Ahead next month’s general elections,
eminent Nigerian Cleric and Archbishop Emeritus of the Catholic Church, Abuja, Cardinal John Onaiyekan, has cautioned candidates and their supporters who have mastered the art of rigging elections or frustrating free, fair electoral process to have a rethink.
Cardinal Onaiyekan offered the warning on Thursday while speaking at the Daily Trust Dialogue, the 20th edition tagged, “Interrogating the 2023 Presidential Agenda.” held at the Nigerian Air Force Centre in Abuja.
The foremost cleric who was the Chairman at the occasion cautioned that his call was not to instigate Nigerians to violence, Cardinal Onaiyekan maintained that those who are smarting to undermine the course of transparent elections whom he described as “professional riggers’ should not take the real voters for granted.
He noted that a relatively small group of professional political elite have been running the affairs of the country, using two predominant political parties with no specific ideological identity but mainly structures for capturing power for narrow interests.
He said: “If things are to change for the better, it cannot be business as usual. There is need for a drastic change of orientation, especially in the concept and practice of political power, characterized by politics as sincere and honest service of the common good, and not as ways and means of capturing power for self interest!
“Such a change will come from two by no means mutually exclusive directions: A total change of heart by our professional political elite.
“A new group of concerned elite citizens ready to drive the new agenda of politics for service, and ready also to pay the cost of involvement. Will the forthcoming elections bring this about? That is the question to interrogate!
“Can we hope that the 2023 elections will not be “business as usual”, an attitude that has not been moving the nation any way forward?
