It is concerning that the present administration’s reform goal has made things worse for Nigerians, according to the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria.
At the opening of the First Plenary Assembly of the CBCN in 2024, which took place on Sunday at the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria Resource Centre in Durumi, Abuja, President Lucius Ugorji of the CBCN made the proclamation.
The bishop claimed that the current government’s reform goal has made things worse for Nigerians, citing inflation as the reason why the average Nigerian is having trouble affording food and medicine.
According to him, the naira’s value has dropped dramatically and the price of gasoline and other petroleum items has risen sharply since fuel subsidies were eliminated and the foreign exchange market was unified.
His observations led him to the conclusion that the government’s reform effort had brought about unprecedented levels of misery for millions of Nigerians, including grinding poverty, wanton anguish, and unimaginable despair.
More than 80 million Nigerians live below the poverty line of less than two dollars a day in the country, according to recent disclosures by the World Bank. This ranks them as the second-largest poor population in the world, behind only India, and he added that begging is becoming more common among the poor as a means of survival.
“Although the government’s economic reforms have caused hardship for many impoverished Nigerians, the president has insisted that we make sacrifices now so that we can enjoy better days tomorrow,” he stated.
According to him, the Nigerian people were hoping for a significant reduction in the overall cost of government operations as the administration asked for further sacrifices from the already struggling populace.
The bishop addressed the issue of insecurity by saying that communities still feel unsafe even though monthly security votes receive enough funding. He went on to say that kidnappings for ransom have been on the rise, and that the country as a whole has been seeing more and more violent crimes.