However, they both said the full implementation of Chapter II of the 1999 Constitution would resolve most of the problems that enhanced insurgency and social upheavals.
At a special lecture organised in Asaba on Tuesday to mark the 60th birthday of the Governor of Delta State, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, The Catholic Bishop of Sokoto, the Rt. Rev. Matthew Kukah, and a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Chief Olu Falae, have blamed the elite for creating the window that gave vent to insurgency and other social upheavals in the country.
While Kukah spoke on the topic, ‘Managing Anger: Some thoughts on spiritual dimensions’, Falae was a discussant.
However, they both said the full implementation of Chapter II of the 1999 Constitution would resolve most of the problems that enhanced insurgency and social upheavals.
Kukah said anger was a concealed and disguised emotion, which if not properly managed, could become a weapon of mass destruction.
He said Chapter II of the 1999 Constitution, which contained the directives of state policy, made the provision of education, social and economic rights the duty of government.
“The implementation of that chapter captures the heart of everyone whether Christian or Muslim. Unfortunately those rights are not justiceable and government cannot be compelled by the courts to implement them.
“There is something congenitally wrong with us that a man should have more than six houses in Nigeria, let alone the ones he owns abroad when he sleeps in just one at a time,” he said.
He said the citizens had a right to get angry with the way public funds were spent, especially now that they had become enlightened about how much money was available to government.
“The anger rises from righteous indignation,” he said.
The bishop wondered why it was taking Nigerian political office holders eternity to learn how to manage public resources, while it has not taken them any time at all to learn how to loot the same resources.
“Since 1999, Nigerian leaders are always saying, ‘we are still in a learning process’. But they are not still in a learning process when it comes to stealing public funds,” he said.
Apart from implementing the rights contained in Chapter II of the Constitution, Kukah advocated a revision of the syllabus of schools to provide for studies that would train pupils and students on how to appreciate and make the most of the advantages of a plural society.
On his part, Falae called for the reintroduction of economic planning in Nigeria so that every fund would be accommodated in a project already planned.
That way, he said, it would be difficult to find public officers thinking that any grant given to their departments was a surplus fund that could be wasted.
The Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar III, who presided over the lecture, called for religious tolerance.
He particularly asked for the provision of worship centres for Christians in the North and worship centres for Moslems in the South.
The celebration of the governor’s birthday will continue in Warri on Wednesday.