Bishop of Anglican Diocese of Afikpo in Ebonyi state, Rev. Paul Udogu, weekend lamented hardship faced by Nigerians across the country.
He called on both federal and state governments to be sensitive to the suffering and welfare of the masses.
Bishop Udogu spoke during the 5th Synod of the Church held at the Church Cathedral in Afikpo, Afikpo North local government area of the state
He noted that the present Nigerian economy was hitting hard on individuals businesses and organizations with government not doing anything to address the problem.
He said, “Price of essential commodities changes per minute. The price of foodstuff, cement and other building materials, petrol are on the increase. This has made life difficult and unbearable; many Nigerians lost their businesses and their investment and plans rendered useless.
“Naira has continued to lose value in the international market as the government continues to borrow money from foreign countries and agencies.
“Civil servants monthly take home salary cannot take them half the month in the face of rising prices of consumeble commodities. Many Nigerians cannot eat three times daily let alone affording good medical treatment. The cases of people slumping and dying are now prevalent in our society”, he said.
He described as troublesome, the rise in insecurity in the country, saying if nothing was done to address it, Nigeria will become a failed state like Somalia.
According to him, virtually no region in the country today is safe.
“Everywhere, is completely engulfed with mayhem. The recent attack on the Governors of Benue, Borno and Imo states with the daily banditry attacks on communities and kidnapping of school children and youth in the tertiary institutions in the North and the raping and molestation of our women by terrorist herdsmen are unacceptable.
“There is fear everywhere. Sadly enough, we heard that some schools in some part of Northern Nigeria are being closed down for fear of kidnappers. South East was turned into another North East as unknown gunmen almost paralyzed life and economic activities and soldiers and security men that were brought to maintain peace and order, added to the pains of the common man as many people were maltreated and some were falsely tagged IPOB/ESN members and were arrested and killed”, Udogu said.
He condemned high rate of unemployment in the country, adding that yearly, tertiary institutions are graduating thousands of students without government making any plan to absorb them into the labour force.
“Many of our brilliant youths/graduates are unemployed. This has led to many of them to engage in social vices such as 419 or Yahoo Yahoo business, kidnapping, banditry, and terrorism because an idle finger is workshop of the devil. We are yet to see the millions of job this present government promised Nigerians during the electioneering campaign. The EndSars protest by our youth has come and gone, yet our government has refused to learn lessons from that”, he said.
