₦airaland Forum

Macphenson:
Tinubu have consistently shown his disdain and disrespect for the Christian community.

First he hired fake bishops during his campaign. Next he floated a Muslim/ Muslim ticket, now he is insulting the Catholic bishops who have been speaking truth to power

HacheNoire:
I am very glad that y’all are learning politics and gradually accepting that every living thing has a price tag on his head- might be high, but he still does sure have.

His Excellency, President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu (GCFR) is schooling y’all and delighted that you all are attentive.

The difference between a human like Jonathan and a demigod like His Excellency, President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu (GCFR) is what you see playing out!

If you have problems with your religious or traditional worshippers, go after them. His Excellency, President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu (GCFR) is dynamic to fronts, pure and transparent.

epainos:
The Catholic church will brand itself wrongly soon.

mrvitalis:
Dismissing the Catholic bishops’ criticism of Tinubu as “partisan” or “because they have a candidate” is foolish. It ignores a long, consistent record of institutional critique that transcends administrations, parties, and personalities. The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) has spoken hard truths to power under military rulers, under Goodluck Jonathan’s PDP, under Muhammadu Buhari’s APC, and now under Bola Tinubu. Treating their latest interventions as a sudden partisan plot reveals more about the accuser’s discomfort with accountability than about the bishops’ motives.

A consistent pattern, not selective outrage

The CBCN has never been a cheerleader for any government. Under Jonathan, the bishops publicly blasted massive corruption, rights abuses, and the failure of federal and state leaders to uphold probity in public resources. Under Buhari, their language grew even sharper. They described Nigeria as “killing fields and mass graveyard,” demanded that the president “save Nigeria from avoidable doom or step aside” if he could not secure the country, and rejected propaganda campaigns that painted religious critics as enemies of the state. They warned of poverty, hunger, insecurity, and the erosion of trust—issues that cut across ethnic and regional lines.

That same institutional voice has now raised concerns with Tinubu: a bleeding economy that fails the poor, persistent insecurity, the narrowing of political space, fears of one-party dominance ahead of 2027, and the need for genuinely free and fair elections. Archbishop Matthew Man-Oso Ndagoso and Cardinal John Onaiyekan have been explicit that the bishops acted after broad internal consultation, that they have no ambition to seize anyone’s office, and that they speak as religious leaders duty-bound to address the lived realities of Nigerians—Catholic and non-Catholic alike. Onaiyekan stressed they are not politicians and are not acting for any party.


If the bishops were partisan operators waiting for a preferred candidate, their record would look very different. They would have been silent under one government and vocal under another. Instead, they have criticized successive leaders of different parties when governance failed ordinary people. Consistency of this kind is the opposite of partisanship.


The “they have a candidate” claim collapses under scrutiny
No credible evidence has surfaced that the CBCN is grooming or backing a specific presidential aspirant for 2027. The bishops’ public interventions focus on systemic issues ,electoral integrity, security, poverty, democratic institutions not on endorsing individuals. Cardinal Onaiyekan has stated plainly that the bishops are united on what matters for Nigeria’s survival even while holding diverse personal political feelings. Suggesting they are merely proxies for some hidden candidate requires inventing motives that the bishops themselves reject and that their history does not support.
This accusation is a classic deflection. When institutions or citizens raise uncomfortable facts, the easiest response is to question their purity of intent rather than engage the substance. It is the same tactic used against earlier episcopal statements under previous presidents. The result is always the same: the underlying problem’s insecurity that still claims lives, an economy that leaves millions struggling, and worries about the health of multiparty democracy—remain unaddressed while attention shifts to the messengers.

Why the charge is foolish on its face
First, it treats religious moral critique as illegitimate by definition. Catholic social teaching has long insisted that the Church has a right and duty to speak on matters of justice, the common good, and the protection of human dignity. Nigerian bishops have exercised that duty across decades. Demanding silence only when the criticism lands on the current administration is selective and self-serving.
Second, it assumes that any criticism of the government must be motivated by opposition politics. This is a low view of both the Church and of public discourse. Bishops live among the people they serve. They hear the stories of kidnapping, hunger, unemployment, and fear. When they convey those realities to the president—and when the president disagrees, as Tinubu did on the state of the economy and the claim that the nation is “bleeding”—that is democratic dialogue, not conspiracy. dailypost.ng
Third, the charge is strategically shortsighted. A healthy democracy needs institutions willing to speak uncomfortable truths to every government. If the bishops are dismissed as partisan today, the next administration will face the same dismissal tomorrow. The long-term cost is a public square in which only praise is acceptable and criticism is automatically tainted.
Nigeria’s challenges—security, economic hardship for the poor, and the integrity of future elections—are real. They predate Tinubu and will outlast him if left unaddressed. The Catholic bishops have criticized previous governments for the same categories of failure. Calling their recent engagement partisan or candidate-driven is not analysis; it is an evasion. It is foolish because it substitutes motive-hunting for the harder work of examining whether the concerns themselves have merit. A serious country listens to consistent institutional voices rather than inventing secret agendas to silence them.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Watch the clip of the visit of Catholic Bishops to Goodluck Jonathan in 2014, led by Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama. Watch how measured he was, and he even acknowledged the efforts of the government and offered to help displaced people with the resources of the church.

This was the… pic.twitter.com/ex8qCapHLS

— Dr. Calafiori 🦇 (@fimiletoks) August 2, 2026

epainos:
The Catholic church will brand itself wrongly soon.

MEGAWATCH:
The more he schools us the more the cut off heads in his region.


🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Kdon2:
Once you join obi group you will need a lot of deliverance to be free from bitterness

HacheNoire:
You are at war with something greater and superior than you as a human can comprehend.

His reasoning are not like yours. He is ahead of time.

JASONjnr:
You can't comfortably lie to yourself that Obi isn't their preferred candidate. After all, he divided Anambra people along other Christian faithfuls....He made Catholics more powerful and gave them appointments in his government.

The same bishops who distanced themselves from other bishops that supported Tinubu in the last general elections...Now want to have a say and be heard.

Catholic heads are politicians and they played early politics that created democracy. But then, Tinubu is more advan6tgan what they're offering today.

mrvitalis:
Dismissing the Catholic bishops’ criticism of Tinubu as “partisan” or “because they have a candidate” is foolish. It ignores a long, consistent record of institutional critique that transcends administrations, parties, and personalities. The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) has spoken hard truths to power under military rulers, under Goodluck Jonathan’s PDP, under Muhammadu Buhari’s APC, and now under Bola Tinubu. Treating their latest interventions as a sudden partisan plot reveals more about the accuser’s discomfort with accountability than about the bishops’ motives.

A consistent pattern, not selective outrage

The CBCN has never been a cheerleader for any government. Under Jonathan, the bishops publicly blasted massive corruption, rights abuses, and the failure of federal and state leaders to uphold probity in public resources. Under Buhari, their language grew even sharper. They described Nigeria as “killing fields and mass graveyard,” demanded that the president “save Nigeria from avoidable doom or step aside” if he could not secure the country, and rejected propaganda campaigns that painted religious critics as enemies of the state. They warned of poverty, hunger, insecurity, and the erosion of trust—issues that cut across ethnic and regional lines.

That same institutional voice has now raised concerns with Tinubu: a bleeding economy that fails the poor, persistent insecurity, the narrowing of political space, fears of one-party dominance ahead of 2027, and the need for genuinely free and fair elections. Archbishop Matthew Man-Oso Ndagoso and Cardinal John Onaiyekan have been explicit that the bishops acted after broad internal consultation, that they have no ambition to seize anyone’s office, and that they speak as religious leaders duty-bound to address the lived realities of Nigerians—Catholic and non-Catholic alike. Onaiyekan stressed they are not politicians and are not acting for any party.


If the bishops were partisan operators waiting for a preferred candidate, their record would look very different. They would have been silent under one government and vocal under another. Instead, they have criticized successive leaders of different parties when governance failed ordinary people. Consistency of this kind is the opposite of partisanship.


The “they have a candidate” claim collapses under scrutiny
No credible evidence has surfaced that the CBCN is grooming or backing a specific presidential aspirant for 2027. The bishops’ public interventions focus on systemic issues ,electoral integrity, security, poverty, democratic institutions not on endorsing individuals. Cardinal Onaiyekan has stated plainly that the bishops are united on what matters for Nigeria’s survival even while holding diverse personal political feelings. Suggesting they are merely proxies for some hidden candidate requires inventing motives that the bishops themselves reject and that their history does not support.
This accusation is a classic deflection. When institutions or citizens raise uncomfortable facts, the easiest response is to question their purity of intent rather than engage the substance. It is the same tactic used against earlier episcopal statements under previous presidents. The result is always the same: the underlying problem’s insecurity that still claims lives, an economy that leaves millions struggling, and worries about the health of multiparty democracy—remain unaddressed while attention shifts to the messengers.

Why the charge is foolish on its face
First, it treats religious moral critique as illegitimate by definition. Catholic social teaching has long insisted that the Church has a right and duty to speak on matters of justice, the common good, and the protection of human dignity. Nigerian bishops have exercised that duty across decades. Demanding silence only when the criticism lands on the current administration is selective and self-serving.
Second, it assumes that any criticism of the government must be motivated by opposition politics. This is a low view of both the Church and of public discourse. Bishops live among the people they serve. They hear the stories of kidnapping, hunger, unemployment, and fear. When they convey those realities to the president—and when the president disagrees, as Tinubu did on the state of the economy and the claim that the nation is “bleeding”—that is democratic dialogue, not conspiracy. dailypost.ng
Third, the charge is strategically shortsighted. A healthy democracy needs institutions willing to speak uncomfortable truths to every government. If the bishops are dismissed as partisan today, the next administration will face the same dismissal tomorrow. The long-term cost is a public square in which only praise is acceptable and criticism is automatically tainted.
Nigeria’s challenges—security, economic hardship for the poor, and the integrity of future elections—are real. They predate Tinubu and will outlast him if left unaddressed. The Catholic bishops have criticized previous governments for the same categories of failure. Calling their recent engagement partisan or candidate-driven is not analysis; it is an evasion. It is foolish because it substitutes motive-hunting for the harder work of examining whether the concerns themselves have merit. A serious country listens to consistent institutional voices rather than inventing secret agendas to silence them.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

MEGAWATCH:
Why don't you put it better that Nigerians are in a war with higher level criminal organization.


😎😎😎😎