Sokoto, 01 August, 2021 / 8:40 pm (ACI Africa).
A Catholic Bishop in Nigeria has highlighted various challenges bedeviling the country, saying the future of the West African nation is uncertain as it is “treading on dangerous paths.”
Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah who was speaking on the topic, “Civic Space: Pathway to Social Cohesion and Integration in Nigeria”, bemoaned the closure of civic space in Africa’s most populous nation.
“We are treading on dangerous paths. Young people are feeling totally disempowered. We are faced with a nation that is consuming its own children; we are faced with the prospects of an uncertain future,” Bishop Kukah said Wednesday, July 28, and added, “It is impossible, even the worst enemy of Nigeria would never have contemplated that this is where we will be.”
Most Nigerian youth who have left the country are not eager to return home because they lack opportunities, he said at the event organized by The Kukah Centre (TKC) and Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA).
Recalling a conversation with some Nigerian youth in diaspora, Bishop Kukah explained, “I asked some Nigerian youth in the U.S. when they are likely to come back to Nigeria and one of them said we don't have anybody who is a senator; we don't have anybody in the National Assembly; we don’t have any minister so what are we coming back home to?”