More Nigerians Living In Poverty Under Buhari – Bishop Ikeakor

Ikeakor, who is the Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Amichi, cautioned that Buhari’s fixation on the anti-corruption crusade without commensurate focus on the economy was ill-advised as it would lead to dire social dislocation and possible crisis if not redressed urgently.

According to him, the anti-graft war “may boomerang hence the need to fix the economy, compile the names of the looters and come hard on them rather than playing to the gallery.

“Then, coming to Dasukigate, all I can say is that we have problems in this country. For those who can advise our leaders, I want to paint a picture of what we are seeing in Nigeria.

“Nobody is commending corruption; nobody is aiding or abetting corruption but like I said in the case of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) and the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of (MASSOB), when you fight a battle with the wrong approach, you’re going to cause more disaster.

Here you are shouting that you inherited a government that is almost collapsing or is dead.

“Assuming it is a hospital and somebody in a coma is brought to you. As a doctor, would you abandon the person in a coma to start looking for who caused the sickness? The first thing is to treat this person in coma before looking for the cause. What am I driving at? The fight against corruption is right but the timing may boomerang. The duty of the present gov­ernment now is to fix this country so that it can start working.

“Our education is collapsing; our economy is going down the drain; there seems to be confusion in everything. Poverty is growing exponentially and we are abandoning these things and saying we want to arrest this person, arrest that person at this onset.

“You have four years, why should this first year be a year of arrests? That is my own view. Let the problems of Nigeria be treated by its leadership first. Let them sit down and make a comprehensive list of who these people are.”