From Ifeoma Ejiofor
The Catholic bishops of Onitsha Ecclesiastical Province has called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to address the nation on what he intends to do to assuage the concerns of the citizenry.
The position of the bishops was contained in a statement signed by Most Rev. Valerian Maduka Okeke(Chairman), Most Rev Peter Nworie (Secretary) and eight other bishops.
The bishops arrived at the resolution at the end of their meeting which held at Bishop’s House, Enugu.
The five points position read, “We hear the cries and groaning of the ordinary citizens of our dear country as they suffer under excruciating pains caused by forms of hardship.
“Inspite of many promises of successive governments, hunger, insecurity, unemployment, uncontrollable inflation, dehumanizing poverty of many have continue to increase.
“As a result, human life has become cheap in our land and many of our best and blest youths are fleeing the country as if we are in a state of war, at the same time, the political class continue to lead a life of affluence, apparently insensitive to the suffocating hardship which the rest of the population is facing.”
The bishops while affirming that the aggrieved persons have right to express their grievance urged the duty bearers to as a matter urgency to publicly engage the citizenry and address it’s many complaints immediately.
They however expressed concern that with the level of destitution and anger in the land, it may be difficult if not impossible to have a peaceful protest, this according to the bishops is in addition to the excessive use of force by security agencies.
“We therefore plead for caution from all sides, we urge the president to address the nation and announce concrete steps to be taken immediately to assuage the concerns of the citizenry beyond palliatives.
“Palliatives are irritating distractions and avenues of corruption, we equally call on the organizers of of planned protest to carefully weigh the real possibility of its degenerating into chaos and take full responsibility,” the statement added.
The bishops however called on all and sundry to intensify their prayers and more dialogue for peace and stability in Nigeria.