
“If at this time of period of
our nationhood we are not
making progress as those
who started the journey like
us, then we need to go back
to the basics to find out why
we have not made any
headway,” he argued, “it is
on this basis that I argue
that true federalism is not
something to negotiate or
debate about. It is just
necessary because that is the
only way we can be at par
with other nations in the
world.”
The Catholic Archbishop also
linked the current agitation
for state police to the call for
true federalism, noting “if it
was a federal system truly
speaking then it will be
possible for all the federating
units to have the kind of
apparatus that is needed in
order to maintain the
security in their own part of
the country.”
According to him, if the
federating units have a
measure of control over their
own police they will be able
to manage the current
security situation better,
noting “naturally it is
absolutely impossible to have
knowledge of what is
happening all over the
nation. The creek of the Delta
cannot be policed as the
savanna of the North.”
On the brutalization of
journalists, Martins
expressed happiness that
Lagos Gov. Babatunde
Fashola and other well
meaning Nigerians have
been speaking out
unequivocally against this
negative trend, saying there
is no justifiable reason why
anybody should attack a man
who is going about his
constitutional duties.
“While calling on
government, our law
enforcement agencies ad
other stakeholders to rise up
to the challenge of safe
guarding our journalists
against any form of
molestation in the course of
carrying out their legitimate
business, I equally urge the
Nigeria Union of Journalists,
NUJ, not to relent in its
efforts to ensure that the
rights of its members are
protected at all times,” he
stated.

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