Catholic Bishops Tell Jonathan Point Blank… All Is Not Well With Nigeria

Catholic bishops in the country, under the
aegis of the Catholic Bishops Conference of
Nigeria, visited President Goodluck Jonathan on
Thursday with a clear message: all is not well
with the country, Punch reports.
The group’s president, Bishop Ignatius
Kaigama, told State House correspondents, after
a closed-door meeting with the president, that
that was their message to the President.
He said, “We feel that things are not right.
Territorially, our land is being taken away; the
people we look after are displaced, their homes,
their villages and towns are captured and they
are internally displaced, being refugees in their
own land.
“We thought this is not right. We have families
that are just stranded. We thought that the
President should know. As Catholics, we have
laid a good structure for relief and taking care
of such situation, we want the government to
collaborate with us.”
“We just wanted to remind him of things he
already knows, there was nothing we said that
was new, we just wanted to lay emphasis and
we wanted him to know we are concerned.
“The President is already doing his bit; he has
assured us that he is on top of the situation.
“They are reviewing strategies and all that and
by the grace of God this terrorism that we are
witnessing will soon be a thing of the past.
This is the assurance we are coming away
with,” he stressed.
Kaigama said they told Jonathan to involve
them in the process of registering displaced
people based on their knowledge.
He said, “So, we are telling government that we
are aware of the wonderful effort they do, the
relief they give through NEMA and other
agencies, the effectiveness of the distribution is
our concern.
“We are here with long years of experience, as
a Catholic church we don’t discriminate, in fact
90 per cent of the people we give relief to are
not Christians or even Catholics, so we should
be brought on board,” he said.