THE PROPHETIC VOICE CANNOT BE SILENCED
By Rowland Longs
The world has watched with profound dismay the recent vituperation and unwarranted castigation of His Eminence, John Cardinal Onaiyekan, and the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria, CBCN, by media handlers of the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu-led Federal Government.
This hostility, triggered by a pastoral visit of the Catholic Bishops to the Presidency and a television interview, is more than an affront to revered clergy. It is a troubling display of intolerance toward truth.
The media handlers of President Tinubu must grasp one fundamental truth: the Fathers of the Church are not sycophants or bootlickers. They are men of God, endowed with intellect and guided by a centuries-old mandate to speak truth to power.
The Catholic Church and its leadership are neither partisan nor aligned with any political ideology. They are, first and foremost, servants of the Most-High God. Their constituency is humanity.
The Church stands unequivocally for the sanctity of human values and the dignity of the human person. It is therefore morally imperative for the clergy to speak out against the inhumane treatment of God’s children, regardless of religious or political affiliation.
Throughout history, the Church has outlived empires and administrations because it refuses to trade truth for political patronage. The recent admonitions by Cardinal Onaiyekan and the CBCN are a continuation of that sacred tradition.
The Reality on Nigeria’s Streets
The crux of the bishops’ message, the part government finds most unpalatable, is the undeniable reality on Nigerian streets.
The Tinubu-led administration has introduced a series of harsh policies, packaged as economic “reforms,” that have plunged Nigerians into unprecedented hardship, penury, and poverty.
A reform that demands total sacrifice from the impoverished while the political elite make no corresponding adjustments is not reform. It is economic subjugation. To subject citizens to skyrocketing inflation and the lowest standard of living in recent memory is morally indefensible.
This economic strain is unfolding at a time when Nigeria is grappling with its worst spate of insecurity. Citizens are not safe in their homes, on the roads, or on their farms.
When a government fails to protect its people and, at the same time, impoverishes them, the very essence of democracy is called into question.
As John Locke posited, the ultimate purpose of government is the preservation of the lives, liberties, and property of the people.
When the state fails in this duty, the social contract is broken. Thomas Hobbes’ warning also resonates: without security and a state that guarantees welfare, life becomes “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
Saint Thomas Aquinas reminds us that a law or policy that inflicts disproportionate suffering is a perversion of justice.
Democracy loses meaning in Nigeria so long as citizens are insecure, hungry, and crushed under the weight of an unprecedented cost of living.
There has never been a more urgent time to speak the unvarnished truth.
Instead of deploying media aides to insult revered elders and silence the prophetic voice of the Church, the Federal Government should have received the bishops’ visit as a divine eye-opener.
The bishops presented the Presidency with the raw, unfiltered reality of the Nigerian grassroots a reality often hidden from the President by courtiers and praise-singers.
At this moment, Nigerians must stand in solidarity with His Eminence, John Cardinal Onaiyekan, and the CBCN.
Government must abandon defensive posturing, heed the cries of the impoverished, and urgently rethink its socio-economic policies before the nation’s fabric unravels completely.
Longs is the Chairman of the Catholic Media Practitioners Association of Nigeria, Jos Archdiocese
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