Nigeria at crossroads – Archbishop Israel Afolabi Amoo
Archbishop Israel Afolabi Amoo has declared that Nigeria, as a nation, is currently navigating a multifaceted challenges marked by insecurity, economic challenges, and underlying political tensions been witnessed in various parts of the country.
Archbishop Amoo, declared this on Thursday at the 26th Provincial Council Meeting of the Church of Nigeria, Anglican Communion Ecclesiastical Province of Kwara state, held at Offa, Offa Local Government Area of Kwara State.
According to the cleric, “The country is besieged by a variety of security threats, ranging from banditry, terrorism, kidnapping, to insurgency across various parts of the nation.
“We are also witnessing conflicts between farmers and harders, which have brought untold hardship to many communities with several families rendered homeless and their means of livelihood completely disrupted.This has impacted negatively on the overall Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the nation.
“The inflation index is on the soaring state and unemployment is rising, which has left a significant number of citizens struggling to meet their basic needs.
“Unfortunately for us, we cannot see any serious attempt by the government to improve our livelihood. Right from the first day of this government, it has been woes upon woes with promises that were never meant to be fulfilled.
“The abrupt removal of the petrol subsidy without proper economic controls was a direct hit on the average Nigerians,” he added.
Archbishop Israel, asserted that the collapse of Nigeria’s foreign exchange rate, poor implementation of government policies and the unfortunate compromise of some key arms of government more especially the legislature have further brought us to a more sorry state.
He argued that “The last general elections across the nation and the manner of conduct of ensuring elections tribunal activities showed that the judiciary is no longer the hope of the common man.
“All of these have climaxed to our hopelessness as a nation. It has been bad before, but now the situation is both hopeless and unbearable to say the least.
“It is very disheartening how visionless some of our political leaders are, some of them are not even thinking of how to address some of these unfortunate situations of our nation, and to save the nation from anarchy but on how to win in the coming elections.
“There are lots of internal party tensions, cross-carpeting, back stabbing of political opponents and abuse of the constitution of our nation, all in the bid to hold power endlessly.
“The youth no longer believe that they are the leaders of tomorrow as those in government have refused to leave office. What we see is recycling of the same old people with change of portfolios and political nomenclatures.
“Our survival as a nation is only in the hands of God as every index of a sustainable nation has disintegrated, and no sector of the economy is working as it were, education is at its abysmal state, industrialization is low paced with the country virtually importing every product in the market,” he further noted.