The former Governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi, has called on Nigerians, especially those in positions of authority, to stop behaving like Emperor Nero, whom he said history recorded as fiddling while Rome was burning. Obi spoke on Saturday at the centenary celebration of Christ the King Parish Aba and the 57th annual Diocesan Synod of the Methodist Church of Nigeria, Umuahia.
Obi said that Nigeria has accumulated a debt of $70 billion after only 10 years of the country’s debt being written off. He also said that Nigeria has 10 million out of school children, thus breeding future disillusioned citizens that would become militants, kidnappers or members of Boko Haram in the years ahead. Obi also said that “while things are becoming increasingly difficult in the country, those in authority, totally alienated from the people, keep doubling the cost of governance rather than reducing it.”
Obi advised the Church to stop honouring those that manifestly contributed to the problems in the country. He submitted that a country bedevilled by such hiccups should be at work on how to repair the damage rather than engaging in frivolities.
The former Governor, who spoke amidst applause, advised Ministers of God to call those in authority doing badly and correct them after which, failing to heed the advice, they should admonish them from the pulpit. He said that all hands must be on deck in the business of retrieving the country from those that have hijacked it.
In his speech, the Methodist Archbishop of Umuahia, His Grace, Dr. Raphael Opoko, who said he was instrumental to how Obi re-built Onitsha when he was there as Bishop, said that Nigerians need a crop of leaders like Obi “to carry out reconstructive surgery on the country and make her healthy again.”