No responsible or self-respecting group, would pretend that all is well, in the present uncertain situation that the country has been pushed to. This is the ground on which the Cardinal Onaiyekan’s disclosure of the details of the meeting with the President and the attacks on him and his fellow Clerics by the unruly Aso Rock Babel, can be understood. It is a battle against an entrenched culture of falsehood that has characterised the Tinubu administration, since its inauguration in 2023. The Babel is fighting back even if in uncoordinated fashion.
By Emeka Alex Duru
The noisy tunes from Aso Rock media goons in attempts to react to a recent television interview by the Emeritus Archbishop of Abuja, John Cardinal Onaiyekan, remind of the story of the Tower of Babel in the Bible. The Tower of Babel, in the Book of Genesis (Genesis 11:1–9) is an account of human pride, exaggerated self-importance, and divine intervention. In the narrative, men in utter delusion of arrival because they spoke one language, attempted building a great city and a massive tower reaching toward the sky in the land of Shinar. But God struck at their arrogance and made them unable to understand one another. Confusion set in and they were scattered across the earth, leaving the city unfinished.
You will notice a running wave of confusion among media hirelings of the presidency as they try in vain to take on Onaiyekan and his colleagues in the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria (CBCN). That is the way of propagandists and blackmailers. The moment their lies are punctured, they lose balance and begin to throw stones at all corners, leaving the substance on the table. If you even see them as narcissists, you are not wrong. They exhibit similar patterns of grandiosity, constant need for deep admiration and futile belief that they are special and superior to others. That is why they interpret contrary view as an affront. Cardinal Onaiyekan is their current object for vituperations. And you ask; what are his sins? What did he do to deserve being trolled by even some that are unfit to untie the straps of his sandals?
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His “offence” was simply, presenting the details of the meeting between President Bola Tinubu and a delegation of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria at the Presidential Villa on July 28. Recall that the presidency had shortly after the parley, rushed out a release in which it stated what it claimed contained what transpired during the meeting. The one-sided statement spoke more on the position of the President and made scant mention of the stance of the clerics. In presenting a comprehensive account of the interaction, Onaiyekan disclosed that the Bishops told Tinubu that the government’s prevailing economic policies were worsening the plight of ordinary Nigerians, but the President insisted that the economy was improving under his administration. The Bishops, he added, deliberately presented what they believed was the reality confronting Nigerians. For effect, he stressed; “When the nation is bleeding, you cannot expect a polite meeting with the head of state. We told him the economy is not helping our poor people; he told us the economy is doing fine. Frankly speaking, he told us quite clearly that he did not agree with us”.
Cardinal Onaiyekan and his colleagues spoke truth to power. And they are in order. They are not politicians running for office or trying to humour the President but religious leaders who do not limit their responsibilities to preaching their doctrines but extend such in addressing the lives of their members and other Nigerians. As my colleague, Usman Leman, captured it, “the bishops did not go to the Presidential Villa as politicians seeking influence or as representatives of an opposition platform. They went as Shepherds who regularly encounter the realities of ordinary Nigerians. Through their churches, schools, hospitals and community engagements, they see families struggling with rising costs, young people uncertain about their future, communities affected by insecurity and citizens worried about the direction of the country. Their concerns were therefore not merely political statements; they were reflections of the experiences of the people they serve”.
Over the years, Catholic Bishops had taken this principled position when they considered things going contrary to the expectations of the people. During the military era, they rose strongly and told the then head of state, General Sani Abacha and his predecessors that Nigerians were tired of military dictatorship. In the present dispensation, when Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo, Goodluck Jonathan, Muhammadu Buhari were in power, the Bishops also raised alarm when the programmes and policies of the state tilted against the people.
Raising similar observations against the Tinubu administration, is therefore not out of point. This is particularly as virtually all the indices of governance have gone south under the government. A recent World Bank report for instance, indicated that poverty in Nigeria rose to 63 per cent in 2025. The Bank made the disclosure in its Nigeria Development Update (April 2026) titled “Nigeria’s Tomorrow Must Start Today: The Case for Early Childhood Development”. Particulars of the report showed that the share of Nigerians living below the poverty line increased from 56 per cent in 2023 to 61 per cent in 2024, before peaking at 63 per cent in 2025. The figure must have gone higher with the rising inflation occasioned by the crisis in the Middle East. In a related report, figures from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), indicated that 40.1% of Nigeria’s population lived below the national absolute poverty line, meaning about 82.9 million Nigerians were classified as poor.
Practical expressions of the situation are scary. At major junctions on streets and highways, it has become the norm these days, to encounter able-bodied men and women lining up and begging for alms. The leaders ironically tend to be comfortable with the sight, especially in throwing handouts at them under the so-called palliatives. The truth however is that nothing pains as seeing otherwise proud men and women previously fending for themselves being reduced to queuing for 10 or 25 kg bags of rice, few packs of pastries in the name of poverty alleviation efforts. That is the level Nigerians presently find themselves.
But Tinubu and his men do not seem to bother, hence his casual dismissal of such ugly spectacles with the sarcastic expression; “there has been hunger here even before I was born”. That singular statement says a lot on the heartlessness of those currently managing the Nigerian state. What may perhaps excite the President more or make him realise the extent of hunger in the land, could be seeing distraught citizens being paraded on television screens like prisoners of war hauled from Nazi Concentration Camps during the Second World War. Situations in the country seem to be pointing to that direction, incidentally. Alongside the excruciating poverty, is the rising tide of insecurity in all parts of the country.
At the state and national levels, governance is seen as past time engagement, without anyone taking responsibility, while the people suffer. Truth be told, the Tinubu government is clearly on the loose. Almost the entire channels and platforms for expression of contrary opinions have been morphed to the 2027 continuity mantra of the President and his administration. Any opposite view is considered as an affront and sin against the state.
To achieve the devious agenda, crises have been deliberately engineered in the opposition political parties to break their ranks; poverty weaponised to render the people powerless and vulnerable. It is a calculated scheme to capture the state, keep it perpetually in motion without movement, weaken the people ahead of 2027 for the President to be declared elected without any serious contest. That is what is playing out.
No responsible or self-respecting group, would pretend that all is well, in the present uncertain situation that the country has been pushed to. This is the ground on which the Cardinal Onaiyekan’s disclosure of the details of the meeting with the President and the attacks on him and his fellow Clerics by the unruly Aso Rock Babel, can be understood. It is a battle against an entrenched culture of falsehood that has characterised the Tinubu administration, since its inauguration in 2023. The Babel is fighting back even if in uncoordinated fashion.
