The Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Matthew Kukah, has said that it was a mistake to assume that Nigeria has transited from dictatorship to democracy.
Kukah stated this on Tuesday at a town hall meeting on ‘Fixing Nigerian elections’ and organised by YIAGA.
He said that the military intervention in Nigeria’s politics made the system to be so quarrelsome.
The Bishop also berated the judiciary for supposedly not living up to the wishes of the people in electoral cases.
He said, “We are mistaken in assuming that we have had a transition from dictatorship to democracy. We still haven’t.
“This is why we are showing all kinds of systemic malfunctioning. When we talk about political parties, we have assumptions. The truth of the matter is that in our own case, in Nigeria, we have greed and political interest.
“Clearly what we have in Nigeria, as we have seen with the occasional malfunctioning of the system midway through the journey, manifested in the quarrelsomeness nature of the process and the way the judiciary has now come to undermine the wishes of the people.”
Regretting that most politicians lack the needed discipline expected of them, the cleric urged political parties to discipline themselves while selecting candidates for public offices.
He said the lack of discipline in Nigeria political parties and its politicians reflected in the lack of continuity and consistency in governance.
