Rev Fr Chinenye Oluoma has criticized current state of Nigeria under President Bola Tinubu‘s leadership.
Rev Fr Oluoma, a renowned priest of the Catholic Archdiocese of Abuja, voiced his concerns in a post shared on his Facebook page titled ‘RENEWED SHEG.”
The cleric emphasized the need for politicians to address tangible issues like job creation, electricity, education, healthcare, and security, rather than offering empty promises of hope.
Fr. Oluoma likened hope to anesthesia, suggesting that it numbs the pain without addressing the underlying problems.
He highlighted the challenges faced by Nigerians, including the devaluation of the naira, soaring prices of essential goods like bread, and the lack of stable electricity supply.
According to Fr. Oluoma, hope alone cannot solve the daily struggles faced by Nigerians, such as putting food on the table, paying school fees, or covering medical bills.
He criticized the practice of successive governments administering hope like a drug, without implementing effective solutions to improve the lives of citizens.
The cleric said, “Hope doesn’t put food on the table, hope doesn’t pay school fees, hope doesn’t pay hospital bills, hope doesn’t pay house rent (which landlords increase indiscriminately and govt ignores infamously); Hope will not create jobs or make electricity supply constant.”
“The problem here is that successive governments in Nigeria keep administering large doses of anaesthetics to us without carrying out any curative surgery. Maliciously increasing the dosage and frequency once we wake up from the effect of the previous dosage.
“At worst, hope is an opium, a psychic drug that makes you feel okay and patient, maybe even comfortable with all the things going wrong.
“It sedates you but doesn’t change your condition. So, Tinubu offered us hope, not jobs, not improved earnings, not stable electricity or a buoyant economy. He offered us hope, and we bought it.”
Fr. Oluoma also questioned the role of politicians in offering hope, suggesting that religious leaders should take on this responsibility instead.
He emphasized that governments should focus on creating job opportunities and providing essential services rather than simply promising them.
The cleric further called for a shift in governance towards addressing the real needs of the people, urging policymakers to prioritize the well-being of Nigerians over political rhetoric.
He wrote: “Hope shouldn’t be what politicians offer its citizens, it should be left for clerics like my humble self. A government should offer job opportunities, not hope of jobs.
“A government should offer security, power, housing, affordable health care, education and not hope for these things. Why is Nigeria the place where politicians preach like clergy men and clergy act like politicians?
“While the former offer hope, the latter promise jobs, prosperity and other material well being they are in no position and have no capacity to give. What in God’s blue planet is going on with governance in Nigeria?
“As long as the purchasing power of the poor masses keep nose diving and the prices of basic goods and services keep skyrocketing further beyond their reach, what we have is nothing but ‘Renewed Shege’.
“Each administration will always leave our currency weaker than the previous one, a recurring decimal. One administration shows us Shege, another one comes and renews it and we keep dying gradually in hope. Let the poor citizens of Nigeria breathe, please.”
KanyiDaily recalls that Rev Fr Chinenye Oluoma had also tackled internet fraudsters, otherwise known as “Yahoo Boys”
